How to revise when English is not your first language
The theory test is in English, and you cannot change that. Nor will you have time to translate in your head on the day: 50 questions in 57 minutes is about a minute each, and the hazard perception clips do not wait at all. What you can do is arrive with the English wording already familiar. This is how.
Three stages
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1. Read both
Work through one topic with the translation showing. Read the English question, read it in your language, then read the explanation. You are not trying to memorise anything yet. You are learning the rule in the language you think in, and meeting the English sentence that carries it.
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2. Hide the answer translations
Now switch off the translation of the four options, and leave the question translated. You still understand what is being asked, but you have to choose from the English.
This is the stage most people skip, and it is the one that decides the test. On the day, the question and all four answers are in English, and the difference between two of them is often a single word.
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3. Hide the translation altogether
Switch the translation off and work the same topic again. If a question stops you, turn it back on for that one question, read it, and turn it off again. When you can get through a topic with the translation off, that topic is ready.
🔊 Listen to the English
All 2,898 questions carry an English voiceover — the question and all four options, read aloud. Use it during the first two stages: read the translation, then play the English and follow the words with your eyes. There is a second reason to get used to it. When you book the real test you may ask for an English voiceover through headphones, which you can replay as often as you need. If you intend to use that, this is where you rehearse it.
Why it works this way round
Translating on the day is a skill you will not have time to use. Recognising a sentence you have already read twenty times is a skill you will. The translation is not there to carry you through the test — it is there to get you to the point where you no longer need it.
How much, and how often
Take one topic at a time rather than a mixed set of 50. There are 14 topics in the car question bank, so a topic a day gets you through it in a fortnight. Go back over whichever topics you score worst on. Leave full mock tests until the topics are solid — and sit them with the translation off, because that is the condition you will be tested in.
Where the two switches are
Both are in the practice player, underneath the question: one for the translation, and one inside it for the answer translations. The single-question reference pages always show everything, so do the staged work in the practice player.