Reading Practice: Comprehension and Translation into English - My Neighbourhood
You know the words. Now the marks are in the small ones: the negative you must not drop, the tense that changes halfway through, and the false friend waiting to be mistranslated.
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Start revising freeWhat you'll cover
You already know the words 📖
This module assumes the vocabulary. The places, the prepositions, the contraction rule: all of that is behind you, and a reading paper simply expects it. What it tests instead is **precision**. A candidate who knows every noun in a passage can still lose the question by dropping one small word. So everything below works on a single short paragraph, written for this module, and every task points at a different way of getting it slightly wrong.
Two ways a translation fails ⚖️
These pull in opposite directions, which is why translation is a skill rather than a lookup.
Five rules that cover almost everything 🗂️
Apply these in order and most translation marks look after themselves:
Match each phrase to its English
- il n'y a pas de piscine
- il y avait un cinéma
- plus calme qu'en ville
- je vais souvent
- there is no swimming pool
- there used to be a cinema
- quieter than in town
- I often go
Where does the time change? ⏳
An interactive activity.
Which words flip the meaning? 🚫
An interactive activity.
Which translation is correct? ❓
How should "Il y a une bibliothèque, mais il n'y a pas de piscine" be translated?
- There is a library, but there is no swimming pool
- There is a bookshop, but there is no swimming pool
- There is a library and a swimming pool
- There was a library, but there was no swimming pool
Which would lose marks? ✅
Select the TWO that would cost you marks in a translation.
- Translating la bibliothèque as "bookshop"
- Leaving out pas, so the sentence becomes positive
- Writing "quieter" rather than "more calm"
- Answering in English rather than in French
The words that look helpful 🪤
French hands an English speaker a great deal for free, which is why the small number of words that LOOK free and are not do so much damage. **la bibliothèque** is a **library**. The bookshop is **la librairie**. **le magasin** is a **shop**. A magazine is **le magazine**. **la campagne** is the **countryside**, not a campaign. **The rule that saves you**: if a word looks obvious, that is exactly when to check whether the rest of the sentence still makes sense with your guess in it. "There is a bookshop, but there is no swimming pool" makes sense, which is why nobody notices.
Order the method 🪜
An interactive activity.
In the exam 🧭
An interactive activity.
Complete the translation 📝
I live in a small neighbourhood _____ the station. There is a _____ and two shops, but there is _____ swimming pool. Before, there _____ a cinema, but it closed last year. I often go to the _____ at the weekend because it is quieter than in town.
Your turn 📄
An interactive activity.