DSE Chinese | Classical Chinese Sentence Translation Lesson-Prep Guide (for tutors) | three steps, function words, four common errors

2026-11-05

Tutor lesson-prep guides · Secondary Chinese

Students can gloss single characters, yet a full sentence comes out with a missing subject and scrambled order, and every zhi becomes possessive. This lesson turns translation into a three-step craft with checkpoints instead of a guess at what sounds right.

Objectives — Students can: (1) translate an 18-character classical sentence with the split, gloss, smooth routine and keep the rendering within 27 characters, about 1.35 minutes of writing at 20 characters per minute; (2) decide the function of the common words zhi, qi, er, yi and yu (pronoun, particle, connective, preposition) and justify the choice; (3) spot an omitted subject, a fronted object and a passive form, restore the missing part before writing, so a three-mark translation item (four items, 12 marks in this lesson) stops losing marks for a missing subject.

01 Prerequisites (3-minute check)

If any of these fails, fix it before the lesson starts.

Skill	Quick check	Pass mark
Multiple meanings	What does the character for weapon mean in the phrase collect the weapons of the empire	Weapon, not soldier
Omission	In they saw the fisherman and were greatly startled, who was startled	The villagers; the subject is omitted
Function words	Which relations can the connective er express	Addition, sequence, contrast, modification

02 Lesson flow (60 minutes)

Time	Stage	Tutor does	Student does
0-6 min	Prior check	Three quick items, especially omitted subjects	Answer orally, errors go in the board corner
6-18 min	Step one: split	Cut the sentence at verbs and mark subject and predicate	Students draw the slashes themselves
18-32 min	Step two: gloss	Gloss every character, handling multiple meanings and shifted word class	Students fill a character-meaning table
32-46 min	Step three: smooth	Restore the subject, reorder, add connectives, watch the length	Students turn the gloss into fluent prose
46-56 min	Four sentences, peer marking	Four sentences in turn, three marks each, marked against three points	Pairs mark and write the reason for each change
56-60 min	Exit check	Collect three items, mark at once, tag the step	Work independently

03 Teaching script (read it out)

Scene 1: Act 1: split first, never read the whole line in one breath

Open with an unpunctuated long sentence and ask a student to read it; most stall halfway. That is the moment for step one: find the verbs. A classical sentence is built on its verbs, and each verb normally has a subject in front (often omitted) and an object or complement behind. Once the verbs are marked, slash the sentence into who, does, what.
Model it on the villagers heard that such a person existed and all came to ask: cut it into three blocks and point out that the first block omits people and the third omits the subject villagers. Students must see that splitting is not cosmetic; it gives every element a slot so nothing is dropped in translation.
Put the misconception on the board: a comma is not a block boundary. Classical lines often pack two or three actions inside one comma, so cut at verbs, not at punctuation.

Students repeat: find the verbs, cut into blocks, every block needs a subject or an action.

Scene 2: Act 2: gloss every character, skip nothing

Act two is glossing. One rule: every character in the original must land somewhere. Content words get a meaning, function words get a function, and shifted word classes are restored. Take zhi: in one passage it means possessive of, in another it is a pronoun for him or it, in another it is a verb meaning to go, and it can also be a particle that nominalises a clause. The position and the word class around it decide, not a memorised list.
Length is part of the skill: an 18-character original should come out at about 27 characters, one and a half times. At 20 characters a minute that is 1.35 minutes per sentence, so writing long is not diligence, it is time lost on words that earn nothing.
In practice students use two colours: black for the literal gloss, red for restored shifts and inserted elements, which makes peer marking fast.

Students repeat: every character lands somewhere, function words go by position, shifted word classes are restored.

