Latin translations?

Question

Is is common for translation markers still to give some marks if the candidate has correctly translated the words, but mixed up the subject?

For instance:

"The man thought the woman insane."

But should be:

"The woman thought the man insane."

I don't know if this helps but it was a at Intermediate 2 standard which is a Scottish qualification, although I do not know a North American equivalent

Here is what it was about:

In ancient chronicles this record has been handed down about the Sibylline books: a certain unknown old woman approached King Tarquin the Proud bringing nine books which, she said, were divine oracles; [and she said] that she wanted to sell them. Tarquin inquired about the price. The woman asked [something] excessive and huge. The King, as though the old woman were out of her mind because of her age, made fun of [her]. Then she placed a little hearth with fire before him (coram) and burnt three of the nine books, and asked the king if he wanted to buy the remaining six at the same price. But Tarquin laughed much more at this and said that the old woman was now mad beyond doubt. Then the woman immediately burnt three other books and again calmly asked the very [same] thing, that he should buy the three remaining books at that same price. Tarquin now assumed a serious expression and a more attentive attitude; he realized that her resolution and assurance were

Refering to the text above, which was in Latin not English, the errors I made were:

The king wanted buy the six remaining books, rather than than the woman asked the king if he wanted to buy the remaining six;

The king calmly asked her the price of the three remaining books, rather than the woman
calmly asked if the king wanted to buy the three remaining books;

The woman admired his resolution, rather than the king admired her resolution.

Those were the only things I muddled up, the rest was right. Do you think these three errors will be costly?

Answer 1

He shouldn't be an "heavy" mark since it's clearly a typo.
It should be worthy with a mark just if you had mixed up the cases but the fact of writing a noun at the nominative instead of another one still at the nominative shouldn't be considered a valuable error.
However this is my personal opinion and I guess it can't be coincident of the one of a translation marker or a Latin's course teacher...!!

Answer 2

Latin is a very difficult language where you can easily mix up things.For example, in my final latin test, I read "examina iacentes" where it shoud have been "exanima iacentes".Of course, my translation was totally wrong, but still i passed, they thought that since the word exanima is pretty uncommon (while examina is not) i should get a passing grade (of course, there was more to the test).Very small mistakes can have a tremendous effect in latin translations, and it is common that students only understand what the text was about when rereading their entire translation.

Answer 3

I wouldn't say so.
An example: In UK common saying is: The water under a bridge!
As English is not my first language, I didn't get it at first because it's a saying and translating word by word doesn't give the meaning.
Latin language has also a saying (sentences) and it is not impossible to translate it word by word as the meaning would be missed.

Hope, i didn't miss the subject! lol