How to Start

Any Language:
The Compact Guide to the
Bidirectional Translation Course

Copyright © 2017 LinguaCore

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission in writing of the publisher,
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in a book review.
 CONTENTS

Chapter 1: Find the Right Material. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

The Importance of Choosing the Right Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Content. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Appearance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Portability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Chapter 2: LR – Listen While Reading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Why Listening while Reading?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Chapter 3: LR – Aim for Deep Understanding. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

The Importance of Learning How to Learn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Chapter 4: Put the Puzzle Together. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

The Importance of Listening and Re-Listening to a Text. . . . . . . . . 22

Chapter 5: Phonetic Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Intonation: Top-Down Analysis vs. Bottom-Up Analysis. . . . . . . . . 25

Chapter 6: Review (REW). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Static and Dynamic Repetition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Chapter 7: Translate into Your Native Language (L2>L1). . . . . 35

The Art of Translating. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Chapter 8: Take a Break & Keep a Logbook. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Taking Breaks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Keeping a Logbook. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Chapter 9: Translate into Your Target Language (L1>L2). . . . . . 44

The Power of Reverse Translation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Chapter 10: Final Wrap-Up. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Closing the Loop. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

About the Author and LinguaCore. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

About the Main Course. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Contact. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57
 CHAPTER 1

Find the Right Material

“A good start is half the battle.”
– English proverb

Goal: Find the language learning resource

that will give you the best foundation
in your target language.

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The Importance of Choosing
the Right Resources

Introduction
The first step in beginning to learn any language is finding the right
resources to learn from. This is because you need quality language
input before you can produce quality language output.

When looking for any language learning resource, it is important

to consider three main criteria:

• Content
• Appearance
• Portability

Content
The most important aspect of any learning resource is the actual
content within — the texts, dialogues, audio, and exercises that will
serve as your introduction to the language.

When looking for resources, spend time examining the content

within and seeing if it’s suitable for your needs and goals.

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For the purposes of Bidirectional Translation, you should look for:

• L2 texts with accurate L1 translations.

• Why: You ultimately will want to understand all of the
L2 material that is presented to you within the resource.

• Easy Grammar Explanation

• Why: You want to learn grammar from context. When you
are introduced to a new grammatical form or structure,
make sure there are notes that explain this structure
to you as simply as possible.

• Audio in Target Language

• Why: L1 audio can be distracting and unnecessary.
L2-only audio will help you keep your focus on the
target language.

• Short Texts
• Why: Short texts in a new language are naturally easier
to digest than longer ones. They are also quicker to break
down, translate, and retranslate during the Bidirectional
Translation process.

• Texts in Dialogue Format

• Why: Language in its most natural form is conversational.
Dialogues help introduce you to this form of the language
in a simple and natural way and give you input that you
can readily use when it comes time to speak.

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Appearance
Once you choose your resource, you’re ideally going to be working
with it daily for a matter of months. Due to this, it is important that
the resource is pleasing to you in a number of ways.

To determine if a resource will be pleasing to you, ask yourself

the following questions:

• Visual Appearance
• Do I like this book visually?
• Why: You will be more likely to use a resource
that you find aesthetically pleasing.
• Do I like its cover?
• Why: This is the part of the book you’ll see the most.
• Do I like the way the pages are organised?
• Why: You’ll be interacting with the resource often,
so it’s incredibly important to know how to navigate
the content without getting lost or confused.
• Does it have colors? Do I like the way they they are
being used?
• Why: The use of colors impacts our emotional
experience while using the resource. The more enticing
the colors, the more enjoyable it will be to use
the book.

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 • Touch
• Do I like how the resource feels when I hold it in
my hands?
• Do I like the smell of it?
• Reading is not only a visual experience, but one that
can be tactile and olfactory as well. If you like how
a book feels and smells, you’ll have a better experience
with it overall.

Portability
Is it relatively small and portable?

• Why: You want a resource that you can bring with you
anywhere, so that you can study at times when it is most
convenient for you.

How many resources should you use to start learning?

• Early on in your learning, focus on one and only one

resource. Concentrating on a single resource will help you
avoid distraction and confusion, and make progress more
easily visible from one day to the next.

What kind of resource should you choose?

Language learning materials come in many forms: books,
apps, online courses, offline courses, and many others.
Though intangible resources like apps and online courses are easy
to use anywhere you go, we recommend that you begin learning

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with a printed resource, preferably in the form of a small book.
Dedicated resources like these will help you avoid the distractions
that come with their more technologically-sophisticated
counterparts.

Summary:
• Getting hold of a good language learning resource
is key to starting your language learning journey the
right way.

• A good language learning resource is:

• Comprehensible
• Progressive
• Pleasing to look at
• Pleasing to touch and handle
• Has text in both L1 and L2
• Comes with audio in the target language
• Contains dialogues
• Has easy, practical grammar notes

Now that you know what kind of language learning resource you’ll
be looking for, let’s move on to our action plan — actually getting
out there and finding one!