Scene 3: Act 3: smooth the line, add nothing

Act three turns the gloss into readable prose with three moves. Restore the subject, because classical Chinese drops I, you and the people constantly and the reader needs to know who acts. Reorder, because fronted objects and postponed prepositional phrases must follow modern order. Add connectives for contrast and cause, but never add meaning the original does not carry: if the original has no because, the translation may not invent one.
Model on the same sentence: the literal gloss reads the village heard there was this person, all came to ask, and the smoothed version reads the villagers heard that such a person existed and all came to ask for news. Compare the two and show that only the subject and the wording changed, no plot was added.
Finish with the mark scheme: a three-mark item usually gives two marks for key glosses and one for completeness and fluency, so a missing subject throws away the cheapest mark on the paper.

Students repeat: restore the subject, reorder, add connectives, but never add meaning that is not there.

04 Question types and worked steps

Type	Example	Steps	Answer
Direct translation	Translate the villagers heard that such a person existed and all came to ask	1 find verbs and split 2 gloss each character 3 restore subject and order	The villagers heard that such a person existed and all came to ask for news
Function word	State the function of zhi in what uncouthness can there be	1 check position 2 check word class around it 3 name the function	Marker of a fronted object, no lexical meaning
Omission	Supply the omitted subject in they saw the fisherman and were greatly startled	1 find the subject in the previous line 2 insert it 3 check the tone	The villagers of the peach-blossom spring
Inverted order	Rewrite the blue comes from the indigo plant in modern order	1 spot the postponed phrase 2 move it forward 3 keep the sense	Indigo blue is extracted from the indigo plant

Sanity check (teach this): Check plausibility after translating: the rendering should be 1.2 to 1.5 times the original, so 27 characters or so for an 18-character line; twice the length usually means invented content. For every clause ask who performs it. A clause with an action and no subject is almost always a missing insertion. Keep function words consistent: the same connective should not be rendered as however in one clause and therefore in the next.

05 Independent practice (3 questions)

Question	Answer	What to watch
Translate: the villagers heard that such a person existed and all came to ask.	The villagers heard that such a person existed and all came to ask for news.	Subject restored, the word for all rendered
What does zhi do in what uncouthness can there be?	It marks a fronted object and has no lexical meaning; the order is what uncouthness is there	Fronting named, not answered as possessive
How should the order of the blue comes from the indigo plant be changed?	The phrase from the indigo plant is postponed and must move forward: indigo blue is extracted from the indigo plant	Postponement spotted, sense kept

06 Common mistakes and what to say

Mistake	Student writes	Say this
Word-for-word gloss	Handing in the village heard there was this person, all came to ask	The sense is close, but is the subject the village or the villagers? Fix that before you call it done.
Treating every zhi as possessive	Rendering what uncouthness can there be as what uncouth thing	That zhi sits before a verb with its object in front, so it marks fronting and has no meaning of its own.
Inventing causation	Writing because of this everyone came when the original gives no cause	Added meaning loses marks even when the sentence reads well; translation is not rewriting.
Losing control of length	Turning an 18-character line into fifty characters	Three marks per item, so length costs time; keep it under thirty characters.

07 Homework (paper, section and question numbers)

Redo this chapter — Redo practice items 1 to 3 (questions 1-3), marking the restored subject beside each
Chinese subject index — Pick the function words chapter and do question 2 in the paper, writing the reason for each judgement
Build a function word table — List three uses each for zhi, qi, er, yi and yu, with one textbook example per use

08 Exit check (last 5 minutes)

Question	Answer	Decision
What are the three steps	Split, gloss, smooth	Answering read, write, check means replay act one
When does zhi carry no meaning	When it marks a fronted object or nominalises a clause	Answering always possessive means replay act two
May the translation add a cause the original lacks	No; only restore subjects and adjust order	Answering yes means replay act three

09 Tutor FAQ

How many function words must be memorised?

About twenty cover most DSE papers, but the skill is the test: position first, word class second, memorised examples last.

Literal or free translation?

Accuracy is marked, so gloss literally to secure every character, then reorder within the same sentence; do not free-translate whole clauses.

Which register should the translation use?

Standard written Chinese; colloquial particles are treated as a register error.

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A TutorZone lesson-prep guide. Written by the TutorZone team; questions and lesson flow are original and are not taken from any school or publisher material.