Definitely, I’ve made a big jump in English understanding in (since?) the last few days. And again, I’m stopping, not knowing if “since the last day” is correct. I think ChatGPT will clarify it for me.
At the moment, I was browsing through YouTube videos for language talks, and after some well-known speaker, I came across a new one, Thiago, who spoke about understanding once again and listed all the obstacles, the barriers, which are disrupting the fluent understanding process.
He emphasized the following: first, not knowing enough vocabulary; second, not knowing all the suitable collocations — that means the connection of words, especially attributes with nouns, which are quite common, quite natural.
Third, not recognizing usual connections — that means putting together some words into one (merging into chunks) of one or more syllables, without pauses before starting the next one. Often, the last letter or sound of the first word is taken as the first one of the next word.
I noted a lot of his examples were already stuck in my head. I think I know more than I thought.
Coming back to the beginning of this article — the big step in understanding. The breakthrough took place after giving up translating in any direction.
Anyway, it’s better to guess the meaning or to look for it in a monolingual English dictionary than to disrupt your English thinking by grasping for the right German word, either for translating it or vice versa.
While writing this article, I had to struggle with that problem sometimes again, and I find it irritating — grasping for suitable English formulations which I know and can handle, rather than looking for the short English term for the corresponding German words. I’m afraid it prevents me from expanding my vocabulary because I was not searching for the best English term.