Reading Practice: Comprehension and Translation into English - My Neighbourhood

Who is doing what?

This module assumes the vocabulary and the grammar. What it teaches is the particular way Spanish catches a translator out. German hides the verb at the end of the clause. Spanish does something subtler: it hands you a sentence whose subject is not who you think it is, and then adds a small word that looks translatable and is not. Everything below works on one short paragraph written for this module.

The verb that runs backwards

Read these two columns across. Me gustan las tiendas does not mean what its word order suggests, and the agreement is the clue.

Four things to watch for

Each one appears in the passage you are about to work on:

Match each phrase to its English

Where is the subject not the person?

Here is the passage, written for this module. Tap the phrase where the thing being liked is the subject of the verb.

• Vivo en un barrio tranquilo cerca del centro.
• Me gustan las tiendas de mi calle
• , pero
• no hay nada para los jóvenes por la tarde
• . Mi calle es muy larga, y desde mi ventana
• veo a mi vecino que pasea a su perro todos los días
• . El año pasado cerró el cine, y ahora vamos al centro los sábados.

Which small word stays behind?

Same passage. Tap the phrase containing the small word that marks a person as the object and has no English equivalent at all.

• Vivo en un barrio tranquilo cerca del centro.
• Me gustan las tiendas de mi calle
• , pero
• no hay nada para los jóvenes por la tarde
• . Mi calle es muy larga, y desde mi ventana
• veo a mi vecino que pasea a su perro todos los días
• . El año pasado cerró el cine, y ahora vamos al centro los sábados.

Which translation is correct?

How should "Me gustan las tiendas de mi calle" be translated?

• I like the shops on my street
• The shops on my street like me
• I like the shop on my street
• I liked the shops on my street

Which would lose marks?

Select the TWO that would cost you marks in a translation.

• Translating "no hay nada" as "there isn't nothing"
• Translating "larga" as "large"
• Writing "I like the shops" rather than "the shops please me"
• Writing "shops" rather than "stores"

The words that look helpful

Spanish gives an English speaker a great deal for free, which is why the few that look free and are not do so much damage. largo is long. Large is grande. el éxito is success. An exit is la salida. sensible means sensitive. Sensible is sensato. The check that saves you: read the sentence back with your guess in it and ask whether it is something a person would actually say about the thing being described. "A large street" is not wrong English, which is exactly why largo is more dangerous than a word that produces nonsense.

Order the method

Put the stages of translating a Spanish sentence into a reliable working order.

• Read the whole sentence before translating any of it
• Check what the verb agrees with: with gustar it is the thing liked, not the person
• Look for a personal a before a person, and leave it out of your English
• Note the negatives: Spanish may use two where English uses one
• Write a first version that keeps every element
• Reread it as English and check nothing has been added or lost

In the exam

Three decisions during a Spanish translation.

• You reach "Me gustan las tiendas" and are about to write "the shops like me".
• You have "veo a mi vecino" and want to write "I see to my neighbour".
• You have written "there isn't nothing for young people".

Complete the translation

I live in a quiet neighbourhood near the centre. I _____ the shops on my street, but there is _____ for young people in the afternoon. My street is very _____, and from my window I see _____ walking his dog every day. Last year the cinema _____, and now we go to the centre on Saturdays.

Translate the passage cold

Translate the whole passage into English, without looking back at the cloze. "Vivo en un barrio tranquilo cerca del centro. Me gustan las tiendas de mi calle, pero no hay nada para los jóvenes por la tarde. Mi calle es muy larga, y desde mi ventana veo a mi vecino que pasea a su perro todos los días. El año pasado cerró el cine, y ahora vamos al centro los sábados."

• Translate every sentence, leaving no gaps, even where a word is uncertain
• Make sure the gustar sentence has the right subject in your English
• Leave the personal a untranslated, and turn the double negative into a single English one
• Read your version back as English, and reword anything you would not actually say