PEOPLE’S COMMITTEE OF HO CHI MINH CITY

SAI GON UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

GIANG TUYẾT NGHI

NGUYỄN HOÀNG BẢO CHÂU

SUGGESTED WAYS AIDING PEDAGOGICAL SENIORS OF

THE FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AT SAI GON
UNIVERSITY TO MAKE VIETNAMESE-ENGLISH
TRANSLATION MORE NATIVE

GRADUATION PAPER

MAJOR: SENIORS OF PEDAGOGICAL ENGLISH

TRAINING LEVEL: UNDERGRADUATE

SUPERVISOR: TRẦN QUANG LOAN TUYỀN, M.A

Ho Chi Minh City, May 2018

1
 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

This is to certify that the dissertation is a bona

fide record of independent research work done by
Giang Tuyet Nghi and Nguyen Hoang Bao Chau. We
have duly acknowledged all the sources from which
ideas and extracts have been taken. The work is free
from any plagiarism and has not been submitted
elsewhere for publication.
Names of Authors:

Giang Tuyet Nghi Nguyen Hoang Bao Chau

1
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Certificate of originality 1

Table of contents 2

List of abbreviation 4

Abstract 5

CHAPTER 1:

1.1.Introduction 6

1.2.Literature review 9

CHAPTER 2: METHOD 14

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS 19

CHAPTER 4:DISCUSSION 35

4.1. The findings and the explanation of the findings in the research
4.1.1.Translation problems 37
4.1.1.1. Linguistic problems 37
4.1.1.2. Cultural problems 42
4.1.2.Limited vocabulary 47
4.1.3. Lack of linguistic analysis of a text 48
4.2. Some recommendations for the findings and conclusion 51
4.2.1.Transference 52
4.2.2. Naturalization 52
4.2.3. Cultural equivalent 53
4.2.4. Functional equivalent 54
4.2.5. Descriptive equivalent 55
4.2.6. Synonymy 56
4.2.7. Couplet and triplet 57
4.3. Limitations 58

2
REFERENCE 59

APPENDIX I : TABLES AND FIGURES 61

APPENDIX II : QUESTIONNAIRE AND INTERVIEW 62

3
 LIST OF ABBREVIATION

1. V – E : Vietnamese - English
2. E – V : English - Vietnamese
3. SL : source language
4. TL : target language
5. VS : versus
6. Etc. : et cetera

4
 ABSTRACT
Translation has a difficult task for would-be translators, especially English students,

who can be remarkably good at languages and fluent in communication. However, they

also have difficulty in creating a good translation. This research has been done in a great

effort to investigate the efficient ways so as to translate from Vietnamese to English

more natively. With deep concern about the situation, the study was carried out in order

to identify common mistakes in a Vietnamese-English translation, which were made by

the seniors majoring in English Pedagogy at Sai Gon University and propose

suggestions for the improvement of the current practice. Their important instruments

utilized in the study included questionnaires and interviews. The combination of the

quantitative and qualitative analysis enabled the researchers to attain the most reliable

findings. Results indicated that there were three principal reasons lead to students’

difficulty in translation: some common translation problems, limited vocabulary, and

linguistic analysis of a text. The implications of these results for understanding students’

difficulties when translating and some latest initiative aimed at solving all of them will

be discussed in this study. The findings are expected to put forward some suggestions

to address the common errors as well as make a beautiful translation.

