As I finish my time as a tutor for an English as a Second Language Learner, I've been invited to think about what I would recommend for Riki's future progress. I tried to tell Riki when the time came for mentors to tell their students what goal or advice would benefit their writing. I advised that he find out what it is he wants to say in Japanese and use tools to find out how to express it in English. Many of my frustrations as a missionary over language weren't about what I thought they were about. Instead of the main problem being a command of the grammar or fluency or an extensive vocabulary, what I realized was that I didn't even know what I wanted to say in English. Once I sat down and wrote about what I felt in English and chose a few choice sentences to translate, answers to common questions, or explanations, I found that the work of translation had helped me internalize the language and still sound like myself. For example, I found that I needed to say 'instead of' and looked it up in Japanese so that my thought could be reborn in Japanese. I recommend a grammar dictionary to anyone who thinks this might be a good method. Vocabulary dictionaries might anticipate the words you want to say, but the relations of the words with each other also can be organized for searching.
Often, even in English we talk without knowing what it is we want to communicate. Also, hasn't everyone had impromptu moments in front of a crowd we want to impress or with a subject we think is above us and we find ourselves having difficulty conjugating verbs, even though it is our native language? If we think too much about verbs, forms, pronunciation, we are not focusing on what language was invented to do—to communicate. Translating for others can be a great facilitator of language development. We are focused on how to express one language in another and we come once again to the reason for language. What better environment for natural language use and acquisition?
Also, I wanted to send out a call for funny translating stories. A little language humor might enlighten and enliven us and how to best learn another language.
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1 comment:
In English I can say "Once in a while" to mean not very often. I like to say "Once in a great while" to mean even less often than "Once in a while".
The phrase "Once in a while" translates to "De vez em quando" in Portuguese, so when I wanted to express that it was less often than that I would say "De vez em muito quando", trying to translate "Once in a great while". After a year of speaking Portuguese I was finally corrected by a native speaker. They asked why I added the "muito" (much) and explained that I was inventing a phrase.
Sometimes attempting to translate from one language to another doesn't work very well, but you can learn a lot by giving people lots of chances to correct you.
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