How to use translation to learn a language

how to learn any foreign language





Why Translation Gets No Respect



Translation Will Always Be Necessary



How Translation Can Reveal a Language’s Secrets






Vado in spiaggia con Maria, perché oggi fa molto caldo

Voy a la playa con Maria, porque hoy hace mucho calor



Let’s look at two more distant languages: Italian and German

Vado in spiaggia con Maria, perché oggi fa molto caldo





Vado in spiaggia con Maria, perché oggi fa molto caldo




By now we have discussed:

  • Why translation is a necessary part of language learning.


The Right Way to Translate




That is:

  • 1
  • 2



  • Short (between 100-500 words)
  • Interesting to you
  • At or slightly above your level of proficiency


how to learn any foreign language

Use the Tools Available to You




If you're interested in learning more about my bidirectional translation method, I'll be discussing it in further detail during my talk at the Polyglot Conference in Thessaloniki, Greece on 29 October 2016.

Stay tuned and happy language learning!

Written by Luca Lampariello

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  • Luca, I want to thank you for all you’ve been doing for me, the main reason I started to learn a language was because I could see you speaking ten languages with ease. I’m finishing my english “course” and I want to learn Spanish and I certainly will use your methods. So, that’s all. Thank you again 🙂

    • Hi Walace, thanks SO much for the lovely words, I am glad my blog has pushed to learn English and above all make you believe in your potential. Good luck with English! Luca

  • Hi Luca,

    You are a great inspiration and now I am studying my second foreign language mainly built on the principles you adhere to, but I want to ask you: As I am implementing your method, myself, with my second foreign language, how long should I focus on the target text per day before I translate it at the end of the cycle? Especially if it is a short and very beginner one.


    • Hi Teodor,

      thanks for the question!

      I think you should focus as much as you want, as long as you fully understand it.

      I would go like this:

      First day

      1. Listen and read it at the same time
      2. Understand it by comparing it to the text in your own language or by looking at vocabulary + grammar explanations (if you are not using ASSIMIL), mark words you don’t know
      3. Listen and read again

      Potentially, listen to it a few more times.

      Overall for a very short text of, say, 10 lines, all this should not take you more than 10-15 minutes

      You can go back and review it a couple of times the following 2 days before translating it back

      Hope this helps!


  • Hi Luca,

    I have been learning German for two years at school. But I feel that even in a class of less than 10 students I’m not advancing very far in learning the language. Our teacher has us learn the vocabulary for each unit rigorously using an online flashcard thing called Quizlet (maybe you’ve heard of it). There’s a feature called Learn which asks you to translate a term from one language to the other, but the problem In have with this is that it is hard to learn due to lack of context.

    I prefer using Duolingo to learn German, which has rapidly taught me German words & grammar rules by asking me to translate them in a contextual sentence; eg. it would have me translate the English “He is drinking the juice” to “Er trinkt den Saft”, teaching me the conjugation of the verb “trinken”, the gender & meaning of the German word “Saft” and also teaching me about the four different cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative) all by just translating one sentence.

    The problem is, since I’m using Duolingo outside of school it doesn’t match up with the school curriculum and although I have shown it to my teacher they have not really considered using it. Any ideas on how it could learn the school curriculum faster, while still using a contextual translation method?

    Also, my German is pretty bad, but would I be right in saying that a better translation of “I’m going to the beach with Maria, because today it is very hot” to German would be “Ich will zum Strand mit Maria gehen, weil es heute sehr heiss ist?

    Thanks so much for all your useful tips thus far.

    • Salut Luca, je m’interesse depuis quelques temps a votre methode pour apprendre l’anglais. J’aimerais savoir si les series AWAKE des Temoins de Jehovah sont excellentes pour les traductions. Merci, et j’espere avoir une reponse de vous. Bonne journee

  • Love this post, Luca. I promote a similar “Think ‘ideas’ not ‘words’ ” approach to my students. Good to know this agrees with the Master of learning languages, that you are. Greetings from Madrid.

  • Hi, Luca. Your words below seem to me to be very important, because they express the reason of translating very precisely.


    I am Ukrainian, learned German at school and in University, aber Deutsch ich beoberte hauptsaechlich dank Selbstbelehrung. Ich spreche und schreibe mit vielen Faeller, aber ich lese deutsch ziemlich gut.

    As an adult I decided to study English. My vocabulary (passive) is about 10 to 12 thousand words.

