Grammar and the two translations (دستور زبان و دو ترجمه)

Translate into English, but first mark where a points-based scheme would divide the passage. «کتابخانه‌ی شهر که سال گذشته بازسازی شد، اکنون هر روز باز است. مسئولان می‌گویند که شمار اعضا بیشتر شده، اما فضای مطالعه هنوز کافی نیست.»

1. 01Divide before you translate

   A points-based scheme divides on clause and phrase boundaries. This passage has roughly six segments: the noun phrase کتابخانه‌ی شهر; the relative clause که سال گذشته بازسازی شد; the main predicate اکنون هر روز باز است; the attribution مسئولان می‌گویند که; the reported clause شمار اعضا بیشتر شده; and the contrastive clause اما فضای مطالعه هنوز کافی نیست. Marking those boundaries before you write takes fifteen seconds and turns a paragraph into a checklist you can tick.

2. 02Segments one and two: the relative clause and its passive

   کتابخانه‌ی شهر is the city library, an ezafe chain written ه‌ی after the final silent ه. که سال گذشته بازسازی شد is which was renovated last year: بازسازی شدن is the passive of بازسازی کردن, and شد is a past simple, so which was renovated rather than which has been renovated. The relative clause sits between the head noun and the main verb, which is the normal Persian position and can trap a reader into losing the main clause.

3. 03Segments three and four: the main predicate and the attribution

   اکنون هر روز باز است is now open every day. اکنون is the formal now, higher in register than حالا, and the register is worth carrying into English. مسئولان می‌گویند که is officials say that. مسئول is an official or a person in charge; مسئولان is its plural. Do not upgrade می‌گویند to have confirmed or report: the Persian is a plain present and the English should be too.

4. 04Segments five and six: a perfect with a dropped auxiliary, and a negated present

   شمار اعضا بیشتر شده is the number of members has increased. Note that the auxiliary است has been dropped, which is normal in Persian before a following clause; the tense is still a present perfect and English must keep it. اما فضای مطالعه هنوز کافی نیست is but the study space is still not sufficient. هنوز with a negative is still not, not yet not; and فضای مطالعه is another ezafe chain. Six segments, six translated units, nothing skipped — which is exactly how the marks are counted.

Result: The city library, which was renovated last year, is now open every day. Officials say that the number of members has increased, but the study space is still not sufficient.

Translate into Persian and justify each link. 'The results of last year's survey of secondary school students in the country's largest cities have not yet been published. The head of the research group says that the delay is a matter of funding rather than of method.'

1. 01Sentence one, the subject: build the chain head-first

   The English phrase is five nouns deep. Start with the head and add links: نتایج, results; نتایجِ نظرسنجی, the results of the survey; نتایج نظرسنجی سال گذشته, of last year's survey; نتایج نظرسنجی سال گذشته از دانش‌آموزان دبیرستانی, of secondary school students — note that the from-relation here takes از rather than another ezafe link, because the survey is of people in the sense of from them; و در بزرگ‌ترین شهرهای کشور closes it with a prepositional phrase rather than yet another link. Persian tolerates long chains, but a chain that runs past four links reads badly, and breaking out into a preposition is what a native writer does.

2. 02Sentence one, the predicate: a negated perfect passive with an adverb

   هنوز منتشر نشده است is has not yet been published. منتشر شدن is the passive-flavoured intransitive of منتشر کردن; the negative attaches to شدن; and هنوز with a negative gives not yet. Note that Persian puts هنوز before the verb complex, which is the ordinary adverb position for time adverbs modifying the predicate — one of the positional facts Appendix 2 explicitly lists under adverbs.

3. 03Sentence two, the subject: an ezafe chain naming a person by role

   رئیسِ گروه پژوهشی می‌گوید که is the head of the research group says that. رئیس takes the ezafe to گروه, and گروه پژوهشی is a noun plus adjective, itself an ezafe link. So the phrase has two links in three words, which is entirely normal. Do not be tempted into رئیس از گروه: the of-relation between a role and its body is an ezafe, not a preposition, and getting that wrong is a frequent error.

