I am doing that with Finnish. Using very "basic" important,meaningful words for myself...I find it effective. What do you think about that?

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I would just write the diary in the target language and then get it corrected (e.g. through LingQ). If you don't want to pay to have it corrected every day, maybe just get one entry corrected per week. In six months you'll look back at your early diary entries and you'll be able to spot mistakes on your own.

This was an idea that I had when I was starting out in Czech and really could not say anything. The idea was that I could get a sense of how to say things in my new target language. I often use google translate in this way. It is not a substitute for listening to and reading authentic content, but a means to get a sense of how to say the things that I want to say in a new language. I must admit that since I have limited time, I mostly just listen and read. But if given the chance to write in English and see the translation, as opposed to writing directly in the target language, I often prefer the former. Maybe I am just lazy.

I also find Google translate generally good enough, and I usually have enough knowledge to fix up the strange parts.

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I agree. Translations into German are often strange or funny. The grammar of German and the word order differs from English. I guess that influences the result. I would definitely not use it for German.

Wouldn't that be perfect though....

Thanks you all to comment. @Imyirt. You give me a good idea. I would like to try to write in Finnish then translate it back to English for ex. The thing is that at the stage I'm in Finnish I don't bother that much with accuracy, because what I need now is learn more words. Be able to comunicate. Writing motivates me. And the most important for me now is to pick up the words, and I feel That reviewing words I have written(my feelings,beliefs, ideas etc)kind of stay in my memory, my brain seems to operate differently. Of course I do read books, articles at LingQ etc. I have several Finnish books- courses(CDs etc).

@peter, that is not a bad idea. I will write it down in my language journey list. Or better to say Finnish language marathon list. You have been a great help here at LingQ(with Finnish)for me. Looking forward to talk to you in that language my friend.

@vera thanks. For me a bit funny or strange it's ok for now. The Google dictionary English-Finnish is not that bad. When I write clear-basic sentences I find it actually good. However if I want to use the Portuguese dictionary is not the same. Authentic material of course, always! Anyway I think writing my daily dictionary is not harming my learning process. Don't you think so?

I will not do that with languages like English, Spanish, German etc here at LingQ because the library have a lot of content. Finnish does not have. Another point when I review my flash cards(sometimes) the LingQ flash cards does not motivates me very much especially if there are some too complex sentences in Finnish difficult to follow. It happens quite often because I'm reading just imported content from Wikipedia etc etc. I am looking for new content( a bit easy to follow)?!

What Steve means here??: "But if given the chance to write in English and see the translation, as opposed to writing directly in the target language, I often prefer the former. Maybe I am just lazy." thanks to comment Steve. I agree with you that the google translator is not bad.

Peter I must add- great help not only with Finnish with English as well. Thank you.

Anytime, Juliana.

By the way, Steve meant that he would rather write in English and see the translation in the target language than write directly in the target language.

http://www.talktalk.co.uk/reference/dictionarie...

All right! many thanks, Now I got it.

I think many people at Lang-8 have done the very same thing that Steve advocates. If you can clean up the obvious mistakes a translator makes, it saves time to use a translator. If you aren't at an intermediate level, then it's not so easy. However, it's not really that bad in some languages.

I'm going to have to agree with the forum and disagree with Steve, I think Finnish and English (or Portuguese) are different enough that translations between the two are probably pretty bad (kinda like how translations between English and Asian languages are worse than those between English and Indo-European languages). There are lots of cases and funky grammar rules in Finnish that I doubt Google translate would handle too well. Go ahead and do it I guess if it helps, but be careful.

If I were in your situation (and I might be soon if I keep going with Arabic lol) I would probably just go straight for the authentic content and start importing articles from Wikipedia or news sites and such. You don't have to do a lot at once, maybe just like a paragraph or even one or two sentences. It's tedious, it sucks, keep a grammar book on hand, but it does work after a while.

While I find google translate good for my languages, and really good for Czech, I must admit that I did continue with my original idea. Once I could understand more interesting content, I just kept on listening and reading. When I do need to writer in Czech, however, I also admit to using google translate and then making any necessary adjustments.

@osaieh thanks for your comment. I understand your point of view and I agree with you somehow. Of course I do import everyday articles, news to LingQ and apart I read Finnish books etc etc. The idea to start writing is just an extra thing. When I get bored or frustrated while not understanding the complex structures of that language.