> avoid the hardest and most essential skill: translating from your language to the other.
The hardest and most essential skill, second only to: not translating from your language to the other :)
(or maybe it should be the other way around; translating is useful but a really hard crutch to kick. Keeping it around will make it hard to keep up while speaking/listening and make reading a slog)
> Keeping it around will make it hard to keep up while speaking/listening and make reading a slog
That's not something against translating, that just means you haven't done it enough yet, so you're still too slow.
The first time you translate a basic sentence it might take 10s. 2nd time 5s. And so on. The 100th time it takes 0.05s and you can just say it without thinking. If one just keeps translating, you automatically reach that point.
The hardest and most essential skill, second only to: not translating from your language to the other :)
(or maybe it should be the other way around; translating is useful but a really hard crutch to kick. Keeping it around will make it hard to keep up while speaking/listening and make reading a slog)