Teacher Guide - Translation into English

Edexcel A Level Spanish (9SP0) — Paper 1, Section C: Translation into English

Teacher Guide: Translation into English (Question 10)

How the translation is marked, where students lose marks, and what the eight passages from 2018 to 2025 have tested

This guide is based on the question papers, mark schemes and Principal Examiner reports for all eight series from June 2018 to June 2025. All of them are saved in Spanish/A Level/Past Papers. References such as (ER 2024) mean the examiner report for that year, (MS 2023) the mark scheme and (QP 2019) the question paper. Quotations from Pearson are in italics. The grammar classification in Section 3 and the teaching suggestions in Section 4 are ours. They follow from the evidence but do not come from Pearson.

1. The task

• Question 10 is the only question in Section C and the last question on Paper 1. It has been Question 10 in every series from 2018 to 2025 (QP 2018–2025).

• Paper 1 lasts 2 hours and is worth 80 marks. The translation is worth 20 marks, a quarter of the paper. The front cover recommends “50 minutes on Section A: Listening, 50 minutes on Section B: Reading and 20 minutes on Section C: Translation into English” (QP 2018–2025). Students “must not use a dictionary” (QP 2018–2025).

• The instruction is always “Translate the following text about …, into English.” The passage is a single paragraph or two, 106–115 words long (about 110 on average; our count of the eight passages).

• It is “the only question where English is required” (ER 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025). Everything else on the paper is answered in Spanish or by ticking boxes.

• The mark scheme divides the passage into 20 sections worth 1 mark each. Each section has an Answer, a list of acceptable alternatives and a Reject list (MS 2018–2025). The examiners describe it as “marked as 20 discrete sections” (ER 2019–2025).

• The sections are graded in difficulty: “There were a number of sections aimed at each grade from E to A*, so that almost all candidates were able to score marks for some elements of the passage, but only the strongest candidates were able to score full marks” (ER 2019; similar wording in ER 2020–2025).

2. What examiners are looking for

2.1 How the marking works

Every mark scheme opens Section C with the same marking principles. These are the rules that decide each of the 20 marks:

• The test is whether an English reader would understand it. “Translation is successful if an English speaker would understand the translation without having understood the text in its original language” (MS 2018–2025).

• Spelling is tolerated unless it changes the meaning. “Mis-spelling is tolerated as long as it doesn’t lead to ambiguity e.g. drought misspelled as drowght would be acceptable but misspelled as draught would be unacceptable” (MS 2018–2025). In 2025, goal for gaol was rejected because it “creates a new, incorrect word” (MS 2025, section 7).

• Other wordings are fine if the meaning is the same. “Learners are likely to write variants on the acceptable answers listed and these should be considered as acceptable if they convey the same intended meaning” (MS 2018–2025). “There are many ways to phrase a correct translation of each section and examiners allowed any version that was clear, complete and unambiguous” (ER 2024, 2025).

• Do not offer two versions. “Where two alternatives are offered and both are correct, then the mark will be awarded. However, if two alternatives are offered and one is incorrect, then the mark will be withheld” (MS 2023, 2024, 2025; similar wording in MS 2018). “Examiners … should not have to decide for the candidate which word is better” (ER 2020, 2021).

• The same mistake is only penalised once. “Repeated errors including definite articles e.g. ‘the’ will only be penalised once” (MS 2023, 2024, 2025). The same applied to the decimal comma in both numbers in 2019 (ER 2019) and to the in 2021 (ER 2021).

• Sections are marked separately, but some answers are credited across boxes. For example, “Valentina Soria’s musical project can be enjoyed” was worth 2 marks across sections 6 and 7 (MS 2024), and guilty could be credited in section 10 even when the word order of the whole sentence was wrong (MS 2025; ER 2025).

• Quality of English still matters: “The quality of the English is important in this question” (ER 2025; similar in ER 2024). “The majority of errors arose not from misunderstanding the text, but from difficulties in expressing the meaning accurately in English” (ER 2020, 2021).

2.2 Write English, not Spanish in English words

The most frequent reason for losing a mark is an answer that follows the Spanish too closely to make sense in English. Examples from the Reject columns and reports:

Sources: MS and ER for each year shown.

2.3 False friends and look-alike words

Words that look like English are the single biggest trap in the Reject columns. “Many candidates obviously relied on (unreliable) cognates to make guesses about unfamiliar words” (ER 2023). “Use cognates with caution, sometimes they are false friends because they do not always mean the same in Spanish and English” (ER 2023, 2024). The full list is in Section 3.6. Some of the clearest:

Sources: MS and ER for each year shown.

