Translating articles can be rewarding, you’re right. Here in Japan they have a wide selection of books aimed at foreigners that are just a collection of articles. Japan is also famous for its plethora of comic books, which can come in handy. Translation is a great way to pick up vocabulary in a context, but you also have to take great care to actually learn the words you are translating. I’ve found that it’s quite easy to use a dictionary to look up unknown words without really thinking about them. If you translate a lot of articles, you can actually fall into the hole of becoming quite skilled at this kind of “passive” translation.

The temptation is to just translate once through and be done with it, but we really have to make an effort to pay attention and make sure we are picking up the target language. This can be frustrating when reading a comic book, as you want to know what happens next in the story but you have to slow down in the interest of language learning.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you’ll come back again in the future!

As for staying motivated, I’ve found it helps to set specific goals of manageable size, such as translating a story or article. You feel like you’re really using the language and not just memorizing grammar rules and vocabulary.

Good luck with your language learning. I look forward to reading more about your adventures!