When two versions differ, what evidence lets us compare them fairly?
Learning Target
I can distinguish supplied meaning from a translator’s interpretive choice and explain the effect of that choice.
Launch
Write one sentence describing rain without using the word rain. Compare two classmates’ versions. Which details came from the event, and which came from the writer?
I Do · Five Translation Questions
What information or image appears to be preserved?
What has been compressed, expanded, specified, or omitted?
What happens to syntax, sound, line length, or ambiguity?
Does the translator explain something the source leaves uncertain?
What can we claim from the English versions—and what remains unknowable without the source language?
We Do · Course Translation Simulation
This is a course-created simulation, not a historical poem and not a real translation. The “source packet” supplies meaning only so we can isolate translation-like decisions.
Meaning Packet
Night market after rain. Paper lanterns reflected in street water. A distant bicycle bell. The observer cannot tell whether someone is arriving or leaving.
Version A
After rain, the market darkens.
Lanterns tremble in the gutter.
Far off, a bicycle bell—
someone coming, or going.
Version B
Rain leaves the market shining.
Red lamps swim beneath my feet.
A bell turns once in the distance.
I cannot tell which way you travel.
Questions
Which version adds specificity? Which changes perspective? Which preserves uncertainty differently? What does “red,” “beneath my feet,” or “you” add that the packet never supplied?
You Do
Write 180–250 words comparing Versions A and B. Make one claim about a tradeoff: precision vs. ambiguity, image vs. literalness, sound vs. directness, or distance vs. intimacy.
Prove It
Underline one sentence in your response that clearly separates evidence from inference.
Day 56 · Interpretation & Craft Check
Five formative questions · Four correct (80%) reveals the next lesson; written work remains independently evaluated.
Source Packet & Versioning Investigator
Develop the parts in your own words, preview, and explicitly append to your separate saved daily evidence.