is translation a blessing or a curse
so obviously when you're speaking in
english relying too much on translation
is going to make you think extra hard
it's going to take you out of the moment
it slows you down it's just no good
but
what role does translation have in your
learning as a whole
how much of it is a natural and good
result of knowing more than one language
and
when is it a good idea to avoid it
in this lesson we'll talk a little bit
about that so that you know exactly how
this translation chip works in your
bilingual brain and when you know that
my belief is that you'll be able to
start making progress towards depending
less on translation so you can become a
more fluent english speaker
ready
let's go
also stick around until the end for some
fun awareness raising activities which
will help you become more conscious
about the negative effect of translation
and how to avoid it
but in case we are meeting for the first
time i'm molly and we help you
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first of all
why do we translate from our native
language to english
there are five reasons and the first one
is unawareness of english rules or a
lack of knowledge of some aspects of how
the language works we recently saw in
another lesson on this channel the
sentence my sister has 21 years
if you say this sentence first of all
congrats on putting your english into
use but let's take a closer look it
might be that you didn't realize that in
english we use the verb to be to talk
about age my sister is 21 years
the other problem with that sentence is
that we never say years and stop there
we always need to say years old
my sister is 21 years old
these two mistakes happened because you
might have translated from your native
language
i know this because my bolivian and
brazilian friends have a tendency to
make these same mistakes i often hear
some people say i am agree or he gave me
an advice now is translation a bad thing
here
no not necessarily if you don't yet know
the specific grammar rule or the word
you should use of course you're going to
compensate by using the structures you
already know from your native language
it's not bad because you're still
communicating and the person you're
having a conversation with is likely
going to be able to understand you and
in this case we say translating is a
crutch which means it's of help even
though it's a little bit wrong
now the second reason for using
translation might not actually be
translating technically speaking this is
what linguists call interference
interference is like a tendency
a habit from your native language when
we spot mistakes that come from
interference we might say oh you're
translating
i have a friend who's an incredible
english speaker she's really really
fluent but the other day we were talking
and she said that she knew a guy at a
pub and i'm like you know a guy who
works at a pub
then she corrected herself oh no i mean
i met a guy at the pub by the way as i
said stay until the end because we're
going to do some fun exercises to test
your ability to not translate even when
it's tempting we're going to come back
to this common mistake but anyway back
to common mistakes some other advanced
english speakers i know might say did
you posted the picture on instagram
the problem with this is that the verb
does not need to be in the past because
we are already using did
another common mistake is when someone
asks me a question
they might say speak portuguese again
this is totally understandable for me
because a lot of the languages don't use
auxiliary verbs be have ken etc like
english does fun right
in all these cases the people who made
these mistakes know how to not make
these mistakes however it's called
interference because sometimes it's like
a reflex you use words patterns or
habits that come from your native
language to help you can you think of a
word pattern or habit that gets in the
way of your english i'd love to hear
about it in the comments below
a nice way of learning new words and
word chunks so that you can stop
translating in your head is by listening
to and following the transcriptions of
our podcast on the real life english
podcast you will hear real life native
conversations about culture idioms
expressions and hints and tips to move
your english to the next level you can
download the app by clicking the link in
the description or by going to the apple
app store or the google play store and
while you're there why not leave us a
five star review and we might shout you
out on the next podcast
now the third reason why we translate is
actually a good one it's because it's
totally fine your native language has
some things in common with english
cognates are words that are very similar
in your native language and in english
for example the word future in english
in spanish and portuguese is futuro so
sometimes you can use cognates to your
advantage
the fourth reason why we translate is
because we fall for a trap
false cognates are words that look the
same in your language and in english but
they actually mean completely different
things you might hear your teacher use
the term false friends to describe this
alrighty let's have a little quiz this
word embarassada is a spanish word
what english word do you think it looks
like
excited empire or embarrassed
[Music]
if you answered c then you're correct it
seems like the english word embarrassed
right
however embarassed does not mean this
funny story i was dancing in a nightclub
in bolivia and my pants split open and i
said to my friend thinking i was using
the correct word
estoyanbarassada
which i thought meant i am embarrassed
and my friend said impossible ollie men
can't get pregnant i was shocked and
embarrassed
that i was using this word incorrectly
so be careful and actually a student of
mine confused the meaning of the word
assist when he said he assisted a
football match this word looks similar
to asistia in spanish but what he
actually meant is attend
so be careful as there are lots of false
friends especially if your native
language is written with the same
alphabet that english has
a fifth reason why we translate is
fatigue yeah you heard that right you
see speaking a second language takes
some mental energy and while it's easier
to speak when you're fresh and energized
it gets considerably harder after a long
day of work trust me i know
the ability that many advanced
non-native speakers have is that they
can speak with a high level of
idiomaticity this means they can use
expressions that are natural and correct
it means that they actually don't
translate these types of speakers
however do tend to fall more often for
the temptation of translation when
they're simply tired
a friend of mine said in a zoom call
that he was the only father in that zoom
core now that sounds a bit weird
especially because there were women in
that call what he actually meant to say
is that he was the only parent present
there
he probably was too exhausted from
looking after that child that he said
that because he's really fluent in