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 CHAPTER 2

LR – Listen While Reading

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can”
– Arthur Ashe

“A dream becomes a goal when action

is taken toward its achievement”
– Bo Bennett

Goal: To simultaneously read and listen to

material in your target language and, in doing so,
begin to understand the grammar, vocabulary,
and phonetics of the language.

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Why Listening while Reading?
Listening to target language audio while simultaneously reading
a transcript of that audio (also known as Listening while Reading,
or L-R, for short) is one of the simplest yet most powerful actions
you can take to acquire solid language skills.

Let’s look at each of these skills on their own.

As a beginner learner, when you first listen to your target language,

you will likely understand little, if any of it. Each sound flows into
the next, and it’s difficult to determine the boundaries between
words and sentences. Pure listening alone will not help you detect
these boundaries, so you’ll need to rely on other tools and
techniques to figure them out.

As a beginner learner, when you first read your target language, you
will, again, understand little of the material. The text may be full of
new symbols, signs, and letter combinations that will be difficult,
if not impossible, for you to decipher. Even if you can recognize
some features of the language through the text, you will be unable
to reliably pronounce the language as a native speaker would. Pure
reading, then, will not help you speak the language well, nor will
it help you be able to understand it when you hear it spoken.

Neither listening nor reading offers a perspective of your target

language that will help you reliably understand and reproduce it.

How, then, do we learn to reliably understand and reproduce

the language, even from the first day of learning?

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Simple! We just combine both activities into one, by listening
and reading at the same time.

By combining the strengths of one format with the weaknesses of

the other (and vice versa), the combination of listening and reading
does 3 magical things for you:

• It creates a strong perceptual bond between the

way a language is spoken and the way it is written.

• It provides comprehensible input, allowing you

to quickly gain understanding of the language,
even at the earliest levels.

• It helps you focus on the spelling of the language,

as few languages are written precisely how they
are pronounced.

Despite these benefits, there are two common objections to the

practice of listening while reading. Let’s examine them together,
and respond to each in turn.

1. Children first acquire language through listening only

(and later speaking). Written language is an artificial
extension of those earlier skills, and the ability to read
and write that language only comes much later, if at all.
Since children acquire native language skills primarily
through listening and speaking (and not reading and
writing), why rely on the other skills at all?

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 RESPONSE: The initial stages of acquiring a language as
a child are slow, and generally take years and thousands
of repetitions. Since most adults begin foreign language
learning after they already know how to read, they can
develop language skills at a much faster pace. On top of
that, adults have a capacity to listen and focus that dwarfs
that of children, allowing the learning process to progress
much more rapidly from the beginning.

2. Different languages often share the same script. Literate

adults of a language with a Latin-based script (e.g. English),
will often have trouble learning languages with another
Latin-based script (e.g. Spanish, or French). These learners
will have to “unlearn” the pronunciation rules of their native
language to learn the new one, or risk developing a strong
foreign accent.

RESPONSE: Foreign accents do not develop from the

carry-over of spelling and pronunciation rules from one
written language to another; instead, they develop due to
the differences between the phonetic (sound) inventory of
both languages. If done properly, reading while listening will
actually help you notice these phonetic differences, and use
that information to speak in a more native-like manner.

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Summary:
• L-R is a very powerful and simple action
for building your language skills

• You can already read in your mother tongue

as an adult

• L-R is comprehensible input

• L-R allows you to create a bond between
the way a language is spoken and the way
it is written

• L-R allows you to learn the spelling

of a given language from the very beginning

• L-R is a great, first step towards building great

intonation and pronunciation skills

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 CHAPTER 3

LR – Aim for
Deep Understanding
“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”
– Albert Einstein

Goal: The main goal of this chapter is to explain

what the difference between learning and studying
is and give you practical tools on how to analyse
and absorb the meaning of sentences and words
of your target language.

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The Importance of Learning How to Learn
You can’t learn what you cannot understand. Therefore, it is of the
utmost importance that you work to deeply understand the content
that you are simultaneously listening to and reading.

Nearly everyone wants to speak and use a language with real

people. This is not possible, however, without first understanding
how a language works.

This understanding, despite being a necessary condition for true

language ability, does not come immediately or automatically.
Whether or not you gain the ability to understand your language
at a deep level will be greatly dependent on the learning approach
that you use.

Most of us have been conditioned to use the “academic” approach

of language learning. This requires that we “study” a language like
we study math, or biology; that we use rote memorization and
pattern drills to force the language into our heads.

This may work for geography, biology, or any other fact-based

discipline, but not for language. A language is not a set of facts.
It is a skill that can be broken down into hundreds of tiny skills
that all work together to create language ability.

Skills, unlike facts, cannot be crammed into the brain. Learning

a skill (and understanding how the skill works) takes time, effort,
and the right kind of practice. To build the skill of understanding

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a language well, you need to see how all of the “pieces” of language
(sounds, syllables, words, phrases, etc.) fit together and organize
themselves into sentences to ultimately create meaning, and then
figure out how to do that on your own.

