Translation and Interpretation
Translation and Interpretation tests whether meaning survives a change of language. Written translation items ask you to render a sentence or short passage accurately and naturally; interpreting items simulate oral transfer, often as note-taking, short consecutive or liaison tasks. Marking rewards fidelity to meaning, correct terminology, appropriate register and natural target-language collocation.
Principles
- Translate meaning, not words. A literal rendering that is grammatical but unnatural loses marks.
- Keep register. A formal source stays formal; impersonal constructions and formal markers must not become chatty.
- Preserve hedges and modality. May, tend to, is likely to, up to carry information; dropping them changes the claim.
- Fix terminology and stay consistent. Once a term is rendered, reuse the same rendering throughout.
- Verify numbers, names, units and dates by reading them back.
- Explicitation is permitted when the target language requires a subject pronoun, a plural marker or an article the source leaves implicit.
Worked example
Source: The proposal was shelved pending further consultation.
Literal error: The proposal was put on a shelf... - shelve is read as furniture, not as postponement. The idiom means set aside indefinitely.
Acceptable: La propuesta quedó en suspenso a la espera de una nueva consulta (or the equivalent in your target language), preserving both the postponement and its cause.
Reasoning: the completed past tense and the causal link (pending) must both surface. A plain postponed is weaker than shelved, which implies the plan may never return; en suspenso keeps that implication.
Interpreting-specific technique
- Note ideas, links and numbers, not verbatim words: arrows for cause, a cross for negation.
- Anticipate the end of an utterance from its opening collocation; this shortens the gap (décalage) behind the speaker.
- If a term escapes you, give a neutral superordinate and continue: the specialised equipment rather than silence.
- Never invent a figure; ask for repetition if a number is unclear.
Traps that cost marks
- False friends and literal transfer of idioms.
- Silent omission of a clause that seemed redundant.
- Inconsistent terminology within one text.
- Changing a number, unit or proper name - the most heavily penalised error.
- Correcting the speaker's logic: interpreters render what was said, not what should have been said.