english
what can i do to translate less
i have one magic tip that's the
kryptonite to translation seriously it's
the best tip to ever avoid translating
but i'll get to that in just a moment
first what can you do to translate less
well the answer is what hopefully you've
been getting from this video so far
it might sound cheesy but that is
awareness
in fact the exercises that i have
prepared for the end are called
awareness raising exercises think about
it you need to be aware of what comes
from your native language and what
english is
there are a lot of things that overlap
but there are also a lot of things that
don't mix so knowing exactly what those
things are helps a lot obviously as an
elementary or lower intermediate english
speaker you're still figuring out the
differences
you're still learning by making tons of
errors but as you become upper
intermediate you're able to much better
separate your two languages you gain
this by being exposed to the language as
much as possible by being curious
by questioning things
for example if your english is
intermediate and you are with two
friends you might say something like
we're three however
later in your english learning
progression you'll learn that you should
say the three of us or us three
it all goes back to awareness to
basically being less confused and having
figured out more things about the
english language
okay so for me the best tip to avoid
falling into the trap of translation is
learning vocabulary chunks
and you might be thinking what does this
mean
well
instead of focusing on learning
individual words learn groups of words
it's not to say that you shouldn't look
up a word if you don't know what it
means but as i said your focus should be
more on chunks
word chunks are a sequence of words that
come naturally together to express an
idea
for example when you first learned nice
to meet you you didn't study each word
in the sentence you simply learn them
all together
and even how to answer it by saying nice
to meet you too
right when we say chunks we mean
collocations
fixed expressions
formulaic utterances
sentence starters
verb patterns
idioms and catchphrases
in a paper released by cambridge
university press called learning
language in chunks they mention three
important reasons why word chunks are a
great way to learn vocabulary they are
fluency idiomaticity subsequent language
development
how does it contribute to fluency you
may ask well various research studies
have found that more fluent speakers are
able to speak faster and with less
hesitation due to the effective use of
chunks
then it increases idiomaticity because
chunks help students appear as idiomatic
language users by that we mean they can
use expressions that are natural and
correct and are also of a high level
lastly it helps subsequent language
development because it creates a strong
base of language upon which more
advanced language can be supported
anyway we believe so much on the power
of learning
vocabulary chants that we made a recent
lesson called the number one key to
advanced fluency word chunks so be sure
to check it out for a more in-depth
learning experience i'll link it down in
the description below or you can also
click up here
let's now move on to the last section of
this lesson which i hope you've enjoyed
so far
i'm going to describe some scenarios and
you'll have to form a sentence now in
order to create the correct sentence
you'll have to resist translating
because they all contain idiomatic
features
let's try it out
the first scenario is the following it's
about my friend who met a guy at the pub
they started dating and she said that as
she started to know more details about
this person's life she fell in love with
him
now your task is to fill in the blank
with the correct expression hint use the
word no and him
as i got to know him better i realized
that he was the one
the reason i use this example is because
the different meanings of know
meet and get to know tend to confuse
learners scenario number two imagine you
want to know the duration of the flight
from say barcelona to new york
how do you ask
that how long does it take to fly from
barcelona to new york
with this one maybe you get confused
with the word last long or much time or
have a tendency to use word duration
however the word take is the most
commonly used in this case
scenario number three and it's no secret
that bill gates has a lot of money
actually he has more money than anyone
else i think and how do you say that in
a short to the point sentence using the
word
richest
bill gates is the world's richest
person maybe your first reaction was
bill gates is the richest person in the
world
which is also correct more learners say
that instead of the world's richest
person because saying the richest person
in the world is closer to a lot of
people's first language
scenario number four now imagine you
want to invite a friend to have some
drinks after work how do you ask them
when they stop working on a specific day
hint don't say leave work use a phrasal
verb
what time do you get off work
then after you have a few drinks how do
you say that your friend doesn't need to
pay because you'll pay the whole bill
did you say i'll pay the bill
well that's not wrong a more idiomatic
expression is it's on me or i got it
or even my shout
scenario number five the last one is a
basic grammar error in english that
probably is correct in your native
language
what do you call this
use the word star and hotel
this is a five-star hotel
the reason why i thought of this example
is because i often see people saying a
five stars hotel the thing is english
adjectives are never in the plural
that's why it's not a million dollars
question it's a million dollar question
[Music]
okay so in this lesson we went over the
five reasons why we translate because we
don't know something in english or any
other language we're learning so we fall
back into the structures of our native
language which is totally normal and
because of interference and also because
of cognates which are words that seem
similar i gave the example of futuro and
future in english
and i'm sure in your language as well
there are many other cognates
then there's false cognates which are
the opposite of that and lastly because
when you're tired you're likely to make
more mistakes than usual
natural right
then i covered how being more aware of
similarities and differences is what is
going to make you translate less i also
talked about vocabulary chunks as a
great learning strategy that's going to
make you become more fluent
so make sure you follow us on instagram
reallife.english so you can stay updated
with all our lessons across all of our
channels i hope you enjoyed today's
lesson and i will see you next time ah
yeah
wow
that's a beautiful picture frame
what's the word for frame in portuguese
[Music]
what's up everyone i am molly your
real-life english fluency coach and as a
portuguese learner i feel very
privileged to have lived in brazil and
be surrounded by portuguese every day