LANGUAGES SHOW CHARACTERISTIC DIFFERENCES IN THE WAY IN WHICH THEY ORGANIZE OBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE AND THESE DIFFERENCES ARE REFLECTED IN THE FORMAL AND SEMANTIC PATTERNING OF EACH LANGUAGE. A CONTRASTIVE APPROACH TO LANGUAGE LEARNING WHICH PAYS PARTICULAR ATTENTION TO POINTS OF FORMAL AND FUNCTIONAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ELEMENTS OF THE NATIVE LANGUAGE AND THOSE OF THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE WILL HELP THE LEARNER TO COME TO TERMS WITH AND RESOLVE THE DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED. ONE LANGUAGE MAY MAKE SEMANTIC DISTINCTIONS NOT MADE IN ANOTHER, I.E., IT MAY DIVIDE INTO SEVERAL CATEGORIES WHAT ANOTHER LANGUAGE SUBSUMES UNDER ONE CATEGORY. SUCH DIVERGENCE IS OFTEN FOUND ON THE LEVEL OF EVERYDAY SPEECH (E.G., ENGLISH "BRUSH"--GERMAN "BUERSTE"/"PINSEL"/"BESEN"). LEXICAL ITEMS MAY DIFFER IN THEIR COLLOCATIONAL RANGE (E.G., "WIDE"/"WEIT"). ASPECTUAL DIFFERENCES EXPRESSED GRAMMATICALLY IN ENGLISH ARE OFTEN EXPRESSED BY LEXICAL MEANS IN GERMAN (AS IN THE QUESTIONS, "HAVE YOU BEEN THERE"--"WAREN SIE SCHON MAL DA.""WERE YOU THERE"--"WAREN SIE (DAMALS, ZU DER ZEIT) DA"). AT AN ADVANCED STAGE OF LANGUAGE LEARNING TRANSLATION MAY BE AN EMPIRICAL MEANS OF COMING TO TERMS WITH SEMANTIC AND SYNTACTIC DIFFERENCES. THE CONFRONTATION OF A COMPLETE UTTERANCE IN THE NATIVE LANGUAGE WITH ALL THE POSSIBLE CONTEXTUAL EQUIVALENTS IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE WILL SHOW FORMAL AND FUNCTIONAL DIFFERENCES AND HELP TO CREATE IN THE LEARNER'S MIND A LINGUISTIC AWARENESS WHICH WILL MAKE THE ACQUISITION OF THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE MORE MEANINGFUL. THIS ARTICLE APPEARED IN THE "INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF APPLIED LINGUISTICS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING," VOLUME 4, NUMBER 3, SEPTEMBER 1966, PAGES 175-182. (AUTHOR)