Translation Methods

INTRODUCTION —

According to Peter in this passage, our life in the flesh is temporary and fleeting — all the glory of man is compared to the flower of grass, which shall wither and fall away with the passing of time. Contrasted to this is the enduring nature of the Word of God. God’s Word will never wither and pass away as the grass, as our bodies of flesh or as the things in which man often glories. No, the Word of the Lord will endure forever.

The Word of God does not consist in the paper, ink, leather and binding of our Bibles, but in the living truth which is communicated to us through the medium of the words we read therein. Jesus said in Jn. 6:63, “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”

SECOND-LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODS

Below is a description of the basic principles and procedures of the most recognized methods for teaching a second or foreign language.

For a survey of the history of second or foreign language teaching click here.

Click here for L2 teaching methods described below:

Grammar-Translation Approach
Direct Approach
Reading Approach
Audiolingual Method
Community Language Learning
The Silent Way
Communicative Approach–Functional-Notional
Total Physical Response

GRAMMAR-TRANSLATION (Indirect) Method

Application of methods used in Latin and Greek to teaching of modern languages. Rules of grammar, not the language itself, are all important. Verb declensions are set out tables, vocabulary lists to be learned, leading to translation from mother tongue into target language and vice-versa. Little or no attention to pronunciation.

Assumption was that language consists of written words and of words which exist in isolation, as though they were individual bricks which could be translated one by one into their foreign equivalents and then assessed according to grammatical rules into sentences in the foreign language.

Translation Methods

Translation Theory and Methods

• Against the Theory of ‘Dynamic Equivalence’ by Michael Marlowe
• Was the Bible Written in ‘Street Language’? by Michael Marlowe
• Language and Thought. The history and current status of the idea that language shapes the way we think.