When you are required to 'prepare' a text for
a class or tutorial, this means that you should be able to
read it so as to translate it at sight. This involves knowing
not only what meaning is expressed in the text but also how
the words on the page can be shown to yield that meaning;
and that in turn involves understanding both the meaning of
the individual words and the syntax of the sentence. Particular
attention therefore needs to be paid to the gender, number
and case of nouns, pronouns and objectives and to the person,
number, tense and mood of verbs. This is why it is important
to be familiar with the Old English paradigms and to make
proper use of the glossary, where inflected forms and spelling
variants are generally listed with line references. You should
read the introductory remarks to nay glossary before you begin
to use it.
Translations, like drugs, have their uses, but you should
not become dependent on them. They are valuable for checking
the accuracy of your own translation or for helping you out
with a passage which you do not at first understand. Never
accept someone else's translation until you have worked out
the syntax for yourself and see how the words convey the sense
of the translation. Never memorise a translation, even of
your own; it is laborious and useless. Always work from the
text on the page.
You will find that making a word list will help imprint
the meanings of words on your mind and will be useful for
revision, when you can mark off the words as you know the
text better. Writing out translations in full is tedious and
not very helpful. In your examinations you will have to translate
from a plain text, and that is what you will be expected to
do if required to translate in class. Reading from a prepared
translation will give you a false sense of security and is
not acceptable.
Use idiomatic modern English wherever possible. Do not translate
word for word, which will read unnaturally, but try not to
render so freely that you may be suspected of not having properly
understood the original. Avid the assumption that a sequence
of words each of which is still used in modern English can
be translated by mere transcription into modern spelling ('he
was a very perfect gentle knight'). Always make sure you understand
the whole sentence you are translating before putting pen
to paper. When translating verse, do not write your translation
out line by line.
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