When you read Latin do you transverbalize?
Should we be doing it this way?
Heh, you’re going to have to transverbalize the meaning of “transverbalize” for me.
If you mean associating a Latin word with an English word, rather than connecting it to the meaning… I am not against it. You can never become fluid or reach as fast a speed by this method. I recommend trying to overcome this habit before the student becomes too attached to it.
But how do you overcome it?
All the major universities place such heavy emphasis on translation and thinking of the English “equivalent.”
By transverbalization, I mean translating each word into English in your head as you read.
Well I do but I don’t even know the subjunctive yet. 
I think if you aren’t using a “brave” method (e.g. the lingua latina series?)/brilliant it’s really helpful before you finish all the grammar and I admit to drawing little lines on latin, parsing etc. so I get it. To overcome I would suggest reading a lot (this is how I stopped in Spanish) or oral work “nonne calidissma est hodie!”
If you do this you will just become frustrated because Latin verbs can be translated in so many ways with context. For example the verb díripere is a compound of dis- (apart, in different directions) plus rapere (to seize) which can mean to plunder, totally mess up or to distract, two totally different English words (to seize some one in different directions as it were). I used to do this but there is little point unless there be no other way.
FWIW, I think it’s a incremental process. For a time, it’s inevitable that you’ll do this mechanical translation. I think the way to overcome it is by actively looking for both idioms and common phrases and word grouping. Just as you fit a new word into an idiom, so too you fit idioms into sentences. The more often you experience this, i.e. daily practice, the more likely you’ll think of the meaning before translation into another language. This is also where verbalization can strongly reinforce the phrase meanings. It’s almost Pavlovian, but there you have it.
HTH
- tim
ignosce, non intellego. certes es?
How did you get díripere? When I looked it uo on Perseus I get:
di-ripio, ui, eptum, 3, v. a. [rapio] , to tear asunder, tear in pieces
Isn’t the infinitive here diripui ?
The other spellings gave me the alternate meaning:
direptio , onis, f. [diripio] , a plundering, pillaging (rare, but good prose):
direptor , oris, m. [id.], a plunderer
- tim
ignosce, verum es.
Third conj. diripio, diripere.
mea culpa.
- Tim