2.4 Word order

• Spanish often puts the verb before the subject. Students who kept the Spanish order lost the mark: “stand out the Civil War and the Transition” was rejected for se destacan la Guerra Civil y la Transición (MS 2018). The report lists “no figuran jóvenes” (14) and “se destacan la Guerra Civil y la Transición” (5) as problems of word order (ER 2018).

• “There was often too great a dependence on Spanish word order”, especially in ha aumentado el número de estudiantes que se matriculan en Turismo con el fin de… (ER 2020). Arranca: those who knew it “sometimes put the verb at the beginning, which did not work in English” (ER 2024). begins the festival was rejected as “wrong order” (MS 2024).

• Adjectives: traditional and rural activities was rejected for las actividades rurales tradicionales (MS 2020); a specialised reporter was rejected for reportero especializado en (MS 2025). Nouns used as adjectives in English: history episodes rejected (MS 2018); children film rejected (MS 2023).

• Long sentences with a clause in the middle: 2019 “significantly tested the ability of candidates to write coherent, syntactically correct long sentences with circumstantial inserts” (ER 2019). In 2025 sections 10–12 “covered a sentence with a relative clause in the middle (que había sido contratado por Arriazu). This broke up the phrase ‘guilty of’ in English and many candidates replaced the ‘of’ with ‘for’” (ER 2025).

2.5 The word “the”

• “The word ‘the’ was inserted too often, e.g. ‘The rural tourism’ or ‘the nature’; this gives rise to ambiguity in English” (ER 2020). The same point was made in 2021 about “The traditional Spanish clothing” and “the Spanish fashion” (ER 2021).

• Reject columns: The rural tourism (MS 2020, 1); The retired (people) (MS 2022, 3); the Franco’s censorship (MS 2023, 3). Since 2023 the mark scheme says repeated article errors are penalised once only (MS 2023–2025).

2.6 Small words carry marks

• An excellent 2018 script lost two marks for leaving out bastante (section 7) and the emphatic sí (section 12): “Students should make sure that they include all of the details, including the ‘very’, ‘mostly’, ‘sometimes’” (ER 2018).

• Emphatic sí: “No mark was awarded for ‘What will change’, as the emphatic nature of the sí has been overlooked. Strong candidates were able to use phrases such as ‘The thing that definitely will change’” (ER 2020).

• unos 50 artesanos: “Many ignored the word unos and so did not translate ‘some’” (ER 2024). pocas personas was often given as “little people” (ER 2018).

• Examiners ask students to “not skip over small words” (ER 2022, 2023).

2.7 Tense, time frame and passives

The Reject columns show that the tense has to match the Spanish:

Sources: MS 2018, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025; ER 2018.

• Prepositions change the meaning of verbs: “terminó siendo – ended UP being (9) and ‘vivido la Transición’ – lived THROUGH the Transition (13)” (ER 2018). “If ‘for’ was used instead of ‘so that’ for para que in box 18, box 20 would not work grammatically” (ER 2024). reason of the crime was rejected as the “wrong preposition” (MS 2025). “When tackling the translation, pay particular attention to prepositions as they may change the meaning of what you write” (ER 2021).

2.8 Numbers

• In 2018 sesenta “was given in well over 50% of scripts as ‘the seventies’”. Section 17 “was expected to be the hardest section”, and the examiners “were astonished” that its difficulty lay “not so much with ‘raíces’ or ‘yacen’ but with ‘sesenta’” (ER 2018).

• Decimal commas must be changed: “16,8 should have been changed to 16.8 to be clear for English speakers” (ER 2019).

• Numbers appear in 6 of the 8 passages (our count; see 3.4): centuries, decades, years, ages, periods of time (dos meses y medio), and approximate numbers (unos 50).

2.9 Topic vocabulary

• Each passage has a cluster of subject-specific words. Pearson has pointed to them in four reports: economics and work (remuneraciones en especie, contaba con, frente a, la pertenencia; ER 2019), cinema (guiones, se estrenaban, títulos de crédito; ER 2023), law (juez, jurado, juzgado, declarado culpable, condenado, delito; ER 2025) and the dictatorship and Transition (“There appeared to be a lack of general knowledge about the dictatorship and the Transition, which was surprising since they are two of the 12 sub-themes”; ER 2018).

• “Learn the technical vocabulary connected with each sub-topic” (ER 2019). Everyday words also let students down: costas was “most surprising of all … often rendered as costs” (ER 2022); estadounidense was translated as student or statesman and príncipe as principal (ER 2025).

3. Patterns from 2018 to 2025

3.1 The passages

Word counts are ours: every word in the passage as printed on the question paper, not counting dashes or quotation marks.

• Always a factual, non-literary text, usually a press or web article. No literary passage has been set for translation.