So, if you wish to deeply understand your target language, we’re

going to have you start at the top level—the sentence—and work
your way down to the smaller units of meaning, like phrases and
sounds. Through building a multi-tiered understanding of a text,
sentence by sentence, you will be able to extract linguistic patterns
that will help you both understand and produce even more of the
language in the future.

So, let’s begin by working with sentences as a whole.

This can be difficult at first. If you are learning a language

that is very distant from your target language, full-sentence
comprehension is going to take effort, as there will be fewer,
word-by-word translations from L1-L2, if any.

To give you a very easy example, let’s consider the following

sentence in Spanish:

“El día está nublado, me voy a llevar el paraguas por si las moscas”.

Literally translated it means:

“It is a cloudy day, I am taking an umbrella for if the flies”

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As you can see, even if you understand all of the individual words
that make up the sentence, the meaning of the sentence as a whole
may not be immediately obvious.

This is why we recommend that you work with a bilingual text.

Through comparing an L2 sentence with its corresponding
L1 sentence, you will more readily understand how meaning
is conveyed through different words and structures.

Returning to our example, let’s see if adding a proper English

translation will render the Spanish sentence easier to understand:

“It is a cloudy day, I am taking the umbrella just in case”.

The Spanish phrase “por si las moscas”, which originally did not
make sense when translated literally, can be now paired directly
with the English phrase “just in case”, making the Spanish sentence
entirely understandable to any English-speaking native.

This is an example when the topmost (sentence-level) meaning

helps you understand the smaller parts (words and phrases).
However, the opposite can also be true: occasionally, the sentence-
level meaning will not reveal the meaning of the smaller parts,
and you’ll have to gain understanding through a different strategy.
We will examine this strategy below.

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Summary:
• Understanding is a necessary step towards
absorbing and then using your target language

• Don’t study, but learn — learning a language

is acquiring a skill

• Languages have different structures and sentences

cannot often be translated literally

• Comparing sentences is great way to understand

the way sentences work and mean overall

• Grammar notes are a great help to clarify obscure

points that are difficult to understand by/through
mere comparison

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 CHAPTER 4

Put the Puzzle Together

“We are not creators; only combiners of the created.
Invention isn’t about new ingredients, but new recipes.
And innovations taste the best.”
– Ryan Lilly

Goal: Understand the benefits of repeatedly listening

to a text, even after you deeply understand it.
Employ strategies to refine your language skills
using these repeat listenings.

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The Importance of Listening and
Re-Listening to a Text
A single language has many structures and substructures that
all work together simultaneously. Even after you’ve gained a deep
understanding of a text, you can and should listen to a text over and
over again to gain knowledge of these sub-structures, and the role
they play in producing and comprehending language.

At this point, you know how to listen and read to a text for greater
understanding. This helps you learn the semantics of the language,
or rather, the underlying message the words aim to communicate.

Semantics, however, is just one piece of the puzzle. Even if you

know what a sentence or text means, you may not yet have fully
grasped its sound system (phonetics) its sentence structure (syntax),
its grammar, or any of a number of other details. Repeated
listenings will help you take these into account, and help you to
assemble the entire “puzzle” of the language effectively.

We’ve broken this down into steps for you, to avoid overwhelming
you with too much information at once:

• First, you will analyze the sounds of the language

and how they correspond with the written text.

• Then, you will examine the structure of the sentence,

and how that structure influences the overall meaning.

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Again, you will accomplish all this through repeated listenings
of the text that you already understand.

Once you have used repeated listenings to understand a specific

aspect of the sentence (be it sound or structure), you then will have
an easier time absorbing the remaining aspects of the framework.
Step by step, this will allow you to understand your target language
in all its key aspects, without overburdening the learning process.

Summary:
• Any sentence can be analyzed from different
points of view.

• It is important to carry out these analyses

step by step, to avoid overwhelm.

• After undertaking the single steps, you can put

together the whole puzzle with one final step.

• With practice, you will understand how sound

and structure—two seemingly different concepts—
blend together seamlessly to create the method
of communication known as human language.

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 CHAPTER 5

Phonetic Analysis
“I collect words—they are sweets in the mouth of sound.
– Sally Gardner

GOALS: Perform a simple phonetic analysis

—a procedure that will help you grasp
the phonetic structure of a given language.

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Intonation: Top-Down Analysis
vs. Bottom-Up Analysis
In order to develop good phonetic skills in a target language,
it is imperative to start off on the right foot by training yourself
to master your target language’s phonetic structure. In more
traditional language learning approaches, this training is either
lacking or entirely absent.

Most language classes in schools and universities focus on

a “bottom-up approach” to phonetics training. This means that
you start by practicing low-level phonetic elements (consonants
and vowels) and work up to pronouncing syllables, words,
and entire sentences.

While this does seem like a sensible way to master the sound
structure of a language, it actually creates more problems than
it solves.

Why?

The simple reason is that a sentence is not merely a collection

or addition of sound, it is a complex combination of them.
Focusing on pronouncing single sounds and then chaining
them together will not guarantee that you will utter a sentence
in a native-like manner. At best, your speech will sound robotic;
at worst, it will sound wrong altogether.

