Translation and Re-expression: English to Kannada and Kannada to English
What the translation section tests
Translation checks whether you can carry meaning, tone, and grammar across English and Kannada, not whether you can replace word for word. Expect a short English sentence or passage into Kannada and a short Kannada sentence or passage into English.
Core rules
- Translate meaning, not word order. Kannada is verb-final; English is subject–verb–object.
- Keep tense, number, person, and politeness. Kannada honorific plural ('ಅವರು') may translate as 'he' or 'she' in English depending on context.
- Idioms should become equivalent idioms, not literal images.
- Proper nouns and technical terms may be transliterated when no standard equivalent exists.
- After drafting, read the target sentence aloud to check naturalness.
Worked example
English: 'The teacher asked the students to sit quietly.' Kannada: 'ಶಿಕ್ಷಕರು ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿಗಳಿಗೆ ಸುಮ್ಮನೆ ಕುಳಿತುಕೊಳ್ಳಲು ಹೇಳಿದರು.' Reasoning: 'asked...to' becomes 'ಹೇಳಿದರು' + infinitive; 'students' takes the dative plural 'ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿಗಳಿಗೆ'; 'quietly' is rendered as 'ಸುಮ್ಮನೆ'; the verb agrees with the honorific subject.
Kannada: 'ಅವನು ಪ್ರತಿದಿನ ಬೆಳಿಗ್ಗೆ ಪತ್ರಿಕೆ ಓದುತ್ತಾನೆ.' English: 'He reads the newspaper every morning.' Reasoning: habitual present, third-person singular '-ಉತ್ತಾನೆ' → 'reads'; time expression moves to the end in English.
Traps
- Translating idioms literally.
- Dropping honorifics or plural markers.
- Changing the tense to make the sentence sound smoother.
- Leaving English word order in Kannada.