Don't do that. As a polyglot, I recommend you stop transmapping languages; instead, learn each on it's own, mapping it only to your own mental meaning. Hard to explain, but it's better to learn grammar implicitly; remember the exceptions (e.g. irregular verbs) individually and whenever you need to conjugate a new verb, go with your gut feeling and see if it's similar to one of the common rules or one of the exceptions you have learned.
For acquiring vocabulary, learn the meaning of the word (internal mental meaning) and its dictionary description in the new language. You will be using the language itself to describe its vocabulary. That way, if you forget the word, you can rewrite the phrase in your mind and expand the description in-place (e.g. "I need to call my father's brother" is still a correct sentence, even if you forget the word "uncle".)
For newbie language learners, it's the single words that are hard to remember, since they might resemble other words, while descriptive phrases are easy to remember since they're long string sequences and whence easy to match in your head.
P.S. Also, if you have a buddy who speaks English (preferably very little of it) try to troll him by generating sentences and let him correct you. It's not as tiring to him as it might seem at first, most people are amused by bad grammar and you will be a town pub favorite. Absorb all the corrections and try to use them immediately, generating other similar sentences.
I recommend you stop transmapping languages; instead, learn each on it's own, mapping it only to your own mental meaning.
Second that. I spent a year in Japan, and got to the point where I could have fairly comfortable conversations, even in both languages if you were at a party with both native speakers. What really stressed out the mental faculties was having to translate, because you had to do the whole mental re-mapping, which you didn't have to go through for a single-language conversation (or even for two separate conversations in different languages).
Thank you, sir, for this detailed reply. It's really useful, especially these parts about 'mental meaning'(each man have his own mental picture of the word dog') and about descriptions in the new language. Yes, oxford's dictionary of synonyms is enough for practicing English.
And of course, personal communication is the key. But some times it is very difficult to pass trough a communication border. For example, I have many Nepali friends who speaks some subset of English (very similar to that I'm speaking) but it's impossible for me to start learning Nepali language from them, because of limitedness of our English.
Don't do that. As a polyglot, I recommend you stop transmapping languages; instead, learn each on it's own, mapping it only to your own mental meaning. Hard to explain, but it's better to learn grammar implicitly; remember the exceptions (e.g. irregular verbs) individually and whenever you need to conjugate a new verb, go with your gut feeling and see if it's similar to one of the common rules or one of the exceptions you have learned.
For acquiring vocabulary, learn the meaning of the word (internal mental meaning) and its dictionary description in the new language. You will be using the language itself to describe its vocabulary. That way, if you forget the word, you can rewrite the phrase in your mind and expand the description in-place (e.g. "I need to call my father's brother" is still a correct sentence, even if you forget the word "uncle".)
For newbie language learners, it's the single words that are hard to remember, since they might resemble other words, while descriptive phrases are easy to remember since they're long string sequences and whence easy to match in your head.
P.S. Also, if you have a buddy who speaks English (preferably very little of it) try to troll him by generating sentences and let him correct you. It's not as tiring to him as it might seem at first, most people are amused by bad grammar and you will be a town pub favorite. Absorb all the corrections and try to use them immediately, generating other similar sentences.