    Now I prcatice understanding spoken English. A year ago I couldn’t understand any meaning (practicaly zero) by hearing, although understanding of the same text by reading was 100 percent.

    I completely agree with you that the advantage of being adult must be used. (Especially by me – I’m over 60 🙂 )
    Several month ago I started learning Turkish ( reason – curiosity). Without any textbook. Just short dialogs and related text with translation in Russian.

    It’s extremely interesting to постепенно самому начинать понимать, как организован с точки зрения грамматики турецкий язык.
    Sorry, I got tired fremde Worte zu errinern.

    Nochmal vielen Dank fuer Ihre Arbeit und sehr wertvolle Rate.

    • “aber Deutsch ich beoberte hauptsaechlich dank Selbstbelehrung.”
      надо бы подкоректировать..

  • I am fluent in three languages: English (mother tongue!), French and Dutch (the latter two by actually living in places speaking these languages) and I can get around to some extent in German, Russian and Spanish . To me, in a French class for English-speaking students, pointing at an arm and saying “bras” in French is harmless. Knowing human nature what the students do is think “that’s an arm”, so they are translating anyway. I personally have no problem with learning the names of concrete objects by translating their names: they exist outside of any linguistic reality. Do you really want to read a dictionary definition of some animal in a foreign language to figure out what it is? Because at some point if you are really fluent in a language, you will end up using a dictionary for that language. In any case if the animal is some obscure creature living in an out-of-way part of the world the word is probably the same.

    For concepts, the situation is different. There is no reason “überhaupt” (I am using here a Dutch word borrowed from German) for concepts in one language to map into another. English has “home”, Dutch “gezellig” and “sympathiek”, German “gemütlich” and “überhaupt”, French “sympathique” and Spanish “simpático”. Translation in this case is pointless. These concepts are really untranslatable because they are a reflection of how native speakers of the language think. The only method that works is examples: listening to conversations and seeing how live native speakers conversing are using these words.

    There is a third situation. French has a lot of “expressions consacrées”: “à l’aide de”, “au nom de”, etc. Because of the preeminence of the language, equivalents are readily available in German and Dutch but not in English, where these expressions sound stilted. So then translation involving English just complicates matters.

    Finally there is grammar. Both German and Russian use cases similar but not identical to Latin. In all three languages, the case of nouns following prepositions has to be memorized. Some prepositions in all three languages use the accusative when motion/movement is involved and another case otherwise, (for German, dative; for Russian, it varies). Again English is no help here.

    • You are right.
      überhaupt in German means ‘overall’, ‘all inclusive’
      “gezellig” and “gemütlich” mean closely the same.
      while French “sympathique” and Spanish “simpático” and Dutch “sympathiek”
      all mean roughly the same: congenial, amiable, friendly
      depending on the situation they are used in.
      So learn some basics and live the language among native speakers and figure out the correct usage?

  • Hey Lucca great article. I’m native speaker Portuguese and I’ve learning English and Spanish. So, when I am reading some articles in English I translate for my native language in my mind. is it a problem ? Because I understand what I am reading or listening, but I continue translate it in my mind.

    • I would say that it depends on whether or not you consider it a problem. I would not want to do that much because it is an extra step between language and meaning. It helps you practice translation though.

  • Nelle lingue che non sono SVO, l’esercizio di traduzione l’ho provato, ma mi rallenta, confonde e aumenta gli errori in fase di conversazione, fossilizzando dei pattern sbagliati. Andando diretta, con i building blocks, in questi casi mi trovo meglio. Con le lingue simili all’inglese, invece, la traduzione mi aiuta molto ad assimilare velocemente strutture e parole.

    • Ciao Amily,

      anzitutto grazie per il commento 🙂

      ti confesso che è esattamente quello che mi è successo con il giapponese, ma non era la traduzione a rallentarmi in se, quanto il MODO in cui traducevo dal giapponese all’italiano, e cioè usavo lo stesso stile che avevo adottato nelle altre lingue e mi sono appunto accorto che questo approaccio non funziona con una struttura sintattica simile.

      Lo stesso vale ovviamente per altre lingue che non sono SVO.

      Buona giornata e grazie ancora !