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To stress this, let’s look at two examples in Italian.

“Sono stato tre volte in Italia”

This is a sentence which means “I’ve been in Italy three times”

and

“L’Italia, considerato un grande paese, è la mia terra natale. “

In English: “Italy, considered a great country, is my native land”.

Let me repeat the 2 sentences one after the other.

Focus on the sounds of the word “Italia” in both sentences.

“Sono stato 3 volte in Italia”

“L’Italia, considerato un grande paese, è la mia terra natale. “

Do you think they sound exactly the same?

If you answered “no”, or “not quite”, you’re exactly right. The word
“Italia” is pronounced similarly in both cases, but in each example,
the word is uttered with a different intonation.

In the first case, the tone falls down on the syllable “ta” of Italia.
In the second sentence though, the tone rises, and then
a pause follows.

The reason is because in the first example, “Italia” is the key

element of the sentence; it is the where of where you have been.

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When you make a statement like that, the intonation must fall
on that key element.

The second sentence is essentially the phrase “L’Italia è la mia

terra natale” interrupted by a non-essential clause “Considerato
un grande paese”. To note this interruption, you must insert a rising
intonation on “Italia”, before finishing the sentence with a falling
intonation on “natale”.

The position and function a word (even the same word in two
different sentences) will change how it is intoned. This shows why
it is essential to understand the interaction between sound and
meaning, as we discussed in Chapter 4.

Every sentence has a series of pitch variations in specific points.

These make up the so-called speech melody, which is a part of
intonation, and the specific aspect we’ll focus on in this chapter.

Intonation, in turn, is simply the top-level structure of phonetics.

Beneath intonation, we have something called “connected speech”,
and beneath that, at the bottom of the “phonetic pyramid”,
we have the pronunciation of individual sounds.

Again, we’re going to look only at the top layer here; we mention
these other layers only to show how a bottom-up approach (or
a pronunciation-only approach) would miss top-level intonation
training, as most traditional pronunciation training methods stop
at the pronunciation of whole words.

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In general, a falling tone, which we’ll represent with an arrow
pointing downwards ( ) is normally associated with the delivery
of a single piece of information (i.e. a statement). It normally comes
at the end of statements, or inside bigger sentences when you are
delivering one piece of information after another, in sequence.

For example:

The single statement, “Yesterday I went to Church” would normally

be intoned as:

Yesterday I went to Church .

(In this representation, the intonation arrow is written after the

syllable on which it falls, meaning the intonation of the entire word
“church” is falling.

In a sentence with multiple statements, the falling tone usually

signifies that the sentence is over. This means that the intonation of
the initial statements must “flip” to a rising tone to accommodate
the falling intonation on the final statement.

This rising tone is on the last word of the first phrase, before a small
pause in speech known as a “phonetic pause”.

Yesterday I went to Church (phonetic pause) and then

to the mall .

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This works for a chain of statements of any length; every statement
previous to the last will have a rising intonation, and the last
statement in the “chain” will have a falling intonation.

Speech melody is a key part of intonation and carries

an invaluable amount of information. Think about it. Kids,
in fact, learn by focusing on the way sentences sound overall.
They first listen to short sentences, or chunks of sentences
(known as phrases). This is because natives don’t usually speak
in a one-word-at-a-time, monotonous rhythm. Instead, they opt to
chain one phrase into the next. As a consequence, children acquire
listening skills by focusing on phrase-level intonation, and then
move on to the lower-level phonetic units later.

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Summary:
• Full phonetic training (that incorporates intonation,
connected speech, and pronunciation) is typically
lacking or entirely absent from language classes
and courses.

• A correct phonetic training is a great way to come

to terms with the phonetic structure of any language.

• Kids learn sounds by focusing on the upper layer

of phonetics, known as intonation.

• Adults, instead, are most often taught backwards, by

focusing on the single sounds to then form sentences.

• When pronounced, sounds combine, change,

and influence one another. Speech is not a simple
stream of individual sounds, one after another.

• Phonetics is made of intonation and pronunciation.

• Speech melody, a key part of intonation, takes into
account the way the overall tone of a sentence rises
and lowers.

• Sentences can be broken down into a series of chunks

connected with each other through phonetic pauses.

• A falling tone corresponds to a complete piece

of information.

• A rising tone corresponds to an incomplete piece

of information.

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 CHAPTER 6

Review (REW)
“Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action,
which makes it the architect of accomplishment.”
– Zig Ziglar

Goals: Review recently-learned material in a variety

of engaging and memorable ways.

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Static and Dynamic Repetition
It’s nearly impossible to learn to do something well by only doing
it one time. Learning is a process, not an event, and so requires
repetition after repetition to solidify new procedural knowledge
in the brain.

A common way of getting repetition in language learning is through

a process called reviewing. This is when you re-read, re-listen to,
or otherwise re-cover information you’ve already been exposed to,
typically from a previous lesson.

