Prevajanje kot sestavni del pouka slovenščine: Litovska izkušnja

This article deals with translation as an integral part of teaching Slovenian as a foreign language at the University of Vilnius in Lithuania. Different levels of instruction involve translation and the use of students’ native language to varying degrees. For the early or beginner’s level, translation is a necessary part of the lesson because it helps enter a new linguistic reality. The article presents the various functions performed by translation (together with explanations): familiarization with typical Slovenian grammatical categories, discursive phrases, syntactic structures, awareness of differences in the use of common words, and dealing with a different division of the world in language. Translation as a teaching method in Slovenian classes at the University of Vilnius has its own tradition and is based on contrastive grammar.