5
 CHAPTER 1
1.1. INTRODUCTION

Apparently, the foreign language is the first fundamental prerequisite for one’s success
in our present developing world. To be more specific, English is now spoken in many
other countries and used as the universal language - a language of international
communication throughout the world. As a result, English provides a lot of big chances
for many people in today’s society. Also, if students reach a high level of proficiency
in English, being applied for a well-paid job will not be impossible. In fact, achieving a
great fluency in English is a really fantastic thing, but possessing the capability to
produce a good translation is a completely different thing. M.Fyodorov (1950) defined
that translating is to change a text from a source language into a target language loyally
to the possible extent both in content and form. In other words, translation is the process
of changing something that is written or spoken into another language without losing
its original meaning. In terms of this idea, the only change the translator can make is
the language and his main task is to use another language to convey all of what has been
communicated in the original. That means students have to encounter the challenge of
mastering two languages at the same time - fully bilingual in English and Vietnamese.
Consequently, translation is certainly far more difficult than simply trying to use one
language perfectly, especially there are too many kinds of translation such as word for
word translation, free translation, literal translation, dynamic translation, pragmatic
translation, aesthetic-poetic translation, ethnographic translation, linguistic translation,
communicative translation and semantic translation. Therefore, it is indisputable that
Developing Translation appears to be one of the toughest and most undeniable core
modules during the curriculum towards students majoring in either English pedagogy
or English linguistics. In fact, some students dislike the idea of translating a text from
their first language – mother tongue into foreign language because of the different
patterns of customs, traditions, social habits, religious beliefs, and the language of
society leading to the difficulty in understanding some foreign words or expressions. In
other words, they find that Vietnamese-English translating is not an e6asy task to get to
grips with. Above all, it should be noted that the real crux of the matter which English

6
learners always have to face lies in our lack of flexibility in the Vietnamese-English
translation. Catford (1965) explained that there is no meaning equivalence, but just the
signifier equivalence in translation. Because of the differences between the original
language and the target language, there exists the translation equivalence limitedness.
This limitedness is not only manifested in the meaning of words, grammatical features
but also manifested in cultural differences more seriously. In reality, almost all of
English learners always focus too much on grammatical correction and accuracy rather
than its meaning and sense, which makes a translation sound really mechanically and
unnaturally. To illustrate, in the part of Vietnamese-to-English translation in the final
text a long time ago, there was once a phrase: “Đơn Xin thị thực” which used to make
a large number of students scratch their heads because they could not understand the
meaning of the phrase. Therefore, they translated the phrase literally with a wrong
meaning or skipped it. Many students were in a confused state of mind by the term “thị
thực”; consequently, they thought that it was a thing related to food, and the original
meaning of the whole phrase may be an offer or proposal for food. As a result, in many
test papers, there were a variety of versions of the translated phrases by the students in
the following below:
“Declaration going food”
“Enter-exit food”
“Form of beg for food”
“Giving foods food”
In fact, the correct answer is “Visa Application Form”. To all appearances, learning
how to manipulate all these types of translation cleverly into interpreting and translating
not only accurately but also naturally might be extremely challenging, even for
professional linguists. Translation becomes more important when all countries in the
world have exchanged and cooperated together in various aspects of culture, education,
business, etc. In order to meet the demand of the multilingual world’s development, it
goes without saying that translating skillfully have become an essential requirement
when applying to a company. Hence, translation is regarded as a potentially significant
as well as hotly-debated topic in today’s international integration. Taking everything

7
into consideration, some suggested ways to produce a perfect Vietnamese-English
translation should be discovered in response to the current state.

8
 1.2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Apparently, translating is a pretty complex and fascinating task. I. A. Richards (1953)
once claimed that translating is probably the most complex type or event in the history
of the cosmos. This is because, as a cross-cultural communication event, it involves not
only two languages but also two cultures. Although it seems to be interlingual
transformation on the surface, it is actually conveyance across cultures. This common
understanding has already been reached in the translation circle, which leads every
translator to frame in mind or give a priority to three fundamental questions before
undertaking any translation task: What is language? What is culture? What is the
relationship between culture and language?
Peter Newmark, who is an English professor on translation at the University of Surrey,
is one of the main figures in the founding of Translation Studies. He defined culture as
the way of life and its manifestations that are peculiar to a community that uses a
particular language as its means of expression (A Textbook of translation, p.94, 1988).
He did not regard language as a component or feature of culture. If it were so, the
translation would be impossible. Further, the more specific a language becomes for
natural phenomena (e.g., flora and fauna) the more it becomes embedded in cultural
features, and therefore creates translation problems. Most 'cultural' words are easy to
detect since they are associated with a particular language and cannot be literally
translated, but many cultural customs are described in an ordinary language where the
literal translation would distort the meaning and a translation may include an
appropriate descriptive-functional equivalent. Cultural objects may be referred to by a
relatively culture-free generic term or classifier which will contribute to the various
additions in different cultures.
Translation is rendering a written text into another language in the way that the author
intended the text. Translators are concerned with the written word. They render written
texts from one language into another. Translators are required to undertake assignments,
which range from simple items, such as birth certificates and driving licenses, to more
complex written materials, such as articles in specialized professional journals, business
contracts and legal documents. (Bui Tien Bao and Dang Xuan Thu, 1997).

