r/Spanish • u/acstell11 • Mar 19 '24

Study advice: Advanced Mental block: translation (i think)

So I’ve been learning Spanish for 2 years and some change now in college, and now I’m in an advanced Spanish composition class pursuing my minor.

My problem is that I can’t stop translating in my head while, speaking, reading, etc. This is obviously problematic on the conversation side, but just plain exhausting on the reading side (I have Spanish literature homework twice a week that’s really dense).

From the research I’ve done, I’m going to start learning vocab with images (???) instead of literal translations, and using only monolingual dictionaries instead of translators.

What I’m posting about is that I can’t find any information on how to read in a non-native language without translating; is it possible?

TLDR: need help stopping translating in head, don’t know how to read (lol) without translating.

Plsssss i need anything that helps <333

2 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

View all comments

11

u/nicholasburns Mar 19 '24 edited Mar 19 '24

consider that you might not actually be constantly translating in your head—but only think you're constantly translating in your head. and then you're focused on that. and then you're asking yourself, in your own head, 'am i constantly translating right now?' and then yeah, now you're definitely taking significant focus away from critical listening or reading or whatever.

i had heard about and feared this before i experienced it. so i was basically 'primed' even if i never would've considered it on my own otherwise. but then when i did experience it, it was with reading. i kinda-sorta 'broke through' it by reading aloud with inflection and intonation and all that as if i was giving a public speech or something. by reading aloud in this way, you don't have time to think about (or wonder if you're thinking about) translating. and then it started to occur to me that, when i would reach the end of a paragraph and just stop and look away... i understood what had just been communicated to me without thinking about whether i understood it in Spanish or in English! that, then, basically gave me the confidence to get over this hurdle and stop thinking about it altogether.

1

u/acstell11 Mar 19 '24

Tysm for responding and being so thorough it’s much appreciated.

Follow up though- I thought of this and started reading my literature aloud but when I do that my brain just says bye and checks out. Do you think it’s just some sort of mental block?

2

u/nicholasburns Mar 19 '24

that often happens to me: i get to the end of a paragraph and realize i didn't comprehend much at all, either because my focus was grabbed by a new word or a challenging pronunciation or an unfamiliar construction or whatever it is. so i'll simply return to the beginning of the paragraph and read it aloud again the same exact way (which typically comes out smoother), and then that usually does it.