• Spanish history and the Franco years appear in 2018 and 2023; work and the economy in 2019; immigration in 2022; tourism in 2020; customs and festivals in 2021 and 2024. The 2024 passage is the first set in Latin America (Argentina).

• Passages are often not recent: the source for 2020 is dated 2007, and 2025 is based on a 1996 article (QP 2020, QP 2025).

• Length is very stable: every passage is between 106 and 115 words, so each mark covers five or six words on average.

3.2 How students scored

Sources: ER 2018–2025.

• Where Pearson gives a figure, the typical score is 10 to 12 out of 20 (ER 2018, 2019, 2024, 2025). Half marks is normal; the second ten marks are where the grades separate.

• Sections the reports name as hardest: 2018 section 17 (años sesenta) and 2, 4, 7; 2019 the middle of the passage; 2021 section 18 (no supieron evolucionar); 2022 natal, prescindir de nuestras costas, ante la incertidumbre de que sus pensiones se devalúen, se haya inflado, supondría la ruina; 2023 section 12 (Los delegados eclesiásticos de la junta de censura, “effectively translated by only a very small minority”); 2024 sections 9–11 (“very few”, “a tiny minority”, “hardly any”); 2025 sections 10–12 (“particularly demanding”).

• Sections the reports name as easiest are those with cognates and English-like word order: 2018 sections 1, 6, 8, 15, 18–20 (ER 2018); sin embargo, se dice que, puede que, pero lo cierto es que (ER 2022); tenían la última palabra en cuestiones de moralidad (ER 2023).

3.3 How we classified the 160 sections

This analysis is ours, not Pearson’s. We took each of the 20 marked sections in all eight mark schemes (160 in total) and recorded every feature a student has to handle correctly to earn that mark. We used the Spanish in the mark scheme, the credited answer, the Reject column and the examiner’s comments on that section.

• A section can count under more than one heading. Aunque la labor sea compensada (2019, 15) counts as subjunctive, passive with ser and a linking word. So the columns add up to more than 20.

• Tenses are counted wherever the verb in the section is in that tense, because the English tense must match (see 2.7).

• Relative clauses are counted wherever a relative pronoun (que, quien, cuyo, el que, lo que) begins a clause in the section.

• False friends are counted only where the Reject column or the report shows the look-alike English word was actually given and refused. Other words that caused difficulty are counted as topic vocabulary.

• Judgement is involved in some sections, so treat the figures as a guide to proportions, not exact counts.

3.4 What the sections test: frequency table

Our classification of MS 2018–2025, Question 10. Each cell is the number of the 20 sections in that year containing the feature.

• Vocabulary is at stake in just over half the marks. 85 of the 160 sections (53%) contain topic vocabulary, a false friend or an idiom; 46 of them turn on a topic word.

• Grammar is present in most sections. 123 of 160 sections (77%) contain at least one grammatical feature from the table.

• Most common grammar: the preterite (22 sections), relative clauses (21), the imperfect (13), the subjunctive (12), prepositions that change in English (11), then por/para and Spanish infinitives that become English -ing (10 each).

• False friends peaked in 2024, with 7 of the 20 sections turning on one (escenarios, reunió, asistentes, patio, puestos, conciencia, infantiles, espectáculos). Only 2021 had none.

• Not tested in any passage so far: acabar de, llevar + time, desde hace, the future perfect; and no section has turned on a choice between ser and estar (our reading). Soler has appeared once (solía estar, 2021) and the imperative once (¡Vivid…!, 2024).

3.5 The grammar in detail

Subjunctive: 12 sections in 6 of 8 years. The triggers were:

Sources: MS 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023, 2024.

• The credited English almost never uses a special form. It uses may/might/should, an ordinary present or past, -ing, or wherever. The skill tested is recognising the trigger and the tense (present vs imperfect subjunctive), then writing natural English.

• The imperfect subjunctive has appeared in both -ra and -se forms (fueran, apareciese, 2023). The perfect subjunctive appeared in 2022 (se haya inflado).

Tenses. Preterite in 22 sections, imperfect in 13, future in 7, perfect in 4, conditional in 3, pluperfect in 2. The mix depends on the topic: the history of fashion (2021) and the censorship passage (2023) are full of imperfects (6 and 5 sections); the festival programme (2024) is in the future (5 sections); the court case (2025) uses the preterite, pluperfect passive and conditional perfect (podría haber sido condenado).

Relative pronouns: 21 sections. Beyond plain que: cuyas raíces (2018), los que (2018), en que (2018), por la que se apostó (2019), lo que sí cambiará (2020), en el que (2024), quienes twice (2024), and a relative clause dropped into the middle of a sentence (que había sido contratado por Arriazu, 2025).

se constructions: 9 sections of passive or impersonal se (se transformaron, se utiliza, se dice que, se estrenaban, se calificó, se podrá disfrutar), plus 8 reflexive verbs whose meaning changes (se encuentran … ligados = are linked, not find themselves, MS 2018; se hacía más famosa = became; se fue quedando atrás = got left behind). Passive with ser: 6 sections, three of them in 2025.

