Ranking three translations of two Persian idioms
A district translation competition gives Class 10 students two Persian sentences and asks for Hindi/Urdu and English. The rubric awards 3 marks for meaning, 1 for register, and 1 for idiom; a word-for-word rendering that loses the idiom loses the idiom mark. The sentences are: (1) او از شنیدن خبر، رنگ از رخسار باخت. (2) او آبروی خود را از دست داد. Three students submit: A. 'He lost colour from face after hearing the news. / He lost his water.' B. 'On hearing the news, his face paled. / He lost his reputation.' C. 'Hearing the news, he lost the colour of his cheek. / He lost his honour.' The judge must rank the three, explain the false friend in A, and show one student how to keep the poetic flavour of sentence (1) in Hindi or Urdu without copying Persian word order.
1. Rank A, B and C from best to weakest. Justify the ranking using meaning, idiom, and register.
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Best: B. It gives the correct sense of both idioms: رنگ از رخسار باخت means 'his face paled', and آبرو means 'reputation/honour', not water. The register is natural English.
Second: C. It understands آبرو correctly as 'honour' and keeps the colour image in sentence (1). But 'lost the colour of his cheek' is a literal calque; it is understandable but less idiomatic than 'his face paled'. It loses part of the idiom mark.
Weakest: A. 'He lost his water' is a false-friend error: آبرو is not آب. The first sentence is also a word-for-word calque. A fails meaning on sentence (2), so it cannot rank above C even though it preserves the surface image of sentence (1).
Ranking: B > C > A.
2. A student says: 'If the exam wants literal translation, A should win.' Evaluate that claim.
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The claim confuses literal wording with literal meaning. A literal translation is acceptable only when it preserves the source meaning. A does not: آبروی خود را از دست داد means 'he lost his reputation', not 'he lost his water'. That is a lexical false friend, not a stylistic choice. The rubric's meaning mark (3) is the largest component, so A loses it. The idiom mark is also lost because 'lost his water' is not an English idiom for losing face or honour. A literal rendering such as C can score partial credit because it keeps the image and the correct sense, but it still reads as translationese. The judge should reward B for meaning and natural register, not A for word-by-word correspondence.
3. Give one Hindi or Urdu rendering of sentence (1) that keeps its poetic flavour, and explain the choice.
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Hindi: समाचार सुनते ही उसके चेहरे का रंग उड़ गया। Urdu: خبر سنتے ہی اس کے چہرے کا رنگ اڑ گیا۔
Both use the idiom 'colour flew away' rather than a flat 'he became pale'. This keeps the image of colour leaving the face, which is close to رنگ از رخسار باخت, while remaining natural in the target language. The rendering does not copy Persian word order; it uses the target-language idiom رنگ اڑنا / रंग उड़ना. That satisfies the idiom mark without sacrificing meaning or register.