🚫📱 Why Relying on Google Translate Might Be Holding You Back

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Transcript

Hello everyone, bonjour tout le monde, welcome back to the French Made Easy podcast!

In today's episode, I wanted to touch on a topic that's so relevant in today's digital age of language learning: the use of Google Translate.

Now, don't get me wrong. Google Translate can be a fantastic tool. It's quick, it's handy, and it can really help you communicate your thoughts when you're just starting to learn French. But, relying too much on translation tools can also become a crutch.

And the reason why I wanted to talk to you about it today is because a student of mine messaged me a couple of days ago. He felt he was 'cheating' by using Google Translate too much to help with his French exercises. And I definitely heard that from other learners in the past.

First of all, I don't ever want any of you to feel like you're cheating! 

You're not sitting for a high-stress French exam here. I really want you to enjoy the learning process and obviously to progress little by little. Feeling guilty, or thinking you're cheating, will not help. That's not what we want.

Now, many students use Google Translate for quick translations. (Me, including, I use it sometimes when I need a quick translation in English!) If you've been using it, it's perfectly OK! Nothing wrong with that, it can be a very practical tool.

But as per everything in life, it’s all about balance! If you find yourself relying on Google Translate too often, it might result in:

• 🔍 A Loss of Authenticity: Translating your thoughts and full sentences into French using a translation tool might give you sentences that don't quite sound natural or authentic in conversation, even if they are grammatically correct. (And they aren't always correct.)

• 🧠 Missed Learning Opportunities: Every time you let Google Translate do the work, you miss a chance to train your brain, to make mistakes, and learn from making mistakes, which is often where real learning happens. 

• 🗣 Dependency Over Independence: By constantly relying on a tool, you may struggle in real-life conversations in French where you have to reply to someone quickly and can't always whip out your phone to use Google Translate.

If you're looking to use the translator less, let me share a few tips with you:

1. Practice Without It: Set specific study days or sessions where you'll practice your French without any translation tools. And by the way, if you really don't have enough vocabulary to get you going, using an online dictionary is a much better option to search for individual words. It's more reliable, and gives you more context.

2. Make Mistakes: Embrace them! They're proof that you're pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and also, once you make a mistake once or twice, you're more likely to learn from it and not do it again!

3. Seek Feedback: If you can, whether it's through a study companion, a French friend, or your French teacher – try to get feedback on your sentences. This will help you improve far more than any app can. 

So, in the end, it's absolutely fine to use tools like Google Translate. But it's all about balance, just make sure these translation tools help your learning and don't do all the work for you. Remember it's a tool only, what you want is to be able to create sentences on your own, so you can speak French with confidence. So there you go - those are my thoughts on using Google Translate! 

If this episode resonated with you, and you want to speak French without always using Google Translate, join my FREE masterclass: 3 Steps to Correct French Sentence Success. I'll share with you the method I teach my students to help them create French sentences on their own.

I hope to see you there.

À bientôt, bye.

Mathilde