
Garrett Q. answered 07/23/19
Experienced teacher in English, the Humanities, and more
While it would be convenient if we could forego learning certain aspects of a language in order to just learn one of them, e.g. reading, this is a slow method. The best way to get a grasp of what is being said without translating the words into English as you read them is to practice speaking the foreign language in your daily life. This way, you become familiar with the sounds and form associations between the sounds and the words. This is especially important for non-phonetic languages such as French, when sounds appear divorced from their letters, whereas it is not as important for phonetic languages (e.g. Spanish), wherein every letter is pronounced. By eliminating the gap between sight and sound, your learning experience can accelerate considerably.