Translation and Vocabulary
Translation and Vocabulary tests vocabulary range and the ability to move meaning between Manipuri and English. Examiners reward sense-for-sense equivalence, correct spelling, and grammatical agreement in the target language - not word-for-word correspondence.
Vocabulary tasks that recur
- Synonyms and antonyms (সমাৰ্থক / বিপৰীত শব্দ).
- One-word substitution for a whole phrase.
- Idiom meaning, then the idiom used in a sentence of your own.
- Choosing between near-synonyms by collocation - which word naturally goes with 'rain' or 'decision'.
- Word formation: noun, verb and adjective members of one family, plus compound words.
Translation rules
- Read the whole sentence and locate the main verb.
- Change word order: Manipuri is SOV, English is SVO, so never translate word for word.
- Translate idioms by sense, not literally.
- Keep proper nouns, numbers and honorifics exact. Manipuri has no grammatical gender, so do not import he/she distinctions the source does not make - choose the English pronoun the context licenses.
- Re-read the target sentence alone: it must stand without the source beside it.
Worked example
English: 'She has lived in Imphal since 2019.' Reasoning: the English perfect with 'since' has no one-to-one Manipuri form. Render the ongoing present state plus the time phrase, keep ইম্ফালদা with the locative -দা, and place the verb at the end. The test is whether a Manipuri reader understands 'still living there, starting 2019' - not whether the auxiliary 'has' appears.
Traps that cost marks
- Literal idiom translation that makes no sense in the target language.
- Antonyms drawn from a different word family.
- Spelling drift in Bengali-script Manipuri: ই/ঈ and উ/ঊ confusion.
- Paraphrasing the passage's meaning instead of translating it.