A basic issue in second language (L2) teaching is whether the learner's first language (L1) should be used in the process. Differing views of language teaching authorities and various experiments carried out to test the use of translation in foreign language teaching are presented briefly. The author's experiment, involving teaching two groups of third-grade children patterns of Malay sentences by means of a Language Master Machine on which were pictures corresponding to sentences on a tape strip, is also described. The results seem to show that the group that learned the second language in a situation where the first language was excluded except for the instructions (the "Picture Group") actually showed the effects of a compound language system more markedly than the group that practiced through the medium of L1 (the "Translation Group"). The writer proposes to investigate further the use of L1 in L2 teaching and learning and the problem of acquiring and retaining meaning. Her experience with many children has shown that often they can repeat sentences and read quite well without any inkling of what they are saying. She feels that teachers may be inhibiting a "natural tendency" to translate, which may bring about a conflict between subconscious translation and overt injunction to think in the L2, with disastrous results to the acquisition of meaning. (AMM)