Infinitives and gerunds. 10 sections have a Spanish infinitive that must become -ing in English (to devalue rejected for devaluar, MS 2019; (to) invade rejected for por invadir, MS 2025). 4 sections have a Spanish gerund (terminó siendo, estando, cobrando, se fue quedando).

Other structures. Comparatives and superlatives (9); demonstratives, including el primero … el segundo = the former … the latter (6, five of them in 2018); modal verbs such as no hay que (you do not have to rejected, MS 2020) and no supieron (6); neuter lo (3); object pronouns attached to infinitives (entrevistarla y fotografiarla – him rejected, MS 2025) (3).

3.6 Vocabulary that caught students out

Every item below comes from a Reject column or an examiner report. They are grouped by the kind of mistake.

Sources: Reject columns of MS 2018–2025 unless marked (ER), which means the examiner report for that year.

3.7 What the examiners keep saying

We counted how many of the eight examiner reports make each point about the translation:

Our count of the Question 10 sections and end-of-report advice in ER 2018–2025.

4. How to support students

These are our suggestions, not Pearson’s. Each one is aimed at a way students lose marks in Sections 2 and 3.

4.1 A routine for the 20 minutes

1. Read the whole passage first for the gist and the topic. The examiners repeatedly ask students to consider “the passage as a whole, rather than just focusing on individual words” (ER 2018).

2. Mark the long sentences. Bracket any clause dropped into the middle (—por la pertenencia de España a la zona euro—, que había sido contratado por Arriazu) so the start and end of the sentence still join up in English.

3. Translate in sense groups, about the size of the mark-scheme sections (five or six words). Put the subject before the verb and adjectives before the noun.

4. Check every word is covered, especially muy, bastante, sólo, aún, unos, también and sí.

5. Check tense and time frame against the Spanish, verb by verb.

6. Read the English on its own, covering the Spanish. Remove any the that makes it sound specific, any word that only looks like the Spanish, and any sentence that would puzzle an English reader.

7. One answer only. Cross out alternatives.

4.2 Classroom activities

• Mark with the real mark schemes. Students translate a past passage, then mark it box by box with the Accept and Reject columns. Seeing that In the last years or juvenile film scores nothing teaches more than a corrected script.

• False-friend bank. Build a class list from Section 3.6 and add to it every time one appears in reading. Quiz both directions.

• Translationese repair. Give students the rejected versions from Section 2.2 and ask them to rewrite each one as natural English.

• Subjunctive spotting. Give sentences with the triggers in 3.5 (aunque, puede que, para que, cansado de que, proponer que, relative after pocas personas) and practise the English the mark schemes credit: may, might, should, an ordinary tense, or -ing.

• Word order drills. Sentences with the verb first (Este sábado arranca el Festival, Hoy viven muy pocas personas, confluyen estilos como…): students rewrite them subject first.

• “The” audit. Students underline every the in their translation and justify each one. Use El turismo rural, Los jubilados, La ropa tradicional española as examples.

• Small-word hunt. Highlight every qualifier and emphatic sí in a passage before translating; check each one appears in the English.

• Numbers. Regular practice with decades (los años sesenta), centuries in Roman numerals (siglo XVI), decimal commas (16,8), ages (de 80 años) and approximations (unos 50).

4.3 Vocabulary by sub-theme

• Keep topic lists for the areas already used: history and the dictatorship (dictadura, Transición, censura, junta, persecución), work and the economy (asalariados, sueldos, remuneración, mercado laboral), tourism (casa de huéspedes, despoblación, promocionar), customs and festivals (escenario, puesto, feria, artesanos, espectáculo), immigration (expatriados, jubilados, pensiones), law and the media (tribunal, jurado, juez, juzgar, declarar culpable, condenar, delito, prensa del corazón).

• Include the words that look like English but are not (Section 3.6), and fixed expressions that have already been tested, for example a lo largo de, se trata de, con el fin de, a la hora de, dar lugar a, al fin y al cabo, por otro lado.

4.4 Timing

• Pearson recommends about 20 minutes for Section C (QP 2018–2025). Our suggestion within that: about 3 minutes reading the whole passage, 12 minutes translating, and 5 minutes reading the English back on its own, since six of the eight reports ask for that final check.

• At 20 marks for 20 minutes, the translation earns a mark a minute, more than Sections A and B (30 marks each for 50 minutes). Students should not let the reading section eat into this time. This is our reasoning from the recommended timings, not Pearson guidance.

5. Materials