Traducción al inglés — Translation into English
📝 Traducción al inglés — Translation into English
| What the mark scheme rewards | Why |
|---|---|
| Accurate key messages | Each main point must be conveyed correctly |
| Natural English | Translation should read fluently — not word-for-word |
| Correct tense | comía (was eating) ≠ comió (ate) — both must be rendered accurately |
| Idiom understanding | "hace calor" = it is hot (NOT "makes heat") |
| Grammar structures | se-passive, hay que, conditional — must be understood |
Spanish grammar has several structures that look like individual words but must be translated as set English phrases. Recognising these on sight is the difference between a natural translation and a mechanical one that loses marks.
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⚠️ Errores de traducción — Translation Errors
❌ "hace calor" → "makes heat" or "does heat"
✅ "it is hot" — hacer for weather is an idiom: hace calor / frío / viento / sol / lluvia.
Why: "hacer" in weather expressions is a fixed idiom with no literal English equivalent. It cannot be parsed as "to make" or "to do" in these contexts — the structure must be recognised as a whole and rendered as "it is [weather state]".
❌ "se habla español" → "it speaks Spanish" or "he speaks Spanish"
✅ "Spanish is spoken" — se-passive: the verb agrees with the grammatical subject (español, singular).
Why: The se-passive in Spanish has no "he/she/it" subject — the noun after the verb is the subject, and it determines singular or plural: se hablan idiomas = languages are spoken. English equivalent is always the passive voice.
❌ "comía" translated as "ate"
✅ "used to eat" / "was eating" — comía is imperfect (habitual or ongoing); "ate" is preterite (one completed event). Wrong tense = wrong meaning.
Why: Spanish has two past tenses that English often merges under "ate". Imperfect (-aba/-ía) = ongoing, habitual, or background past. Preterite (-é/-ó) = completed single event. AQA mark schemes specifically penalise tense confusion here.
❌ Leaving a gap because of one unknown word
✅ Translate everything around it. A partially correct sentence still earns key message marks.
Why: AQA marks are awarded per key message, not per perfect sentence. Leaving a blank earns zero for that section. An attempt with one unknown word omitted or approximated can still score if the surrounding meaning is correctly conveyed.
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