Translation between Spanish and Cymraeg/English

Carrying Spanish into English

In the reading and writing exam you translate short, simple Spanish sentences and texts, set in a context, into Cymraeg or English. No dictionary is allowed in any part of the course, so what you carry into the room is all you have. This module works through English, and its point is simple: the number of words does not survive the journey. One Spanish word can need two English words, and three Spanish words can become one. A translator who counts words writes English nobody would say. A translator who carries whole units across writes English that sounds natural and still keeps every detail. The grammar and the theme vocabulary have their own modules on this course. Here you practise the trades that turn Spanish you understand into English a reader would believe.

Four trades a translator makes

Each of these changes the number of words between the Spanish and the English. Learn what each one does before you meet it in a sentence.

Match each Spanish chunk to its English idea

Counting words against carrying meaning

The same two Spanish sentences can be taken across in two ways. Read down each column and compare the results.

What does tengo ganas de nadar mean?

A friend sends you a message in Spanish: tengo ganas de nadar. Which English version carries what your friend means?

• I feel like swimming
• I have to swim
• I have wishes of to swim
• I am swimming right now

Tap the chunks that travel whole

Read this sentence from a message. Tap the TWO chunks that must be translated as whole units rather than word by word.

• Tengo ganas de
• dar un paseo
• con mi hermana
• porque
• es muy simpática.

Would anyone actually say it?

Before you leave any sentence, say your version quietly in your head. If it sounds like something a person might really say, the meaning has probably arrived. If it sounds odd, one trade is missing: a person who needs adding, a chunk that needs keeping whole, or a small word English has no use for. With no dictionary in the room, this is the one check you always have with you. It also catches the opposite slip, where the version is so smooth that a detail such as who was there or how often it happens has quietly fallen out.

Rebuild the English version

Choose the English for each gap to translate this Spanish sentence naturally: Los fines de semana juego al fútbol con mi hermano.

Put the English pieces in order

Put these English pieces in order to translate the Spanish sentence Hay que hacer los deberes.

• You
• have to
• do
• your homework

Changing money at the border

A traveller tips a pile of small coins onto a currency desk and is handed back one note. On the way home it goes the other way: one note comes back as a handful of coins. Nobody at the desk counts coins against coins. They check the value, and the value is all that has to match. A fair exchange looks different on each side of the counter and is worth exactly the same on both.

Complete the Spanish translation rules

Spanish often shows the person only in the verb _____, so English has to add a word such as I or we. A chunk such as fin de semana is carried across as a _____ unit. Before an idea in general, English usually leaves out the _____ that Spanish keeps. The last check is to read your version aloud and ask whether a _____ would say it.

Which trade does each one need?

Answer each one correctly to keep your lives. Choose the trade each piece of Spanish needs to become natural English.

Decisions in the translation paper

Three moments in the reading and writing exam. Choose the best decision each time.

• You are translating Los fines de semana voy de compras. Your first draft reads: The weekends I go of shopping. It sounds wrong when you say it in your head. What do you change?
• The next sentence is Se puede nadar en la playa. Your draft reads: Itself can swim on the beach. Which fix do you make?
• You write more confidently in Cymraeg than in English, and the question asks you to translate a short Spanish text. What do you do?

Build a true Spanish sentence about sport

Choose the Spanish word for each gap to build a true sentence about sport, then think how you would carry it into English.

Translate a short message from a friend

Translate this message into natural English, or into Cymraeg if you prefer, then explain two of the trades you made. Los fines de semana me gusta estar al aire libre. Juego al fútbol con mi hermano porque es muy sano. Sin embargo, hay que hacer los deberes.

• Translate all three sentences, keeping every detail
• Name one place where you added the person hidden in a verb
• Name one set phrase you carried across as a single unit
• Say how reading your version aloud helped you check it