  • Ciao Luca, prima di tutto voglio ringraziarti e complimentarmi con te! Il mio sogno è quello di diventare poliglotta e per me sei una grande fonte di ispirazione!
    Da marzo, sto imparando il tedesco da autodidatta (quarta lingua fino ad ora) e da agosto ho acquistato un libro di grammatica tedesca.
    Il problema è che non mi sembra di riuscire ad assimilarla completamente e a metterla in pratica correttamente in ogni caso.
    Riesco a comunicare abbastanza bene quando mi capita di relazionarmi con dei madrelingua, ma prima di formulare una frase corretta devo fermarmi un attimo a pensare quale sia la giusta declinazione, etc.
    La mia domanda è questa: come posso assimilare la grammatica tedesca in modo efficace e duraturo?
    Grazie in anticipo!

  • Good stuff Luca! Wish I could make the conference but it’s a little too far. Anyway I have used the translation method with Assimil for French and it’s been highly effective. I do wonder how you’re not supposed to translate concepts and things that don’t have pictorial representation. I’m sure there’s a way but it just seems inefficient to me.

  • You are always my inspiration in many ways!
    Thank you for the fascinating topic!

    I have always been wondering why they say that it is better not to use your mother tongue when learning a new language.
    What I myself found from my experience is that using my native tongue is sometimes useful,sometimes not.
    I think that we could be more flexible about using a mother tongue in language learning.It can definitely be an most effective tool.

    My mother tongue is Japanese and second language is English,which are said that so different in their grammar and cultures permeating into them.
    In fact, there is sometimes no exact equivalent each other,it is sometimes impossible or quite difficult to translate in a corresponding way and that way doesn’t work well.
    I think that it depends on what you focus on whether using your native tongue is effective or not.

    When the differences of two languages are too big in the point that I want to focus on,I can not use Japanese as a useful tool because comparison does not work effectively. For example,I don’t compare their pronunciations.

    An one-language-dictionary is useful when I want to ingrain English patterns in my brain (it really takes time!) and more importantly when I want to understand the meaning,images of words with English (because no equivalent in Japanese) while two-language-dictionary is more useful when I try to understand a concept that English words have from my experiences with Japanese,which is advantageous to an adult.

    When the differences of two languages in certain aspects that I want to focus on,are small,comparison between them can work,my native tongue can be an useful tool.

  • I’m going to the beach with Maria, because today it is very hot.
    -could you translate this into some more languages and, for each, provide the word-by-word in English so we can see the sentence structure and whatnot?

    • when this sentence translated to Chinese. it will be as follows:
      but normally we speak in this way:

  • Really interesting ideas. I have benefited from a lot of your language learning advice. Thank you for continuing to post and inspire us and give us new ideas to try!

    I have heard you talk about this concept before. I tried it once as a part of my study routine, but I found myself getting bored and slightly frustrated with it, because I kept struggling to translate the text back into my L2. Every time I translated it back, it was wrong either in spelling or grammatically, so lost interest. Any advice for combating this?

  • As always, great!
    A question, how about when to decide which content to focus on?
    For example, religion, languages, art, sports and so on? how is one supposed to divide that? Thanks!!!

  • Great article! I’m learning Italian and I’m currently at the intermediate level. I look forward to trying this method! Thanks for the tips guys!

  • Hey Luca,

    Interesting take on translations as helpful. Maybe the answer is translations can be helpful AND using too many and only translation can be hurtful too.

    I work with intermediate to advanced students of English and I think at that level, it’s time to give up translations. They can be helpful when we just start learning a language and learning about all the grammar differences, but there comes a point where translating (especially translating everything in your head) makes your conversations – or at least your speaking time – s.l.o.w.

    So I would say translations are good as a beginner and then not so good later on as you get more advanced. What do you think?

    • I think you hit the nail on the head Sabrina, I only use translation to START learning a language and I agree that relying on translation too much – especially when you have a good command of the language – can actually go to the detriment of learning. Thanks for the comment and have a fantastic day 🙂 Luca

