Translation: Arabic to Hindi/English and Back
Translation is tested in both directions: an Arabic sentence or short passage into Hindi or English, and a Hindi or English sentence into Arabic. Marks go for sense and grammatical correctness, not for a word-for-word gloss.
Arabic into Hindi/English
- Nominal sentences have no verb 'to be' in the present: الْعِلْمُ نُورٌ = 'Knowledge is light.'
- The muḍāf precedes the muḍāf ilayh, but the meaning reads backwards: بَابُ الْبَيْتِ = 'the door of the house.'
- In verbal sentences the verb precedes the doer; Hindi and English put the subject first: ذَهَبَ زَيْدٌ = 'Zaid went.'
- Adjectives follow their nouns and agree in four things: case, definiteness, gender and number.
Hindi/English into Arabic
Fix the tense first - māḍī for a completed action, muḍarīʿ for habitual or future, amr for a command - then decide the sentence type. If the sentence equates two things ('The school is big'), write a nominal sentence: الْمَدْرَسَةُ كَبِيرَةٌ.
Worked example
Translate «ذَهَبَ زَيْدٌ إِلَى السُّوقِ مَعَ أَبِيهِ.» Step 1: ذَهَبَ is past, so 'went'. Step 2: زَيْدٌ is the fāʿil and becomes the English subject. Step 3: إِلَى السُّوقِ = 'to the market', with السُّوقِ majrūr after إِلَى. Step 4: مَعَ أَبِيهِ = 'with his father', the attached ـهِ carrying the possessive. Result: 'Zaid went to the market with his father.'
Traps
- Following Arabic order and producing 'Went Zaid'.
- Losing attached pronouns: كِتَابُهُ is 'his book', not 'the book'.
- False friends: مَكْتَب is a desk or office, and عَيْن can mean eye or spring.
- Rendering إِنَّ and أَنَّ as 'verily' every time instead of absorbing them into the sentence.