4. 04Sentence two, the predicate: a not-but structure with two prepositional complements

   این تأخیر نه به روش، بلکه به بودجه مربوط است. The delay is a matter not of method but of funding. مربوط بودن به, to relate to or be a matter of, takes به, and the نه ... بلکه pair repeats the preposition on both sides — نه به روش، بلکه به بودجه — which is what Persian requires and what English does not. Reversing the order relative to the English is deliberate: Persian prefers to end on the element being asserted, and here that is بودجه. That is a translation decision, not an error, and it is the kind of decision the range strand of the AO3 grid exists to reward.

Result: نتایج نظرسنجی سال گذشته از دانش‌آموزان دبیرستانی در بزرگ‌ترین شهرهای کشور هنوز منتشر نشده است. رئیس گروه پژوهشی می‌گوید که این تأخیر نه به روش، بلکه به بودجه مربوط است.

Translate into Persian and justify the marker in each clause. 'Yesterday the committee read the report and sent it to the ministry. They did not read every page, and they will publish a summary next week rather than the whole document.'

1. 01Clause one: a specific object, so the marker is required

   دیروز کمیته گزارش را خواند. Build it in order: the time adverb دیروز first; the subject کمیته; the object گزارش with را, because the report is a particular report already in play; the verb خواند last. If you had written گزارشی خواند you would have said it read a report, some report, which is a different claim. This is the clearest possible case for the marker and it is worth writing out until the order feels automatic.

2. 02Clause two: a pronoun object, which is always specific

   و آن را به وزارتخانه فرستاد. A pronoun is inherently specific, so را is obligatory — آن را, never bare آن, as an object. به وزارتخانه is the prepositional complement and sits between object and verb. Note that the subject کمیته is not repeated: Persian drops a repeated subject freely and the verb ending carries the person. وزارتخانه is the building or department; وزارت alone is the ministry as an institution, and either is defensible here.

3. 03Clause three: a quantified object, and where the negative goes

   آنان همه‌ی صفحه‌ها را نخواندند. They did not read every page. Two points. همه‌ی صفحه‌ها is specific — all the pages of that report — so را is required despite the quantifier. And the negative attaches to the verb: نخواندند. Beware the scope trap here exactly as in English: آنان هیچ صفحه‌ای را نخواندند would mean they read no page at all, which is a different and stronger claim.

4. 04Clause four: an indefinite object with no marker, plus a future and a contrast

   و هفته‌ی آینده خلاصه‌ای منتشر خواهند کرد، نه همه‌ی سند را. خلاصه‌ای carries the indefinite ای after a final silent ه and takes no را, because it is a summary, not the summary. منتشر خواهند کرد is the future of a compound verb: the auxiliary خواهند takes the personal ending and the main verb appears as a short infinitive کرد, with the nominal منتشر preceding it. And the contrastive tail نه همه‌ی سند را keeps its را because that object is specific — a neat demonstration, inside one sentence, that the marker tracks specificity rather than position.

Result: دیروز کمیته گزارش را خواند و آن را به وزارتخانه فرستاد. آنان همه‌ی صفحه‌ها را نخواندند، و هفته‌ی آینده خلاصه‌ای منتشر خواهند کرد، نه همه‌ی سند را.

Translate into Persian and name the form used in each clause. 'When the committee had finished its work, it wanted to publish the findings immediately. The minister said that the report must first be checked, and that if the checks were completed on time it would appear before the end of the month.'

1. 01Clause one: a past perfect in a temporal clause

   هنگامی که کمیته کار خود را به پایان رسانده بود is When the committee had finished its work. رسانده بود is a past perfect, participle plus بود, and the past perfect is right because the finishing precedes the wanting. کار خود را uses the reflexive خود as a possessive and takes را because the work is specific. به پایان رساندن, to bring to an end, is a compound verb with a fixed preposition — one unit, learned whole.

