Sight Translation - Phase Two Oral
What the task requires
You read a passage aloud in the target language, on sight, once, at a steady professional pace - no dictionary, no preparation time. Passages are authentic court material: plea forms, arraignment advisements, statutes, sentencing orders, correspondence. Graders weigh accuracy, completeness, target-language grammar, and delivery.
Concepts
- Sense-unit chunking: read to the end of a clause in your head before your voice commits.
- Restructuring: English's long pre-modified noun phrases and passive voice usually become Spanish se passive or active voice, and vice versa.
- Register: Su Señoría, el acusado, comparecer, deberá; keep the formality of the source.
- Handling names, numbers, dates, statutory citations, and parentheticals without stalling.
Traps
- Reading rather than translating: the eye locks onto cognates and the mouth produces English word order in Spanish.
- Losing the negation or the modal (shall, may) inside a long sentence.
- Numbers and dates: render them in the target language, digits and all, without hesitation.
- Self-correction that spirals; one clean repair is acceptable, three destroy fluency.
- Dropping headings, footnotes, and bracketed material - graders count omissions.
Worked example
"The defendant shall appear personally and may be accompanied by counsel." A literal pass gives comparecerá personalmente y puede ser acompañado, which is clumsy. Better: "El acusado deberá comparecer en persona y podrá hacerse acompañar por su abogado." Note shall → deberá, may → podrá.
Rule of thumb
Translate a clause at a time with your eyes two or three words ahead of your voice. Never sacrifice completeness for smoothness, and never stall hunting for the perfect word.