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English to French Translation — Paper 4 Section A
🔄 English to French Translation — Paper 4 Section A
AQA Paper 4 Section A requires you to translate a short English passage into French — approximately 35 words at Foundation and 50 words at Higher, typically worth 10 marks. Every sentence tests a specific grammatical trap: articles, adjective agreement, tense choice, word order, or prepositions. The students who score highest treat this as a grammar checklist, not a creative exercise.
The Four-Step Translation Process
English passage: My sister loves sport. She goes to the sports centre every Saturday with her friends. Last year, she won a competition. Next year, she would like to join the national team.
Earn the mark scheme marks
💡 Exam Tips & Common Errors
- Read the whole passage before translating — you may need information from sentence 3 to correctly translate sentence 1
- If you genuinely cannot translate a word, paraphrase — describe the concept without the specific word
- Check every past tense: is the auxiliary avoir or être? (movement/change-of-state verbs use être)
- Check adjective position — most adjectives follow the noun (un livre intéressant), but BAGS adjectives precede it (un grand livre: beauty, age, goodness, size)
- After ne… pas / ne… plus / ne… jamais, the article changes: du / de la / des → de before the noun (Je mange du pain → Je ne mange pas de pain)
- Reread your translation as if you are a French speaker — would it make sense to them?
❌ Common error: Translating "I am going to go to the shops" as je suis aller aux magasins.
✓ Correct: Je vais aller aux magasins.
Why it costs marks: "Going to" in English signals the near future (futur proche in French: je vais + infinitif). Confusing this with the perfect tense of aller (je suis allé = I went) loses the grammar mark for this sentence. The near future is one of the most tested structures in AQA translation tasks.