Though review is good for your learning, it’s not always effective.
Some review techniques are better than others, and result in more
reliable learning over time.

How you review information is just as important as reviewing

that information in the first place. If done improperly, review can
waste more time than it saves, so it’s key that you develop a good
and varied repertoire of review methods if you wish to learn
a language well.

To illustrate my point, let’s compare an example of poor review

practices with another of good review practices.

Meet Mark and John. They are two Americans who have decided to
learn German. They’ve been following along with this guide, so by
now they’ve covered one dialogue in their respective language

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learning resources, and have gone back, now on Day 3
(Day 2 was dedicated to PA), to review what they learned.

Mark takes the dialogue and reads and listens to it again in German
two or three times, just as he did on Day 1.

Mark is engaging in what we call static repetition. This means

that he reviews the information in exactly the way he initially was
exposed to it (i.e. through listening and reading in German only).

John, like Mark, decides to re-listen to the audio as well. However,

he decides not to simultaneously re-read the text in German this
time. Instead, he reads the text in English while listening to the
audio in German.

Despite the information covered all being “old”, (that is, from the
previous day), John is reviewing using a method that is different
from the method he used for initial exposure. This is still repetition,
but a change in techniques transforms it into dynamic repetition.

The effects of John’s decision to “mix up” his review strategies might
seem minimal on the surface, but can lead to much more effective
learning down the line. This is because John is “attacking” the same
piece of information from a different angle, while Mark is simply
taking the same approach again and again. Static repetition easily
bores the brain, while dynamic repetition adds just enough variation
to keep things interesting and engaging.

When it comes time to review, you, like John, can decide to review
a text in many different ways. Since we are examining each text

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through reading, listening and writing in multiple languages, we can
mix and match these sensory “modalities” to create many different
possible review scenarios.

The more varied your review techniques are, the more efficiently
you will learn. This is because variation is what the brain needs to
stay focused and interested, even when reviewing old information.
Done right, dynamic repetition will introduce just enough variety
to give you that focus, and will speed up your ability to put “old”
information into long term memory as you continue to learn
new information every day.

Summary:
• Repetition is fundamental for the acquisition
of any skill.

• Daily review sessions are an important step for building

repetition into your language learning process.

• To learn most effectively, you need to find ways

to create engaging and efficient review sessions.

• The best review sessions are ones that approach

old information in a new way.

• Having a broad repertoire of review strategies will

help introduce variety into your sessions, making it
easier for your brain to acquire learned information
for the long term.

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 CHAPTER 7

Translate into Your

Native Language (L2>L1)
“If you want to learn any foreign language,
start from your own.”
– Luca Lampariello

GOALS: Learn to translate from your target language

into your mother tongue in an efficient,
engaging way.

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The Art of Translating
When you first learn a foreign language, your only other reference
point for what a language is and how a language works is your
mother tongue.

As beginner learners, it is natural to compare and contrast your

native language and your target language, trying to figure out how
one functions in relation to the other. Often, any contact with the
new language is followed by a second or two of mental translation,
a “filter” that helps us understand new content quickly.

Sometimes, this mental interference between the two languages

is viewed as a negative. People see reliance on a first language
to be a hindrance to picking up a second, as this is not how
we naturally acquired languages as children.

I tend to disagree. Though translation from a foreign language

into your native tongue may initially slow down the process, if used
in an effective way, translation can be a tool to speed up beginner
acquisition of the language overall.

Combining translation with your own knowledge of your own

mother tongue can help you bring structure, familiarity, and
expertise to a seemingly strange, unfamiliar, and intangible
new language.

In fact, translating texts from your target language into your native
tongue is an excellent way to focus-in on your new language,

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understand it in a deeper way, and make your language learning
more personalized in the process.

Let’s return to the dialogue that you’ve been dissecting up to this

point. On Day 1, you were exposed to it for the first time. On Day 2,
you carried out a Phonetic Analysis on it. On Day 3, you reviewed it.

Today, on Day 4, I’m going to ask you to take out the text, put it in
front of you, and look only at the version written in your target
language. (Cover up the L1 translation if you have to).

With the L2 text in hand, read each line and then translate it into
your mother tongue. As you translate the text mentally, write down
the translated version on a separate sheet of paper, or type it up
on a computer.

By doing this, you will notice 3 key things:

1. To successfully translate, you must first understand

You cannot translate what you do not understand. Through mentally
translating the text and then writing it down, you are required to
slow down and ensure that you understand everything the text is
attempting to communicate.

Producing a successful translation means that you know how to

deconstruct your target language, understand how all the pieces
work, convert the pieces into their equivalent native language ones,
and then reconstruct that language in a natural, coherent way.

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 2. Translation requires focus, and tests memory
To ensure that the original target language meaning carries
through to the new, mother tongue translation, you must
concentrate on every detail and nuance of the text.

Focus is a requirement for effective translation, and also

for writing out the translation by hand or on the computer.
The combination of translating and writing necessitates rapt
attention, and as such will help you notice things that may
have escaped you during other sessions.

