BRIDGING TOTAL UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN LANGUAGES
When you attempt to translate a French or German phrase, you can get confused in a hurry. For example, take the basic beginning phrase in German of “Ich heiße Sheree.” Your course book, your teacher and/or an online translator typically say: “That German phrase means, my name is Sheree.”
The problem with the above translation is that ich does not mean my and heiße does mean name. Sure, it is most commonly what we would say in English; however, it gives you no insight as to how the sentence has been structured in the target language, i.e. German.
The additional problem is you would have a misconception that would prevent you from understanding these words when you see them in another sentence. For instance, ich trainiere does not mean my train; it means I train.
THEREIN LIES THE CONFUSION
Even more illustrative of this, is the question “What is your name?” in German: Wie ist dein Name? Right off the bat you are going to have an immediate misassociation that Wie is the German word for What. Then you learn, “Wie alt bist du?” And you say, that makes no sense at all… “What old are you??”
What just happened? Well, Wie means How. Therein lies the confusion.Normal for German is to ask, “How is your name?” not “What is your name?”
WHEREIN LIES THE SOLUTION?
For the above-stated reasons, my approach to translating German or French into English for my students is always a dual translation: the common English equivalent and the literal word-by-word translation.
For example, in the phrase Ich heiße Sheree I would tell my students: “Normal English would be My name is Sheree. The literal translation would be I /am called/ Sheree.”
Similarly, in French for the phrase Je m’appelle Sheree, I would say, “Normal English would again be My name is Sheree.
The literal translation would be I call myself Sheree.”
To do only one of the above translations, tells only half the story.
THE AHA MOMENT
It is also extremely helpful to explain the cognates (see my earlier blog on this subject). The more you build connections between the second language and your own, the faster your learning and the greater your retention rate will be.
For example, appellation in English, from yourdictionary.com is:
appellation
- the act of calling by a name
- a name or title that describes or identifies a person or thing; designation
Origin of appellation: Classical Latin appellatio from past participle of appellare, appeal
Then comes the Aha! moment.
Long story short, the key is dual translation.