    • I don´t think it should be exclusively used at the beginning either. I actually begin my Spanish classes in Spanish the first day telling my name and asking students theirs. I want them to see that one does not need translation in order to understand everything. I also want them to be ok with not understanding everything, with trying things out, etc. If one uses translation exclusively at the beginning, I think it can be difficult to transition and let the dependence on translation go. However, I do think translation is helpful, especially for tricky grammatical differences between the languages. It is important to understand though that one form used in English could be two or more different forms in other languages. There is not necessarily a one to one correspondence. I am now trying to decide how much translation to use in the teaching materials I am developing. I tend to gravitate to immersion methods in my own learning and have dropped a class where students wanted to learn English. However, I also use translation when learning on my own. It just depends. I think it can be a useful tool, but I think it can also get in the way and hold students back from using the target language. I would like to convey to my students the ways in which both immersion and translation can be useful, give them choices, and allow them to experiment and find out what works for them in achieving their goals, which I hope are not just related to grades, but rather to real life tasks. I do think translation and thinking in the target language are different skills which may develop in different ways. As I prefer immersion, I am not necessarily good at translation. Depending on the language, I don´t translate, but just understand with images and impressions. Translation can definitely be useful though. I am thinking of maybe providing some of the same material without translation and then with translation so that students have options.

  • Hi

    I have been practising this very method for years now. It is very
    effective and gratifying. Recently, when I tried to learn
    Lithuanian, I found a way to include sound.

    Zoomplayer allows you to show the combined texts in its window. I
    see something like this while listening:


    Spanish is a lot easier to learn for me. But I still use the
    retranslation, repetetition drill method. I record pairs of
    sentences with an old Sony mini-disk player (Stand alone, not
    walkman: Sony MDS JE-530. The player has an ” A-B repeat” function
    which can repeat a passage endlessly. Editing any audio recording
    into smaller units is very easy and quick.) With the remote button
    I can hop around in the recorded text at random.

    I have never seen a page about language learning on the Internet
    that is so spot on like yours.


  • Hey Luca,

    I don’t totally understand the Cognitive Circle image. What you explained is simple enough, but why is there L1 and L2 at the top and bottom of the circle?

    The way I understand it right now is that I should go through and “translate” word-for-word, and then refine that translation to make sense in my L1, then do the opposite? Or am I adding an unnecessary step?

  • I’ve actually been translating song lyrics, myself—mostly from L2 into very rough L1, for modern Greek, but I’ve done some either way for Spanish…just not for the same song. I’ll have to try that. Thank you. 🙂

  • Thanks for the article.

    Any ideas on how to use translation to improve language skills and move beyond the advanced plateau?

  • Hello Luca, thank you very much for the article. Recently, I started learning German with Assimil. Unfortunately, there is not “German-Slovak (my native language)” book in the Assimil series so I have to use German-English version. When I am translating L2 (German) -> L1 (?), is it better to use English or Slovak as my target language? Thank you for your reply!

  • When I translate L1 to L2, and then L2 back to L1 I have an “easy” life doing the L2toL1 because the text in the original language (L1) is still in my mind, fresh from the reading. It almost feel like cheating. I tried translating longer pieces of text, but nothing…

    Is this harmful for the purposes of receiving the benefits of the translation? Would it be better if I do L1toL2 the night/day before and L2 back to L1 the next day? So that some time passes?

    Anyhow, Super interesting article! Thank you! *___*

    • I have found that I need a day in between my translations to get a better picture of how well I’m retaining the language. I read, listen to, and write out the text on day one, translation L2–> L1 on day day, read and listen to the text again on day three, translate L1–> L2 on day four. Often, I’ll start with day one of a second text on day three of the previous. This allows me to work with two texts at once.

  • Can you use learning language by translation from the very beginning or you need to have some minimum level of grammar and vocabulary knowledge to start to apply this method? How to determine the minimum level?

  • Hi Luca,
    first of all, i would like to thank you for all your advice in language learning. Recently, you’ve been an inspiration for me to continue developing my language skills and learn more foreign languages. I am a native Bulgarian speaker who had grown up in Italy (reason why I became bilingual at a very young age). However, after having studied English and French at school and at the university, I still have some struggles with speaking fluently. I should be B2-C1 in both of them, but I don’t think I have that level of ability. Could you please give me any advice.
    Thank you in advance.

  • It’s so great to know there is a Polyglot who points out is highly relative to keep on being focused on Translation. I believe it’s unnecessary when it comes to hard, uneasy words to not find out what way we could either relate it or link it with something else analogically so that we’ll remember them at any time with no efforts. We’ve got to use them as we’re starting out picking distinct languages up, for there are many meanings and translations which, we cannot be focused on whatsoever. The best method, is that, the more we learn words with their meanings, the more we’ve got to learn their translations. We might even link them and relate them as well as words, meanings, and translations. It comes to figure out what are those words’ essential meanings to not mistake in translating them.
