When reading native content, do you translate what you read in your head to your first/native language?

[Fabi02]

I find myself often understanding the logic of a sentence, like what is going on etc, but then I struggle with translating it in to my native language. When enabling english subtitles on raw anime I noticed that the translations often carry the same vibe as what was being said in japanese, but use completely different words and phrases to achieve that so that it sounds natural.

Is it, for language acquisition , important to translate japanese content in to natural sounding englisch or is it okay to move on as long as you understand the logical structure of the sentences and how the words relate to each other.

Not sure if this makes sense.

Thanks for answering.

[rikvg]

I think that for language acquisition it is not important to be able to translate. If you can make it through, and understand enough to enjoy the content, then you are doing immersion as you should be doing it.

Translating things, or looking up translations for things you don’t quite get or aren’t sure about, will help you get a more refined understanding. I don’t think you can just absorb a language without ever looking things up or linking things to your native language or to a language you know well. But I do know that when I learned other languages, looking things up in detail and learning the finer nuances of these languages often came after years of powering through more roughly.

I am not an academic linguist, and my Japanese is shabby but I thought I’d share my own experience with language learning hoping it might help you feel confident about your methods.

[Gabrielkarrer]

i dont translate it, until i don t understand it due to grammar or unknown vocab. Then i break the sentence up to analyse it.

[Tyrandos]

I see translation more like a convenient tool to be used when you are starting to learn a new language, not something you should aim for. My native language is Portuguese btw, when I read something in English I don’t even try to translate.

[evandcs]

Since just started watching anime with JP subtitles, I “go with the tide”, translating in my head as it goes. I dont stop.

along the sentences because they are fast and changing of course.

If a word repeats three or more times and I dont know the meaning, I realize it is a point I have to search for the meaning already.

Just watched this ousama ranking episode and they were talking about 疑う and then I looked it up and got happy because it is one more word I learned in immersion and most likely I wont forget anymore.

[wrt7MameLZE33wlmpCAV]

I think to some extent you have to “translate” while you’re still learning because you don’t have a point of reference in anything but another language at first. I mean, think about it. When you come across a new word that you’ve seen before but can’t quite remember what it means, what do you do? Isn’t the go to reaction to try to remember how it’s translated? It seems like it’d be difficult for material you’re still learning and haven’t internalized not to resort to this strategy. If the word is an emotion, maybe you remember how it “feels,” but what does 交換法則 feel like?

The other thing is, I’ve noticed sometimes I’ll read something in Japanese and think I understood it (because I recognized and could read all of the words), but when I stop, analyze, and try to express it in English, I’ll realize I was wrong. It’s this impression that I haven’t really understood the meaning unless I can translate it to some extent (the main idea, not necessarily a perfect word-for-word facsimile), that leads me to often mentally double-check myself for things that are less familiar.

But for things that are very familiar, no, I don’t try to mentally translate everything on the fly to English. For a lot of content, you just can’t. Speech is one of those things that just zips by too quickly, for instance. You can trip yourself up by struggling to find the right English word to use in a given context, too. Your speech will extremely hampered if you’re starting with what you want to say in one language and then trying to translate it to Japanese, too. But I think when you’re learning that kind of thing is just automatic. The more familiar and comfortable you become with the language, the less you do that as a matter of course, I would guess (Japanese is my only second language, so I really don’t know).

Maybe someone else who already has experience learning a second language could chime in. I’d be genuinely interested to hear what that was like.

[PiSilky]

i’m still in the learning process so I try to understand what the sentence would be in English and translate as I am reading. I don’t think this is the best method but it works for me because I am a few months into learning and am only reading basic content.

[Asher]

I think it is definitely okay to move along if you feel the logical structure. When you are reading quickly, you won’t have time to translate.

Idioms, expressions, cultural references and collocations will be the biggest struggle, because they usually won’t be the same as your native language. Once you translate those a few times to an equivalent phrase in English, then you will get a feel for the Japanese one.

[rururun]

Usually I get so wrapped up in the story that I forget that I’m reading it in Japanese.