3. You will develop a personal bond with the text

As mentioned above, this L2 to L1 translation activity requires you
to recreate a text that you already have (we take for granted that
you are learning from a bilingual text).

To recreate an existing text in this way may seem repetitive,

unnecessary, or a waste of time, but the truth of the matter is
that doing so will help you create an L1 version of the text that
is intrinsically and uniquely yours.

You see, when you open the book to a random dialogue and read it,
you probably won’t feel so connected to the material. Someone else
wrote it, and you’re just there to digest it. If, however, you choose
to recreate that text in your own words, your engagement with
the material will be much greater. Since the new translated text
is yours and yours alone, you’ll relate to it more, and feel more

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responsible for a successful resolution to the entire bidirectional
translation process.

This personalization process greatly benefits learning. In fact,

rephrasing information into your own words and making it
personally relevant to you are practices that will improve retention
and recall of that same information over time. If you write your
L1 translation in a way that makes the most sense to you, you will
have a much easier time retranslating later, when we get to the
L1>L2 stage.

Summary:
• Translation into your mother tongue is a great
step towards understanding your target language
more fully.

• Translation enhances focus, and helps you understand

the material even deeper than you had previously.

• Translating into your own words helps to personalize

the text, and make it more relatable and easy to retain
and recall in the future.

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 CHAPTER 8

Take a Break
& Keep a Logbook
“There is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest.
Use both and overlook neither.”
– Alan Cohen

GOALS: Understand how rest can benefit

the learning process. Start and maintain a journal
or logbook of your learning, to track progress
and monitor your achievements over time.

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Taking Breaks
When learning a language, it is natural to think that cramming
more hours of study in a shorter time will lead to quicker and better
results. This is only partially true. More time on task will fuel greater
improvements in your skill, but too much time on task can easily
lead to frustration, fatigue, and burnout.

To strike a balance between learning too much and too little,

it is important to understand the value of taking occasional breaks.

Scheduling deliberate pauses in your learning will:

• Reduce mental and physical fatigue

• Allow the brain to consolidate newly learned information,
and move it into long-term memory.

• Allow the brain to forget information that is unnecessary

or irrelevant to your learning.

• Recharge your energy and enthusiasm for future

learning sessions.

In terms of the bidirectional translation process, it is important

to schedule breaks between translating an L2 text into your native
tongue (L1) and the next step, when you translate it back.

Appropriately timed breaks will allow your memory to “work on”

the information. After the break, you will find that you remember
some of what you learned, but not all of it. Don’t worry—
This forgetting that takes place is an important and necessary
part of the learning process.

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Keeping a Logbook
Another important part of the learning process is monitoring
your progress.

The human memory can be fickle—once you have some experience

under your belt, it’s very easy to focus on how much work you have
in front of you, and forget exactly how much progress you’ve
already made.

The ability to see your progress is an important part of maintaining

your motivation, that’s why we’re now going to ask you to keep
a logbook detailing what, when, and how you learn over time.

Keeping a journal, diary, or some other record of your language

learning provides a number of powerful benefits, including:

• Easy Organization — Writing everything down into a simple

notebook helps you stay organized. Taking daily notes of
your learning will help you keep track of what you’ve done,
when you did it, how you did it, and what you need to do
next. If you keep these notes in a simple, portable notebook,
you’ll be able to refer to this information whenever and
wherever you need it, streamlining the learning process.

• Accountability — Starting and maintaining a physical record

of your learning will motivate you to stay on track, even
when your enthusiasm wanes. Once you have a streak of
several learning sessions logged in the logbook, you will

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 feel the urge to avoid breaking that streak, and leaving any
empty pages.

• Building a Sense of Accomplishment — Much of learning

is intangible — since it all takes place in the confines of your
brain, it’s hard to look at it as a whole, and see how far
you’ve come. A physical logbook, however, filled with pages
and pages of detailed notes can be a valuable resource for
making intangible progress tangible. Once completed,
previous notebooks can always be referred back to, and you
can even show them to others as “trophies” of your efforts.

Summary:
• Breaks and pauses play a valuable role in learning,
and can make the overall process more efficient
than it would be without them.

• Breaks help you avoid burnout, and increase

motivation and enthusiasm for future learning.

• If allowed to rest, the brain will naturally process

recently learned information, keeping what is
necessary and discarding the rest.

• Monitoring your progress by means of a journal,

diary, or other logbook can help you stay organized,
and both maintain and build motivation over
the long-term.

Page 43
 CHAPTER 9

Translate into Your

Target Language (L1>L2)
“Happiness lies in the joy of achievement
and the thrill of creative effort”
– Franklin D. Roosevelt

GOALS: To translate a text from your native language

back into your target language.

Page 44
Re-translating a text from your native language back into the target
language is a great way to memorize words as well as using them
to build the skill of forming sentences in your own native language
and has a lot of other incredible cognitive benefits.

The Power of Reverse Translation

Have you ever wondered why many graduates of high-school
or college language programs have difficulty stringing sentences
together, even after five or six years of study?

