[ARCHIVE] How to write in a foreign language as a beginner

[Deleted User 114]

This was originally posted by [deactivated user]

https://archive.ph/dIccv

Recently I viewed a short video tutorial on improving one's writing in a foreign language. I was intrigued by the process, so I thought I would try it out and see if it could improve my writing. I found it worked well enough for me that I intend to keep going with it - and I thought it might help others as well. A link to the video with full detail on this technique is at the bottom.

In brief the steps are:

- Step 1 - Cold Draft:

Write what you can without a dictionary. Write unknown words in your native language where needed.

- Step 2 - Fill in the unknowns:

Underline and look up unknown words

- Step 3 - Noun Review:

Mark nouns you have questions on.
Review them for noun/adjective alignment, grammar structures, cases, etc.

- Step 4 - Verb Review

Mark verbs you have questions on. Review conjugations.

- Step 5 -Editing

Correct mistakes and learn from what you looked up.

- Step 6 - Rewrite

Rewrite complete updated version

- Step 7 - Publish for Feedback

Type up and post for feedback/corrections from teachers or native speakers (if such is available to you).

WHAT WORKED WELL FOR ME:

I typically write directly in Italian, but stop as I write to look up words and conjugations. This is quite a choppy process and interrupts my thoughts constantly. The process outlined above made the writing itself far more fluid. Editing my content later improved the flow.
The quality of my writing definitely improved (!).
I clearly identified vocabulary to add to my review.
Although I rarely write longhand any more (and usually do directly online), longhand helped slow my thoughts. I also like the idea of having an archival notebook to look back on my practice efforts over time.

WHAT DIDN'T WORK SO WELL FOR ME:

The whole process took three times as long as my writing usually does, so that was a bit frustrating. This may improve with time.
I didn’t have the patience to write out a full verb conjugation for every verb I needed work on (as her beautifully presented notebook shows). Perhaps I may add that in later, but looking up the immediate conjugation form needed seemed sufficient to me for now.
Didn't have enough colored pens and highlighters at hand to clearly differentiate my notes. A trip to the office supply store is needed!
I am a messy longhand writer and I ended up not having enough room to make notes or corrections to my text in my notebook. Next time I am going to write on every other line of my notebook, leaving plenty of room for edits in the body of the text.
I hope this is of use to some of you. Good learning!

YouTube Tutorial Link:

Link to Main Vlog Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/LindieBotes.

Tools Referenced: Cooljugator: https://cooljugator.com.

[Cifi]

Yes, this sounds like a fairly time-consuming strategy.

I usually write directly in my target language, too. I think it is a lot better than starting in your own language and then try to translate, because the latter would always keep you bound within the structure of your native language.

What I fairly often do is to use an online translator to translate it to English or to my native language. I review the translation to see if it's saying what I intended, and translate this back into the target language and compare it with my version.

This sometimes helps me to spot errors like mismatching gender in Roman languages.

With other variations (not errors, just things I consider as likely correct either way) I I try to make up my mind what is more natural or closer to what I want to express, and either stay with what I wrote or change it.

[Stasia]

My advice would be to start simple. As soon as you know some basic grammar in just a single tense, start thinking of simple phrases you can build with that grammar to talk about yourself. Basic things, such as: My name is... I live in... My favorite color is... Or, imagine a very simple conversation in your target language: what someone would say? How would you respond? Focus on grammar you know, and look up words you don't know. At that point, don't obsess (yet) over whether your grammar is correct or not. it probably won't be but the point of this exercise is to lose fear of thinking in your target language, rather than to be perfect.

At the beginning, you'll be able to compose only a few phrases. Over time, you will be able to write a paragraph, then two, especially as you expand your grammar knowledge and learn how to express things you did in the past or plan for the future. At this point, it would be really good to have someone start checking your grammar, though, to start improving your grammar and to make sure you are internalizing grammar rules.

[IceVajal]

That's why I started a language journal and as part of it wrote a kind of CV which I'll review every couple of months to see what I can change and where I can do better.

At another part I use topics where I gather vocabulary and phrases. It could be about sport, traveling, your town, weather, anything. While writing about a topic I need words, I haven't learned yet, so I can learn about every interesting topic and learn new words, too. That way I should be able, sometime in future, about many different topics.

[pawndemic]

I think the key point is: You should always be the one who is in the driver seat, no matter how bad your translation is. You can use translator. But the first intent always has to come from you yourself. As I started with Spanish I barely knew a single word. Therefore my first sessions with my language partner were very stressful. First, if I didn't knew the words in Spanish, I looked them up. Than I wrote my sentence, then I checked it with a online translator and if it "understood" what I meant I postet it., often I searched for a whole expressions to avoid too literal translations, e.g. in reverso. or similiar sites.

Less stressful was, when I learnt on my own and met a new word, I put it in Anki with a sentence in Spanish which expressed well the meaning in the given context. And every new meaning was a new card in Anki. And later I asked my language partner to correct them. And when I learnt my Anki deck, I translated the words and the sentences.

Of course you can also write a diary or a virtual "blog" about whatever you want. Sometimes it helps to do grammar exercices where do you have to write something. Especially at the beginning it is thought worth. But over the time it gets boring.

[IceVajal]

It's what you make of it, it not necessarily has to become boring.

[David_Shepheard]

I totally cheated and used Google Translate to convert English into French, so that I could speak to people with a similar specialist interest to me.

I've needed to cheat a bit less, as time has gone on.