2. 02Clause two: a verb of wanting, so a subjunctive follows

   می‌خواست یافته‌ها را بی‌درنگ منتشر کند. خواستن governs a subjunctive when the wanting and the doing share a subject: منتشر کند, not منتشر می‌کند. یافته‌ها, the findings, is a past participle used as a plural noun and takes را as a specific object. بی‌درنگ, without delay, is a formal adverb and a good register lift over فوراً. Note that the main verb می‌خواست is a past continuous, matching the English simple past of a mental state.

3. 03Clause three: reported speech with an obligation and a passive subjunctive

   وزیر گفت که گزارش باید نخست بررسی شود. The verb of saying is a past simple گفت; the reported clause keeps its own tense, which is how Persian handles indirect speech and is exactly the direct-versus-indirect distinction Appendix 2 names. باید governs the subjunctive, and here the subjunctive is passive: بررسی شود, must be checked. Stacking an obligation on a passive on a subjunctive in three words is the kind of compression Persian does well and is worth practising.

4. 04Clause four: a present conditional and a future

   و اگر بررسی‌ها به‌موقع انجام شود، پیش از پایان ماه منتشر خواهد شد. اگر takes the subjunctive انجام شود in a present conditional; the consequence takes the future منتشر خواهد شد, formed from خواهد plus the short infinitive شد. به‌موقع, on time, is a compound adverb with a half-space. Six different verb forms across four clauses — past perfect, past continuous, subjunctive, past simple, passive subjunctive and future passive — which is precisely the range the AO3 grid is looking for, produced by translating faithfully rather than by decorating.

Result: هنگامی که کمیته کار خود را به پایان رسانده بود، می‌خواست یافته‌ها را بی‌درنگ منتشر کند. وزیر گفت که گزارش باید نخست بررسی شود، و اگر بررسی‌ها به‌موقع انجام شود، پیش از پایان ماه منتشر خواهد شد.

Translate into English, preserving register. «راننده خندید و گفت: «آقا، این خیابون هر روز همینه. اگه زودتر راه بیفتی، نیم ساعت زودتر می‌رسی، ولی کسی زودتر راه نمی‌افته.» سپس دوباره به آینه نگاه کرد.»

1. 01First: notice that the passage has two registers and translate both

   The narration — راننده خندید و گفت, سپس دوباره به آینه نگاه کرد — is ordinary written Persian and should become ordinary written English. The quoted speech is colloquial Tehrani: خیابون for خیابان, همینه for همین است, اگه for اگر, راه بیفتی for راه بیفتی in its contracted vowel, نمی‌افته for نمی‌افتد. A translation that renders the quoted speech in the same register as the narration has flattened a deliberate contrast.

2. 02Decode the contractions before you translate them

   خیابون is خیابان, street, with the long aa raised to u before the nasal. همینه is همین است, it is just this. اگه is اگر, if. راه افتادن is a compound verb, to set off. نمی‌افته is نمی‌افتد, does not set off, with the third-singular ending contracted. Every one of those is on the transformation table, and once decoded the sentence is straightforward. This decoding step is exactly what Paper 3 requires of you in real time, so practising it on a written source is good preparation for the listening paper too.

3. 03Render the speech as speech

   The driver laughed and said, 'Sir, this street is like this every day. If you set off earlier you get there half an hour earlier, but nobody sets off earlier.' Keep the contracted, conversational English — it is like this, nobody — because the Persian is contracted and conversational. Note also that the conditional here is a plain present conditional with a present consequence, not a hypothetical, so English present tense is correct in both halves; اگه زودتر راه بیفتی uses a subjunctive in Persian where English uses a present.

4. 04Return to the narrative register for the closing sentence

   سپس دوباره به آینه نگاه کرد is Then he looked in the mirror again. سپس is the written then, notably more formal than بعد, and it signals that we have left the quotation. نگاه کردن به, to look at, takes به. Rendering this last sentence in the same casual English as the speech would blur the boundary the Persian carefully draws. In a points-based scheme the register of the quoted speech and the register of the narration are separate features of separate segments, and both can be got right or wrong independently.

Result: The driver laughed and said, 'Sir, this street is like this every day. If you set off earlier you get there half an hour earlier, but nobody sets off earlier.' Then he looked in the mirror again.