Really cool translation challenge.

 I've been working on a really cool translation challenge for the last 3 days. And I've nearly cracked the first 5 words. You'll love it. It's a linguist's dream. I could write a whole paper on just the first 5 words.

Here it is. Translate into Spanish, accurately and completely: "Boys will always be boys."

Of course, "Los niños siempre serán niños" won't do. It's an English idiomatic expression that doesn't translate into Spanish. Because it has to be specifically boys. Not all "children" of both genders.

I have been through all the words I know for child, to see if any of them specifically refer only to male children especially in the plural. Niños, chicos, muchachos, mozos, mocosos, nenes, chavales, esquincles...

And all my words for male to see if they could apply to children. Varón, macho, hombre, caballero, güey, vato...

I have to admit I cheated. For this kind of untranslatable expression, I like to use linguee. It collects examples of where (hopefully) real people have attempted to translate things on the internet. Here's what it said for "Boys will be boys."

It showed straight away that I was right to be cautious. People generally avoid using "children will be children". And I absolutely love, "Los machitos serán machitos." For a day or so I thought that was perfect. And I liked the way that los machitos seems deliberately despectivo. But then I started to worry that although in the context of the text, the writer is being critical of machitos, the original sayer of the saying, is not.

I also don't like the "always". It's not part of the expression. It's been put in as an extra, and feels as if it has the value of "of course" or "as we know" or "as the saying goes." And it creates another problem alongside the future tense. "Children will always be children" sounds as if it's saying they won't grow up.

This is all delicious and thoughts about it kept coming to me. This morning I had a feeling that the English modal "will" isn't entirely functioning as the future. It's more in the true sense of "will" meaning "want" or "insist on". We see this in "Will you marry me?" which translates into Spanish as "Do you want..." And "I will" as "Sí quiero".

So my current favourite, while it doesn't solve all the problems, and means I have to let go of my old favourite machitos, is: Así se comportan los niños. With a siempre to fit in somewhere. And I am pretty sure I want it in present tense, not future tense.

Of course this isn't a fun intellectual challenge. This is the opening of the AQA A Level Spanish translation. And I have NO idea what they will have as an acceptable translation on the markscheme. Especially as, to give us an extra kick in the teeth, later in the translation they want you to render the word "children" to encompass both genders. I imagine the markscheme will accept, "Los niños serán niños" just to spite the candidates who recognised this doesn't work. 

I doubt, "Así siempre se comportan los niños" would get the marks. Unless they've read this post.

They will end up accepting a lot of literal translations that gloss over the difficulties or efforts to make a good job. And penalise you for putting in an extraneous los or missing out a de.

I have read the JCQ rules and there's nothing in there about not talking about the exam after it's been sat. Students are definitely talking about it on student forums. Teachers are cautious because the exam board like to keep it secure for next year's mock. But the thought of this being next year's mock makes me feel even more sick on top of the thought of it being this year's actual exam.

What are they trying to do with an exam like this? 

The way the markscheme works, with the text divided up into roughly 4 word chunks worth a mark each, means that if you have something wrong somewhere in that chunk, you get no marks. I can easily see valiant attempts at wrangling with this translation coming out with 0 marks overall. Easily.

This 5 word opening puzzle wasn't even necessarily the worst part of the translation. At least the problems were blatantly obvious, even if the solutions have given me something to think about for a couple of days.

I don't think there's any harm in discussing the first 5 words, as it's already known on social media and student forums as the "boys will be boys" translation. And I've also see "Big boys don't cry" discussed by native speakers saying that the Spanish expression doesn't have the word "big".

Too many of the things in this translation depend on feel for the language rather than testing any knowledge or rule appropriate for this level. Avoiding too many details, I think there are real difficulties in picking the right word for things like, heard, anything, language, was part of, environment. And decisions as to whether to include an article which again, depend on "feel" for the language rather than testing knowledge of a rule.

There's a vicious negative antecedent which isn't a use of the subjunctive usually required at this level. And a nasty imperative with indirect object pronoun. But while unnecessarily hard, these aren't pushing into native speaker territory in the same way as handling nuances of idiomatic connotation and collocation. I personally can enjoy this translation as a challenge to my "feeling" for Spanish, having read vast amounts of literature and having lived in a Spanish-speaking country for four years. That's not what we should be testing at A Level.

I know the point of being "the nice man who teaches languages" is to be honest and fair and not angrily hurt people's feelings. And to remember that in the precarious situation of languages, we are all in the same boat together. But I really don't know what possessed the exam board to think this translation was in any way suitable for English pupils who have studied Spanish in school. A hugely damaging and irresponsible mistake.

Generally I always think the exam boards do a good job and have huge expertise in making the specifications imposed on us work. Or work as best they can given the hand they are dealt. As I spell out in a recent post, the current A Level is awful, but not because of the exam boards.

But this translation was a mistake. All around the country, students who did well in Spanish at GCSE, eagerly picked A Level, stuck with it despite the ridiculous expectations, only to be faced with this at the end of all their hard work. And we wonder why only 2 students per high school pick A Level Spanish. Or actually, thank goodness it's only 2. Who would wish this on anybody?

For me, this translation is a huge kick in the teeth. For the students, they may not even have realised how impossible it was and the kick in the teeth won't come until August. On one level I am intellectually in awe of how such an incredible translation was put together. But that of course is utterly insignificant faced with how sick I feel that this was done to our students.

There will come a point where in all honesty, we won't be able to justify letting pupils take this. Already I would never actively encourage anyone. And I know cases of languages teachers and college heads making sure their own children don't. I don't know how long I can carry on pretending to the pupils that it's a viable option. It's heartbreaking.