A Powerful Exercise To Increase Your Italian Speaking Skills.

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Translating can magically turn into a powerful language learning tool the moment you start doing it right. Doing written translation of sentences or paragraphs can be helpful to learn vocabulary or to understand how specific structures work. However, let's face it. For all intents and purposes, if you translate, you only learn to translate. And that's pretty much it.

However, there's a way you can turn translating into a powerful Italian exercise to develop solid improvisational speech reflexes.

If you're already working with an Italian language teacher or are taking Italian language classes, you can use a textbook or the practice hand-outs you receive during or after each session.

If you want to develop speaking skills, it is of paramount importance you stop writing. Do all exercises exclusively and obsessively out loud.

If one exercise has sentences in English (or any language other than Italian) or requires you to translate from English to Italian, this is where the good practice--meaning the one that works--comes in.

Here are some instructions on how to do it.

1) You must translate out loud.

What is done mentally or in written form will either stay in your head or in your pen. It will NEVER turn into the good speaking skills you are aiming for.

2) Once you've read the sentence mentally once, translate directly right off the top of your head.

Do not let yourself think for too long, but let some sort of speech reflex do it for you. It won't happen instantly, but if you practice constantly and patiently, after a few sessions you will understand--or rather experience--what kind of mechanism I'm referring to.

3) Do not translate word by word. Translate the concept instead.

Going word by word will easily have you blank out on a word or more, even on the ones you're perfectly familiar with. That's just what happens. You'll get stuck trying to remember that one word. Translating word by word you'll end up limiting your choices because you'll see that one word you need as the only possible solution. If on the other hand you reason in terms of concept, you'll open yourself to a whole array of options. You can't come up with one quickly enough? Move on to the next one and get on with it.

4) Use only the words and expressions you know.

In real conversation, you can't use a dictionary and you can't use google. You can only rely on what you know. So that's how you want to practice.

5) If you can't find a specific word or expression, use a more general one.

It's not going to be as accurate, but if the alternative is to not deliver your message or finish your sentence, that is still your better option.

What to expect initially

This practice is a brain burner. You do a ten-minute session and I can assure you you're going to be done practicing your speaking skills for the day, especially at the beginning.

During your first sessions, you won't be able to come up with words you wouldn't normally blank out on. Remind yourself this is a completely normal "side-effect". This happens because your brain is not used to mental boot-camps. In a situation of intense intellectual stress your brain forgets. However, your brain needs exactly this kind of high intensity practice in order to grow as an adaptation response. When you go blank on something, do not get frustrated and do not lose control. Do not try to remember. Let go of that word or expression, use a different one, and finish the sentence. Then start the next one without any pauses or breaks. During that ten-minute session, it is absolutely important that you keep pushing yourself to the limits and beyond by reducing response time and letting that sentences out of your mouth, no matter what.

Make this exercise one of your key practices, and it won't be long before you start seeing real results.

So there's that.