What do you think?
When you're practicing writing Spanish or thinking Spanish in your head and you come to a word that you don't know, either how to conjugate a verb correctly or you're missing a noun - is it better to:
a) Look up the word, or
b) Use the Spanish available to you (try to figure out how to conjugate the verb based on what you know, or say the sentence in a more roundabout way so you won't have to use that word)?
What do you think?
3 Answers
Think it through, then look it up to double check. Flex your brain then reinforce the knowledge.
I do as Nizhoni does: I first try to think about what I want to say, and maybe adjust the wording a bit if I'm lost....then look up the word I wanted to use for future reference.
All of the above. The best way to improve language competency is through discussion in that language. When you are forced to look up a specific word, you improve your vocabulary, which is both necessary and inevitable in the long term. However, when such an option isn't readily available, or you think that you have a strong enough grasp of the language to be able to rephrase what you're saying, you are practicing skills you will need in the future for fluency, specifically those oriented in thinking in the language at hand.
