• Home
  • Login
  • Registration
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • RSS
ESLarticle.com
Tweet
  • Home
  • Articles
  • Blog
  • Members
  • Add Article

Top Categories

Teaching 509
Other 210
Classroom Management 138
Career Development 135
Learning Methodology 121
Study Skills 90
E-Learning/CALL 87
English Language Learning (ELL) 78
Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) 77
Teaching Methodology 76
English Language Teaching (ELT) 73
English as a Second Language (ESL) 64
Teach in Shanghai
Home / Articles / English as a Foreign Language (EFL) / View Article

Publishing

  • Articles
  • Add Article
  • Articles Archive
  • Latest Articles
  • Popular Articles

Latest Articles

Jan 5, 2019

Metacognition in Reading Competency

As related to the reading process, metacognition can be defined as contemplation concerning one's own thinking processes or knowledge of one's own...

Jan 5, 2019

Mass Media Literacy Reflections for Language Instructions

"You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself." Galileo Galilei Mass media forms thrive today. As development...

Nov 30, 2018

Ideas for the First Class with New Learners

~~The first class with new learners can be an anxious one for all concerned – teacher as well as learners. Below are some tips to make that first...

Nov 19, 2018

10 Amazing Hacks for English Learners

10 Amazing Hacks for English Learners It is estimated that there are over a billion English speakers in the world, including native speakers,...

Nov 15, 2018

Building Reading and Writing Knowledge with Very Young Children at Hom

Education Today, December 2013 Building Reading and Writing Knowledge with Very Young Children at Home  Timothy G. Weih University of Northern...

Popular Articles

1141482 Views

5 Creative Ways to Decorate Your Classroom Bulletin Board This Winter

Back to school, fall leaves, Thanksgiving and Christmas all easily lend themselves to great decorating themes, but what to do when those are over...

380280 Views

Three Unique Ideas To Make Your Bulletin Board More Useful

Bulletin boards have long been existent in campuses. They have proven to be such versatile and useful aids in both the learning and teaching...

140276 Views

History of the Chalkboard

Walk into just about any classroom and you will find one: A dark green board on the wall, lined with pieces of chalk and felt erasers. Chalkboards,...

65027 Views

Report Card Comments

For a small minority, writing report cards isn't a big deal. But most teachers generally dread report card writing time. Completing the comment...

47798 Views

Second Language Acquisition: Swain's Output Vs Krashen's Input

1. Introduction: Input versus Output. A general overview In order to assess how compatible Krashen's and Swain's views are, it is essential to...


Verbling - Why Blindly Translating Actually Makes Learning English Har

by Kendra

Jun 12, 2014 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) 8474 Views

English just doesn’t make sense sometimes. There are so many idioms and words that are counter intuitive to what they should be. One famous example is that you park in a driveway and you drive on a parkway. Translating word for word might make learning English harder in most situations. There are two ways this could occur:

 

The first is that many words in the English language have many different definitions. Buffalo is a great example of this. Buffalo could be an animal, a city in New York, or a verb (meaning “to intimidate”) which leads to this strange but grammatically correct sentence) : Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. Even me, being a native English speaker, have to stare at this for a while before it makes sense. The phrase translates to: “Bison from Buffalo, New York, who are intimidated by other bison in their community, also intimidate other bison in their community.” (mental floss)

The other problem that could occur is an idiom or common expression can lead you to not understanding the meaning correctly. A great example of this would be if you were to be reading a book and you saw this: Just as Jenny was going to take the stage to perform in her senior recital, Andre gave her a thumbs up and said, “Break a leg!”  Reading this by blindly translating would give a different meaning than intended. You might think that Andre wished ill or even threatened Jenny however for performers (actors and musicians) ‘break a leg‘ means good luck. When reading look for other clues to help you decipher what was written. The same thing can be said about listening to people. If someone says to you, “Hey! Look at that huge elephant,” if you didn’t know what the word elephant means, you would be stuck. However, maybe they pointed to some big grey animal, or a picture on the wall, if you took that hint in as well and heard, “Hey! Look at that huge ____”  you could infer what an elephant is.

Blindly translating can lead to so many errors it is amazing that people rely on it so heavily. It should be used only as a hail mary. Google Translate is an amazing resource that can benefit anyone trying to learn a language but be wary that you only use it for single words and not whole sentences or paragraphs. If you have trouble with those, ask a teacher or friends.

Book a Private Session with Kendra Now!

Article source: http://eslarticle.com/pub/english-as-a-foreign-language-efl/107095-Verbling-Why-Blindly-Translating-Actually-Makes-Learning-English-Harder.html

http://blog.verbling.com/2014/06/03/why-blindly-translating-actually-makes-learning-a-english-harder/
  • General Information
Author Info

Author Name: Kendra

About Author:

Kendra is an English teacher on Verbling and lives in California and has a 4 year Bachelor’s degree in Modern Languages and Literature. She studied Spanish, French and Italian. During her undergraduate studies she received her ESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) Certificate and a minor in Linguistics. She has taught 613 hours on Verbling.

Most Recent Articles

  • Nov 30, 2018 Ideas for the First Class with New Learners by Kendra
  • Nov 19, 2018 10 Amazing Hacks for English Learners by Kendra
  • Feb 1, 2017 Teaching EFL to Young Learners: a Massive Career Opportunity by Kendra
  • Oct 12, 2016 Reflections on Standard English in EFL classrooms by Kendra
  • Aug 7, 2016 Vietnamese Students' Problems With English by Kendra

Actions

  • Print Page

Articles Archive

  • May 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021

Random Articles

Teaching Methodology

Are You Leading a Multicultural Classroom?

The following reflection on education is inspired by the work of Paulo Freire, an educator I greatly admire, as a fellow pedagogue and human rights...

Other

TQM in Education

TQM is a philosophy and system for continuously improving the services and/or products offered to customers. Now that the technologies of...

Writing

English Speaking and English Writing

Why do people choose to learn English? The reason is very easy: people want to communicate with others more and make more money even sometimes. If...

Business English

Teaching Business English With \\\"Increase & Decrease\\\&quo

"Increase & Decrease" pioneers ELT training in one very important aspect: its high emphasis on numbers English. By numbers English, we are not just...

English Language Learning (ELL)

Common Mistakes In English

English is quite a difficult language to get to grips with. Many non-native people who attempt to learn English find themselves making a few common...

About ESL Article

ESL Article is a private ESL/TEFL site designed and maintained by educators and educational administrators. It was launched in August 2008 with the aim of bringing ESL/TEFL students, parents, teachers and schools information and articles about the teaching profession and learning community.

Icon Group Member

ESL Article is a member of Icon Group Thailand (IGT), a group of ESL TEFL TESOL websites providing educational resources and information to teachers, schools and students around the world. The group was founded in 2003 and now includes 15+ websites covering educational information services, teaching resources and e-learning.

What is ESL?

English as a second language (ESL) is the use or study of English by speakers of different native languages. It is also known as English for speakers of other languages (ESOL), English as an additional language (EAL), and English as a foreign language (EFL).

  • Home
  • Registration
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Help
  • Partner
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
​

© 2022 ESLarticle.com.
Member of Icon Group Thailand - Educating the Future:
TESall All TESOL  Total ESL  ESL Job Feed
TEFL World  TEFL Jobs Overseas  Teach Overseas
Asia TEFL  ESL Powerpoint  Teacher Training