PAU Llengua i Cultura Gregues II (Catalunya) common mistakes
PAU Llengua i Cultura Gregues II (Catalunya) · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Translating aorist and imperfect forms with the same past tense, so that narrative background and single completed events come out indistinguishable in Catalan (e.g. rendering both ἐπορεύετο and ἐπορεύθη as 'es va dirigir').
Candidates learn 'aorist = passat' and stop there; the aspectual contrast (imperfect = ongoing/descriptive, aorist = bounded event) is rarely drilled as a translation decision, and Catalan preterite/periphrastic past overlap makes the difference easy to ignore.
What to do instead
Before writing the translation, underline every finite past verb and label it IMP or AOR; render imperfects with 'anava/estava + gerundi' or imperfect tense, and aorists with the periphrastic 'va + infinitiu' or preterite. Practise on a short narrative (Lysias or Xenophon) by translating it twice and comparing the aspectual effect.
Leaving participle constructions as literal calques that break Catalan syntax, e.g. translating οἱ στρατιῶται ἀκούσαντες ταῦτα as 'els soldats havent sentit això' instead of resolving the participle into a finite clause or a gerund.
Students treat the participle as a one-to-one word class ('-nt' = '-nt'), without learning that Catalan has no matching attributive participle for most Greek circumstantial uses; the Greek genitive absolute is especially prone to literal rendering.
What to do instead
Build a conversion table: circumstantial participle → 'en + gerundi', 'després de + infinitiu', 'com que + verb', or coordinated finite verb; genitive absolute → subordinate clause with its own subject. Translate ten participle-heavy sentences and rewrite each calque into idiomatic Catalan.
Misidentifying the middle voice as passive (or vice versa) and translating λύομαι or ἐλύσατο as passive, changing the agent and meaning of the sentence.
The middle and passive share endings in most tenses; candidates rely on form alone and forget that the aorist middle (-σάμην) is formally distinct from the aorist passive (-θην), and that context and verb lexeme decide voice.
What to do instead
Memorise the aorist paradigm contrast (ἐλυσάμην vs ἐλύθην) and keep a list of verbs whose middle has a distinct meaning (λύομαι 'rescatar', παύομαι 'cessar', γίγνομαι 'esdevenir'). For each middle form in a passage, state the subject's involvement before choosing a Catalan rendering.
Confusing ὅτι/ὡς introducing indirect statement with causal or declarative uses, and misreading the mood of the subordinate verb (e.g. treating an optative in indirect discourse after a past main verb as a potential optative).
The same particles serve multiple functions and the optative's discourse role is taught late; candidates translate the particle first and then force the mood to fit, rather than reading the mood and the main verb's tense together.
What to do instead
Practise the rule: after a past-tense main verb, indirect statement may show optative for the original indicative (oblique optative). Take five sentences with ὅτι/ὡς and classify each as indirect statement, causal, or comparative before translating. Always check whether the main verb is a verb of saying/knowing.
Ignoring the article's substantivising and anaphoric functions, translating τὸ πρᾶγμα as a vague 'la cosa' or dropping ὁ/ἡ/τό when it marks a previously mentioned referent or introduces a quoted phrase.
Catalan uses articles differently, and candidates treat Greek articles as optional decoration; the substantivising use (οἱ παρόντες, τὸ ἀδικεῖν) is not intuitively transparent.
What to do instead
Annotate every article in the passage: mark S (substantiviser: translate with a noun or infinitive), A (anaphoric: 'esmentat/aquest'), or attributive. Translate τὸ ἀδικεῖν as 'el fet de cometre injustícia' and οἱ παρόντες as 'els presents'. Do a short passage marking all articles before drafting.
Writing literary commentary that only summarises the plot ('l'autor explica que...') without naming genre conventions, rhetorical devices, or the historical context of the passage.
Under time pressure candidates reproduce content instead of analysing form; they have memorised author biographies but not the genre features (e.g. forensic proem, ethnographical digression, tragic stichomythia) needed to comment on a specific text.
What to do instead
Use a fixed four-part commentary frame: (1) locate the passage in its genre and work, (2) identify two formal features with Greek terms (e.g. ring composition, priamel, antithesis), (3) relate to the author's historical moment, (4) state the passage's function in the work. Practise on one passage per genre until the frame is automatic.
Attributing a passage to the wrong author or genre because a keyword was recognised (e.g. seeing 'νόμος' and answering 'Plató, República' when the passage is from a forensic speech or from Herodotus).
Revision is organised by theme rather than by authorial style; candidates match isolated vocabulary instead of noticing dialect, particle density, sentence rhythm, and characteristic formulae.
What to do instead
Learn three diagnostic fingerprints per major author: Ionic dialect and ἐς/ἂν forms for Herodotus; Attic particles (μέντοι, γε, δή) and rhetorical questions for the orators; Socratic dialogue markers (ἔφη, τί δέ;) for Plato. Practise attributing unlabelled short excerpts and justify each attribution in one sentence.
Placing Athenian institutions in the wrong century or conflating them, e.g. describing the Council of the Areopagus as the main deliberative body of classical democracy, or dating Cleisthenes' reforms to the fifth century.
Institutional history is studied as a list of names and dates without a functional map, so similar-sounding bodies (Boule, Ekklesia, Heliaia, Areopagus) blur together and dates drift.
What to do instead
Draw a one-page diagram of Athenian government c. 450 BCE with each body's composition, selection method (sortition vs election), and function; add a timeline with Cleisthenes 508/7, Ephialtes' reforms 462/1, and the Peloponnesian War 431–404. Test yourself by explaining who could propose a decree and who could try a homicide case.
Describing Greek religion and daily life with modern Christian assumptions, e.g. calling sacrifice a 'mass', treating myth as scripture, or ignoring the civic and reciprocal logic of cult (do ut des) and the household rites of the oikos.
Students transfer their own religious framework; textbooks often list gods and festivals without explaining the social function of ritual, so the conceptual gap is never addressed.
What to do instead
Learn sacrifice as a structured sequence (procession, slaughter, sparagmos, feast, distribution of meat) with its civic meaning, and distinguish public polis cult from oikos cult and mystery cult. Write short comparisons contrasting Greek sacrificial logic with modern worship to expose and correct assumptions.
Producing a translation that is grammatically correct but stylistically flat, missing the register of the genre (e.g. rendering forensic prose with colloquial Catalan, or translating a tragic chorus in the same register as a speech).
Candidates focus on decoding and stop at literal accuracy; register awareness is not usually assessed in class tests, so it is never practised as a translation skill.
What to do instead
Before translating, state the genre, audience, and purpose of the passage in one line, and choose a register accordingly (formal for oratory and historiography, elevated for tragedy). Compare a literal draft with a revised version and note three changes made for register; keep a personal list of Catalan connectives and formulae suited to each genre.