9
Mr Fanit Rabeh (Problems in Translating collocations, p.13, 2009-2010) started his
research with a quotation of translation from Hleil, M. (1990): “Translation is a process
to transfer written or spoken source language (SL) texts to equivalent written or spoken
target language (TL) texts”. He found that the purpose of translation is to reproduce
various types of texts, comprising literary, religious, scientific and philosophical texts
in another language and thus making them available to wider readers, to a greater
number of target audiences and to bring the world closer. However, translation is not
an easy job because of the complicated structures of a language. He said that if the
language is just a classification for a set of general or universal concepts, it will be the
course of very easy to translate from a source language to a target language, but the fact
remains that translation covers not only word for word translation but also many factors.
Besides, the concepts of one language may differ radically from those of another
language for each language articulates or organizes the words differently. The bigger
the gap between the SL and the TL, the more difficult the process of transfer will be.
The difference between the two languages and the difference in cultures make the
process of translating a real challenge. As a result, he emphasized the central point of
his research is collocation. One of the language components is vocabulary, which
includes connotations, collocations, idioms, proverbs, and metaphors. A collocation is
the combination of two words or more creating a meaning which is different from the
meaning of the separate words. Collocation plays a principal role in language and seems
to be more important especially if they are unfamiliar to students and belong to another
culture and language.
Hui Guo (Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 2012) affirmed that different
nations have different cultures. To put it simply, culture refers to the entire ways of
people and translation is, in fact, a converting process. Theoretically, a good translation
should give its reader the same conception as what a native reader gets from the original.
Language and culture are closely related to each other. As cultures are diverse, so
language is diverse. Some words or phrases may contain some cultural connotations
and obviously mirror cultural characteristics; therefore, it is very difficult to translate
them correctly. The purpose and characteristics of translation are to promote
understanding among different countries and nations. However, to reproduce “the

10
closest natural equivalent” in the target language is more or less influenced by the
cultural differences. Because of the differences in histories, geographic locations, local
customs and religious beliefs, etc., there are some translation obstacles which hinder
people from understanding each other properly. Therefore, translation not only involves
translator’s or interpreter’s linguistic competence but also calls for the acquaintance
with the respective cultures. In this sense, translation means more than merely
translating the words, sentences or articles from the source language into the target
language. In Chinese religious culture, “dragon” is a highly respected creature, it is a
symbol of sacredness, prestige and solemnity. In Ancient China, emperors of different
dynasties regarded themselves as the symbol of “real dragon”. The Chinese expression
means “wishing one’s son becoming somebody later”. However, in western culture,
“dragon” is a kind of fierce and cruel and horrible monster who can spurt fume and fire.
This, of course, is quite counter to Chinese custom. When foreigners hear “dragon”,
they would connect it with the animal exists in their mind. As a result, in our translation,
we’d better translate “dragon” like “Long”, and add some explanation about the word
“Long”. By this, foreigners can get correct information. In a nutshell, Hui Guo primarily
focused on the influence of culture on translation and provided us with the semantic and
pragmatic equivalence approaches in translation with large amounts of representative
examples. Thus the relation between culture and translation will be known better.
Lulu Wang (2013) identified cultural functions in the translation for better
communicative effect or for the sake of humanity’s cognition. He said that if language
is taken into account in the broad background of human society, it is found that it is a
product of culture and also a carrier of culture, for language reflects and records a
nation’s history, natural geographic conditions, economy, social system, religion, and
folk customs and so on. It is no exaggeration to say that languages are integrated with
cultures. Compared with language, culture has a much broader meaning because it
reflects the total pattern of beliefs, customs, institutions, objects, and techniques that
characterize the life of a human community. He also pointed out that the origin of
culture is a social inheritance that was created through long-time hard work; moreover,
culture consists of not only non-material things such as beliefs, value concepts, custom
knowledge, as well as material things. One of his interesting points in his study is that