It’s not for a lack of words. These students know tons of words.

It’s because despite knowing all those words, they’ve never become
accustomed to thinking in and creating entire sentences on the fly.
For these students, words remain words, and don’t flow naturally
into sentences, as they do for natives.

It is possible to think naturally in sentences in a foreign language,

even from the earliest stages. The method, however, requires
a different approach from the academic, words-based one.

This approach is called reverse translation.

It works in two parts:

First, you translate a text from your target language into your native
language. You did this in Chapter 7.

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Now, you need to take that translated version (currently in your L1)
and translate it back into your target language.

Since you’ve already seen the original target language version of the
text, trying to recreate it via a reverse translation will exercise your
brain’s ability to recall information.

Let me explain:

Recall, along with recognition, is one of two ways our brain

retrieves information from our long-term memory.

Recognition is the easiest and less mentally stimulating of these

two processes.

Say, for example, that on one day you learn that the Hungarian
word for “agriculture” is “mezőgazdaság”.

If, on the next day, I give you a multiple choice test and ask you
to pick the Hungarian word for “agriculture” out of a four-option
list, you will likely settle quickly on the correct answer. Since the
word “mezőgazdaság” is printed among the options, you will easily
recognize it.

But what if there was no multiple choice test?

What if I instead gave you a sheet of paper with a simple question,

like “What is the Hungarian word for agriculture?”

Page 46
This problem is inevitably much harder, as it requires your brain
to pull the example fully from memory without external cues.
This is a recall problem.

In terms of stimulating learning, recall is invariably the more

effective of the two types of testing. If your brain is forced to
retrieve information “from scratch” it will expend much more
effort than it would if the information were right there in front
of you. The more effort your brain expends in trying to remember
something, the more likely you are you remember it over the
long term.

This is why reverse translation of sentences, phrases and dialogues

is such a powerful technique; by translating from L2 to L1 and back
again, you’re essentially trying to recreate an L2 text you’ve already
seen—you’re trying to recall the entire thing from memory,
with only L1 cues to help you.

In addition to stimulating recall, the reverse translation process

helps you:

• Develop implicit and explicit knowledge: You are learning

not only new words, but how they fit together naturally
in context.

• Improve focus and increase mental energy: To translate

properly, you need to focus-in on meaning of the sentence,
and then form a viable target language sentence based

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 upon that meaning. This intense focus on the details
of the language will help you absorb and use the language
more effectively over time.

• Think in the target language: Reverse translation requires

you to think in terms of ideas first, and words second. If you
can rapidly create sentences from ideas (as you will learn to
with this method), you will be able to speak and write
quickly and easily, on the fly.

• Self-correct: Translating and retranslating reveals the gaps

in your learning, whether they be in terms of vocabulary,
grammar structures, or even spelling.

• Develop typing and writing skills: Following the two-part

translation process will require you learn how to write and/
or type in your target language’s script.

• Gain a sense of reward: By retranslating a text using this

method, you will feel a considerable sense of
accomplishment that will build every time you complete
a new translation. This creates a feedback loop that can
serve to build motivation from one day to the next.

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Summary:
• Translating and retranslating texts is an effective
way to think in full sentences in your target language,
even from the early stages.

• Reverse translation exercises your brain’s ability

to recall previously learned information.

• Reverse translation is an effortful mental activity

that requires great focus and attention to detail.

• It helps you stay focused

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 CHAPTER 10

Final Wrap-Up
”One language sets you in a corridor for life.
Two languages open every door along the way.”
– Frank Smith

Closing the Loop

By now, you’ve seen every step of the bidirectional
translation process.

But you’re not done yet!

Why is that, you ask?

Page 50
Because bidirectional translation is not a race; it doesn’t have
a start and an end.

Instead, it’s more like a loop, or circle. You follow the path once
for one foreign language text or dialogue, and then do it again for
the next. Ad infinitum (or at least until you’ve gone through your
whole book).

Each time you complete the circle, you will have gone through
six different steps, approaching a single target language text from
six completely different angles over a six-day period:

• Listening and Reading

• Phonetic Analysis
• Review
• Translation (L2 to L1)
• Break
• Reverse Translation (L1 to L2).
Once you’ve completed each of the six steps for a single text,
unit, or dialogue, you can consider that text to be fully absorbed.
Since you’ve closed the “cognitive circle”, you don’t need to review
or recall the information again.

And with that, you’ve reached the end of our Bidirectional

Translation Miniguide!

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Now, you know how to:

• Select the learning material that is right for you.

• Use your learning material efficiently and effectively.
• Absorb a text using the basic, 6-step bidirectional
translation process:
1. Perform a listening and reading session, understanding
the material and listening again after understanding.
2. Carry out a phonetic analysis, examining the intonation
and sounds of a language in a top-down approach.
3. Review the material in new and interesting ways.
4. Translate the text into your native language,
customizing it as you go.
5. Take a break. In that time, let your memory settle
down and create a logbook where you can keep track
of your learning.
6. Re-translate the text into your target language, learning
to synthesize full sentences from their overall meaning.