[Edo9]

I did it for a long time, but at this stage in my learning I’m just trying to stay focused on the Japanese. I’ll probably go back to doing so if down the road I pursue going into translation or interpretation. Otherwise for me personally it’s more of a hinderance than a help.

[DonUnko]

The more you get used to being immersed in the language and understand the meanings intuitively, the less you will translate naturally, unless you are deliberately making the effort to translate.

At some point after much immersion and exposure your brain doesn’t go 猫 = cat = mental image of a cat, but instead just goes 猫 = cat.

In more abstract terms, you won’t translate the word between two languages since the word in the target language is already mapped to a concept via previous exposure, so the in-between step is no longer necessary for understanding.

E.g. English is not my native language, but whenI read/hear English I don’t translate, I just understand (or don’t, but in that case I’ll ask or look up a definition or picture).

[DonUnko]

I’ll probably go back to doing so if down the road I pursue going into translation or interpretation. Otherwise for me personally it’s more of a hinderance than a help.

This so much. Unless your goal is to actually translate / interpret / localize something from one language to another, you won’t need to translate something for your own personal understanding.

[xgc1986]

My first language are Catalan and Spanish, but I can understand english without the need of translating it with one of my natives languages. With japanese I usually translate it to english (and some rare cases to spanish), I hope in a future I can understand japanese without the need of translating it, as I do with english

[wrt7MameLZE33wlmpCAV]

I’m always amazed by how many Japanese learners are actually learning the language via English as a second language. Not only do you have your native language, but you learned English (which isn’t the easiest to begin with, I’ll readily admit), and are now learning Japanese. That’s pretty impressive to me.

I guess it also goes to show how blessed English speakers are with Japanese language resources.

[DonUnko]

Thank you so much for the kind words!

I guess it also goes to show how blessed English speakers are with Japanese language resources.

This right here. In the case of textbooks for example, there is so much variety for English speakers, at my uni (Japanese studies major) however we had to use a Japanese textbook originally from the 70s, since it was supposedly the best Japanese textbook for German speakers (Grundstudium Japanisch). To be fair, the grammar explanations were top notch, but the supposedly spoken Japanese sections… well let’s just call them very Shōwa… I think they switched to Genki and Tobira some time ago, so my kōhai gotta learn Japanese through English now

[DonUnko]

Yeah just give it time and exposure and you will👍

[zerohbeat]

From time to time, I did try to translate what I am reading into English especially at the beginning of my Japanese study… ( Bulgarian is my native language but I also live/d in the UK for a long time)

Initially, when I had conversations in Japanese class I would take a pause to mentally write and then read my sentence out loud… (hope that makes sense)
Or when reading stuff: (something) をしました。 Ahh he did something in the past… I really like analyzing things and figuring it out.

Over time as my reading speed and comprehension improved, I stopped translating in my head…for the most part when reading light novels, I can visualize what is happening and I get really immersed in the story… Of course from time to time, there are lines (or whole pages ) where things don’t make sense haha… When there is a key word that keep repeating that I don’t know, I would look it up.

For a time, I set myself a goal to try to read as fast as possible and not look things up. It was a bit brutal haha but worth it. At that point, there was no “time” to translate what I read in English in my head. I had to rely on my Japanese knowledge

[xgc1986]

Learning english is not hard as it seems, there is a lot of content in english (movies, games, tutorials, …), what is hard is to be fluent, I can understand english without any difficulties, and if a word or expression I do not understand I can feel the gaps. But being fluent is another story, I am cannot write english without doing a lot of mistakes, and much less speak it without having troubles. I just know enough to survive to live on an english speaking location, but not enough to try hide my native language accent.

Also for learn japanese is better from english, there are a lot of resources. I tried to learn it from spanish but all spanish resources to learn japanese are extracted from english resources, and the spanish translations of those resources usually has a lot of inconsistencies.

[wrt7MameLZE33wlmpCAV]

That makes sense. English and Spanish have a lot more in common than Spanish and Japanese. You might be surprised to learn many Japanese people learn Spanish! Several podcasts I listen to (Nihongo con Teppei, Yuyu no Nihongo, Real Miku Japanese Podcast) feature Japanese teachers who know some degree of Spanish.

Muchas gracias por su perspectiva! (I took two years of Spanish in high school )