English Communication | Don't Translate Your Language into English

Hello, guys.

My name is fanny.

And in this video, I want to talk to you about communication problems.

And when you're an English teacher working abroad or even if you've traveled,

you do know that there are often communication problems.

And from my experience as a teacher, I think these problems and often arise because

people try and translate their mother tongue into English.

And my main piece of advice as a teacher, to you, is don't do that.

Don’t try and translate.

Because every language has their own words and expressions you know…and

I know that when you're not that fluent, it's reassuring to use your own language and

translate it.

Unfortunately, it doesn't, it's not going to work out.

And, umm, For example, let's just and take an example.

I taught…umm..

English in France for a few years.

And French has a lot of expressions and we for example say, umm,

“To get a blue.”

So that's the expression in French.

“Avoir un bleu.”

And that means ‘to get bruised’.

Okay so ‘a bruise’ in French is literally ‘a blue’.

So.. but, you can't say, “I got a blue.”

If you say, “I got a blue,”

you… you're actually translating the exact words from French into English.

And I'm not gonna understand what you mean.

And I've had people say that.

I've had someone one day, umm, say “oh I got a blue,” and I obviously didn't know

what that meant.

So…

And that is something that you should avoid doing okay?

Um… and I got a story about that.

For example, umm, I was correcting an essay once because I worked in a high school

And some … this student had written you know an essay in English.

I think she was describing a holiday or something.

And, umm, at some point I can read, “Oh on the last day, I was so sad and because

I was walking in the garden and suddenly I fell and broke my face.”

And it honestly took me a good 10 minutes to understand what she meant.

And it's actually because there's an expression in French,

"suis cassé la figure" Which is literally, “to break your face,”

and it means to hurt yourself.

And so, she wanted to say, “I was walking in the garden, suddenly I fell and hurt myself,”

But she translated French into English You know…

Thinking umm, and I guess you know we all think that.

We all think, oh my language is the reference.

It's the standard and every other language imitates mine.

And just you know I can simply translate.

But, unfortunately, you can't.

So as a teacher, again, with years of experience, umm please don't try and do that.

Don't translate your mother tongue.

You just have to learn as much as you can.

Watch films.

Read books.

Try and understand how people talk in English.

You know the expressions that they use, remember them and use them.

But don't translate your mother tongue into English.

Okay?

I hope this helps.

Umm thank you very much for watching guys and see you in the next video.

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