Elaborations

• translating information collaboratively and with teacher support, for example, menus, school timetables, directions, and school and public signs or notices, and recognising and explaining similarities and differences in language structures, for example, ga xe lửa/‘train station’, Ngày Làm Sạch Nước Úc/‘Clean Up Australia Day’, quẹo trái/‘turn left’, đi thẳng phía trước/‘go straight ahead’, Em không thích cái nón này, phải không? - Dạ, em không thích or Không, em thích mà/‘You don’t like this hat, do you?’ – ‘No, I don’t’ or ‘Yes, I do’
• identifying words or phrases that are difficult to translate, for example, food items (bánh chưng, bánh tét, bánh xèo, phở) or traditional customs (cúng ông bà, xin xăm, coi ngày, coi tuổi), and explaining reasons for difficulty, such as lack of equivalent concepts or practices in either language
• recognising changes required to sentence structure or word use in English–Vietnamese translation, for example, ‘This lesson is too hard to understand’ = Bài học này khó quá, tôi không hiểu được; ‘I can’t help laughing’ = Tôi không thể nhịn cười được
• learning to use bilingual dictionaries and electronic translation tools, and identifying issues such as multiple meanings of words and the need to consider context or grammatical aspects to select relevant meaning, for example, giấy khen (‘merit certificate’) and hôn thú(‘marriage certificate’); chảy nước mắt (‘to shed tears’) but Hãy xé tờ giấy này đi! (‘Tear this paper off!’); Tôi biết chơi khúc côn cầu (‘I can play cricket’) and Tôi thấy một con dế trong vườn (‘I have seen a cricket in the garden’)