Greek Language: Reading, Comprehension and Translation
The Greek language domain tests reading: you meet a short unseen passage, usually Attic prose with narrative and direct speech, answer comprehension questions, and translate a portion into clear English. Marks come from accuracy of constructions and natural English, not from matching the Greek word order.
Read clauses, not single words
Locate every finite verb and its subject; bracket subordinate clauses; note particles (μέν... δέ, γάρ, οὖν) because they signal contrast and argument. Ask what each pronoun refers to before translating.
Control tense and aspect
Present = ongoing; imperfect = past ongoing or customary; aorist = simple completed act; perfect = resulting state. Translate participles by time relative to the main verb: present participle = same time; aorist = earlier; future = later.
Worked example
ὁ ἄρχων, ἐπεὶ οἱ πρέσβεις ἦλθον, τοὺς φύλακας ἐκέλευσεν εἰσαγαγεῖν αὐτούς. Translate: 'The archon, when the envoys arrived, ordered the guards to bring them in.' Reasoning: ἐπεί introduces a temporal clause with aorist ἦλθον ('arrived'); ἐκέλευσεν takes a complementary infinitive εἰσαγαγεῖν ('to bring in'); the accusative τοὺς φύλακας is the object of ἐκέλευσεν, not the subject of the infinitive - the guards are ordered, so the infinitive's subject is understood as the guards; αὐτούς most naturally refers to the envoys, so 'them' = the envoys. If you write 'ordered the guards to bring the guards in', the sense collapses.
Traps
- Leaving μέν untranslated loses the contrast the examiner is testing.
- Rendering an aorist participle as a finite verb creates two main clauses.
- Translating ὅτι as 'that' when context makes it 'because'.
- Ignoring the breathing/accent distinction τις ('someone') vs τίς ('who?').
- Over-literal English that obscures the Greek construction.