DO YOU TRANSLATE WHEN LEARNING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE, AND IS IT GOOD TO DO IT?

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Translating is without a doubt an extremely useful skill only few people master these days. As a tool, translating helps put your native tongue in context with other tongues. It highlights structural, syntactical, and cultural differences when going from one language to another. It is absolutely useful to sit down, pen and paper in hand, and translate a paragraph or two from a novel or magazine focusing on the quality of your translation. You will realize what a difficult art translating is and why these days most translated material sucks. You will also see for yourself why AI-translated stuff contributes to a lowering of translating--and communication--standards, provided you're a bit of a perfectionist aiming for quality and have a bit of a method.

But this is not the kind of translating we're talking about, is it? This is not what you have in mind. What you're actually asking is, "is it good to translate from my language to the language I'm learning in my mind while I'm speaking the latter?"

I'd say it's not good for sundry reasons.

Imagine by analogy that a message is traveling by plane from New York to Venice, New York being the speaker and Venice being the listener. Thinking in your native tongue to then translate it in your head before you say it, means that your message couldn't afford a direct flight and is stopping off at Dublin first. Sometimes translating makes matters so much slower and complicated your message needs to take connecting flights in Belfast, Glasgow, London, and why not Paris or Frankfurt before it finally lands at Venice Marco Polo.

Translating might work initially when all you need to say is "Posso avere un bicchiere d'acqua, per favore?", and this might lead you to thinking that translating is actually not only good practice, but practical and efficient too.

It's not. For all intents and purposes, you're setting up a habit you likely won't be able to get rid of later. And that's going to be a problem when you need to deal with a sentence like: "Mi scusi, ho sentito che c'è un problema improvviso con i treni, ma io ho comprato un biglietto per Fiumicino e se non prendo un treno immediatamente finirà che perdo l'aereo. Può aiutarmi in qualche modo?"

Now look closely at this sentence. That's beginner level grammar right there. There's nothing abstract about its concept. It's practical, it states a clear point, a clear need, it utilizes simple every-day vocabulary with easy verbs and tenses. However, you're communicating to someone who, considering the situation, might be busy trying to figure out what the hell is going on with the trains and has very little time to dedicate to you. Passengeres are stranded all over central and northern Italy, phone calls are bottlenecking the lines, train traffic is completely disrupted, people are frustrated, train staff is on edge, and there's quite a bit of tension in the air. This Trenitalia poor devil you're speaking with is willing to tell you what's going on and give you advice provided you state clearly and quickly what your problem is. If it's going to take you forty seconds to do that, just forget it. He'll be gone before you've gotten half way through your sentence.

Let's move on to some advanced-level sentence where concepts are particularly abstract.

You're at a cafè, and your God-fearing friend says, "Non leggerò mai Nietszche, un nazista idiota che andava in giro dicendo che 'Dio è morto'."

You can't let that slide, so you decide to put your friend in his place: "Intanto Hitler non ha mai letto Nietzsche, e Nietzsche ha vissuto prima che il nazismo fosse persino un'idea. Inoltre ricordati che nella seconda metà del Diciannovesimo secolo l'intera classe intellettuale europea era antisemita in maniera particolarmente aggressiva, a eccezione di pochi intellettuali. Nietzsche era uno di quei pochi. Per quanto riguarda 'Dio è morto', se tu leggessi Nietzsche e lo studiassi un po', ti renderesti conto che lui faceva riferimento a un decadimento della morale cristiana, e usa la parola 'Dio' a mo' di sineddoche. Quindi fai una bella cosa, lascia perdere Nietzsche così eviti di fare figuracce."

Good luck translating that in your head first.

Now, the second example is deliberately exaggerated, but worry not. You need much less than a philosophical inquiry to get yourself in a slump, believe you me. And you will get slumped if you rely on translating in your head first.

Then there's a whole book one could write about translating idiomatic expressions. YOU CANNOT TRANSLATE IDIOMS LITERALLY FROM ONE LANGUAGE TO ANOTHER. In the best case scenario, you'll say something different than you intend, but most likely you're going to say something that just makes no sense and is downright incomprehensible.

There's more to it, but you get the gist.

Wanna have fun translating?

Translate this to Italian:

"Mickey and Minnie Mouse are going through a nasty divorce. In court, the judge addresses Mickey: "Mr. Mouse, in all conscience I cannot grant you a divorce on the basis that your wife 'is clumsy'."

"I never said she's clumsy," responds Mickey impatiently. "I said she's fucking Goofy."

Now translate this to English:

Un uomo sta facendo la spesa al supermercato, e si accorge che una donna particolarmente attraente lo sta salutando con la mano. Poi la donna gli si avvicina e lo saluta a voce. L’uomo è sorpreso perché non si ricorda dove l’ha conosciuta. Allora lui le dice: “Ci conosciamo?”

Al che, la donna risponde, “Penso che lei sia il padre di uno dei miei bambini.”

A questo punto, la mente dell’uomo fa un salto nel passato, e gli viene subito in testa dell’unica volta in cui è stato infedele a sua moglie. Così l’uomo dice: “Madonna santa, sei la spogliarellista della serata della mia festa di addio al celibato con la quale ho avuto un rapporto sessuale sul tavolo da biliardo mentre i miei amici guardavano e il tuo compagno mi frustava il culo con un ramo di sedano?”

Lei lo guarda, e gli dice senza scomporsi: “No, sono la maestra di suo figlio.”

And this is The JP Method.