Before you go, remember that:

• Every step should not require more than 10-15 minutes

• In order for this technique to work, you have to practice
it every single day, until it becomes a habit.

• Daily practice is easiest when it is planned. Build a weekly

language learning schedule and try to devote at least
30 minutes daily to your learning.

Page 52
 About the Author
and LinguaCore

Luca Lampariello is an expert language learner from Rome, Italy,

and a co-founder of LinguaCore. Currently, he speaks thirteen
languages, ten of which at a fluent level. Since 2008, he has shared
his language learning techniques and methods via his personal
YouTube channel and his blog, called The Polyglot Dream. Luca has
also spent the last five years working independently as a language
coach, helping language learners achieve their goals through
one-on-one lessons. Altogether, his teachings have attracted
thousands of followers, and inspired people from all around
the world to become proficient in foreign languages.

Page 53
LinguaCore is a language learning and education company founded
in 2015 by Luca Lampariello and George Shumay. Based in Berlin,
Germany, LinguaCore embraces the notion that anyone can learn
a language through independent study, so long as they understand
the essential elements of learning and skill-development.

Currently, LinguaCore supports a growing community of language

learners online, who gather together to take and discuss video-
and audio-based courses developed by LinguaCore’s in-house
language experts. LinguaCore specializes in offering language
learning material, methods, and techniques that are applicable to
any language, as opposed to the single-language material commonly
found elsewhere. LinguaCore also emphasizes a “human approach”
to language learning, eschewing classic textbooks, classrooms,
and grammar drills in favor of conversation, connection,
and cultural understanding.

Page 54
 About the Main Course
Is the Full Bidirectional Translation
Premium Course Right for You?
As the title of the e-book suggests, How to Start Any Language:
The Compact Guide to the Bidirectional Translation Course,
is a companion guide to a larger, more in-depth language learning
course, called Bidirectional Translation: Build Your Core Skills
in Any Language.

This book is intended not as a substitute for that course,

but as a brief introduction to Bidirectional Translation,
a unique and comprehensive method for starting to learn
any foreign language.

The goal of this compact guide is to get you started with the
Bidirectional Translation as fast as possible, so that you can
quickly find the language learning results you seek. However,
condensing the course into a portable e-book/audiobook format
has meant losing some of the most powerful features of the
premium course, including:

• 12 Instructional Video Modules (1hr, 42 mins total,

presented by Luca Lampariello & George Shumay)

• 10 Action Steps with accompanying audio

and PDF transcripts.

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 • 10 Quizzes to help monitor your progress, and provide
LinguaCore with valuable feedback with which to improve
future versions of the course.

• Extra Material
• Practice dialogues in Italian, French, and Spanish,
with accompanying audio and PDF transcripts.
• Example Schedules
• In addition to the Standard Schedule, you will receive
two modified schedules, which will allow you to follow
the Bidirectional Translation method at a faster or
slower pace than the standard, if necessary.

• Online Access to Community Features

• Monthly Webinars where you can share your questions
and concerns with the course creators.

If you find yourself struggling with the method, or wanting

to explore its facets in greater detail, then we recommend that
you purchase the full course at LinguaCore.com. Once you unlock
the full course, all of the above features will immediately become
available to you. You can use the value of the book to get
a 20 Euro discount for the course by using the Coupon code:
bdguide20

PURCHASE THE FULL COURSE AT:

https://www.linguacore.com/courses/
bidirectional-translation-build-core-skills-language/

Page 56
 Contact
www.linguacore.com
LinguaCore’s front page and the home of its exclusive
language learning platform. As part of the growing community
of LinguaCore members, language learners can gather here
to watch courses, discuss their learning, and interact with
LinguaCore’s in-house language experts.

https://www.linguacore.com/polyglotdream/
Run by LinguaCore co-founder Luca Lampariello,
The Polyglot Dream is a place where language enthusiasts
can freely access posts, videos, and articles on Luca’s unique
language learning methods.

https://www.linguacore.com/blog/
The second of two blogs hosted on the LinguaCore platform,
the LinguaCore Blog a collection of language learning articles
on a variety of topics. There, you will find in-depth analyses of
language learning concepts, product reviews, opinion pieces,
content series, resource recommendations, and much,
much more.

Page 57
 Social Media Links
– Subscribe, Like, and Share!

LinguaCore on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/linguacore/
The Facebook page for general LinguaCore news
and announcements.

The Polyglot Dream on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/thepolyglotdream/
The Facebook page for updates to Luca Lampariello’s popular
The Polyglot Dream language learning blog.

LinguaCore on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/
UCNhXADBtaKhZ2_Hm68eqL9w
The home of LinguaCore’s language learning videos on YouTube.

Luca Lampariello on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/user/poliglotta80
Luca Lampariello’s popular YouTube channel, followed by
over 50,000 users and language learners. The channel contains
more than 100 published videos on a variety of language
learning topics.

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