Target Language Mechanics (Grammar, Syntax, Orthography)
Grammatical control in the target language
Mechanics covers grammar, syntax, and orthography as the target language actually uses them, not as the source language suggests. Candidates must control agreement (subject-verb, noun-adjective, gender and number), case or particle choice, tense and aspect, mood, word order, pronoun forms, articles, and prepositions. Syntax includes sentence boundaries, subordination, parallel structure, and modifier placement. Orthography includes capitalization, punctuation, hyphenation, diacritics, apostrophes, quotation marks, and script-specific conventions such as optional vowel marks or compound joining. A translation can be semantically accurate and still fail because it imports source syntax or ignores target spelling rules.
Traps in questions
The most common trap is source-language interference: a literal word order that produces a grammatical but unidiomatic sentence, or a punctuation mark carried across when target conventions differ. Others include missing diacritics that change meaning, inconsistent capitalization of headings, comma splices created by copying source commas, and verb forms that are grammatically possible but aspectually wrong. Collective nouns, measured quantities, and dates often trigger agreement or preposition errors. Also check that quoted material, parentheticals, and lists remain syntactically complete after translation.
Worked example
English source: 'She has lived in Madrid for five years.' A literal target rendering may use a past tense or a preposition that implies a completed period. In Spanish, natural equivalents include 'Vive en Madrid desde hace cinco años' or 'Ha vivido en Madrid durante cinco años,' depending on aspect and regional usage; the point is to select the target's own tense-and-preposition pattern, not to map 'for' word for word. Rule of thumb: read the target sentence in isolation; if it would not appear in a well-edited target-language text, revise the mechanics before judging terminology.