11
he built up a picture of language and culture which are like twin sisters. He considered
language as a part of the culture – the keystone of culture and plays a very important
role in it. Without language, culture would not be possible. On the other hand, language
was influenced and shaped by culture; it reflects culture. In the broadest sense, language
is the symbolic representation of a people, and it comprises their historical and cultural
backgrounds as well as their approach to life and their ways of living and thinking. As
a consequence, every society has its own culture.
Based on the relevant literature, it was hypothesized that culture is the central core of
translation. Many studies draw attention to the role of culture in similar to the foremost
point of effective translation. In other words, it is inferred that whether one’s command
of any foreign language is excellent, advanced or poor is absolutely based on figures of
culture. Then, culture builds up the language barrier, which is one of the most
convincing reasons, makes students or English learners find it pretty hard to produce a
mother tongue - English translation no matter what their nationalities or their first
languages are. On the whole, the informational content of various studies to improve
translation skill has been debated, but most of the researchers have focused too much
on culture - the most major cause of translation problems. Although every study seems
to be the most absolutely complete research on translation for it included a thoroughly
comprehensive analysis of culture and its relationship with language, they still did not
illustrate any effective solutions to enhance translating a text of mother tongue into
English.
According to the law in recent years, students graduating in English linguistics have not
been allowed to teach at state school anymore even they got a high band score of IELTS
test. However, towards students majoring in English pedagogy, they might become an
English - speaking tour guide if they attend a three – month tourism training course.
Apparently, students majoring in English pedagogy are more overwhelmingly dominant
than those in English linguistics. Therefore, in our modern life, if seniors of English
pedagogy want to guarantee a better promising future, only a Qualification in Language
Teaching is not enough, they also need to get access to specializing in English
translation in many fields. It is indisputable that translation becomes more important
when all countries in the world have exchanged and cooperated together in various

12
aspects of culture, education, business, etc. Hence, it is really true that in business, all
kind of bilateral contracts, emails, agreements or conventions, etc have to be translated
meticulously and effectively. Thus, the role of translation was attached importantly to
every field in society, especially in the economic aspect. Then, if any pedagogue no
longer finds teaching interesting after graduating, they can consider carefully in order
to change their career direction – being a professional translator or interpreter. The
purpose of this study is to pinpoint the reasons why so many students are scared of
Vietnamese-English translation and determine which new way to enhance it can be
feasible and pragmatic to English learners. Otherwise, this study is also identified as
practical tips for seniors majoring in English pedagogy to be able to stand a chance of
being recruited in a variety of careers.

13
 CHAPTER 2: METHOD
On the basis of theoretical research, the information related to the actual teaching and
learning of translation was collected in this study. The researchers used interviews and
questionnaires to gather informative detail about Vietnamese-English translation and
figure out the reasons why it is a problem for students majoring in English pedagogy as
well as give suggested ways to help students improve their translation skill.
The participants for this study consisted of pedagogical seniors of the Faculty of Foreign
Languages at Sai Gon University in Ho Chi Minh City, who were taking part in the
Translation III course which is undertaken on a weekly basis throughout a period of 15
weeks. In other words, it took approximately 25 hours for the whole course. There were
150 seniors who were both male and female students at the upper-intermediate level.
The participants of the study had passed the previous modules – the Translation I and
II. It means that statistical data on English level of the students were collected in
advance to assure all the selected participants are equivalent in level and proficient in
English. Thus, the upper-intermediate level learners were chosen as the subjects of the
research for they may certainly have a basic understanding of some kinds of translation,
especially to have a general knowledge of Vietnamese-English translation. Therefore,
this group was chosen as the target group of the project.
In our research, we focus on the three main techniques for producing data, which were
identified as questionnaires, interviews and documents. First of all, the questionnaire is
considered as a common technique used to collect data or information quite quickly
which is standardised through written questions. The kind of questionnaires which was
used in the research is the semi-structured questionnaire. There are both structured
questionnaires and unstructured questionnaires. In terms of the structured
questionnaires, they are based predominantly on closed questions which produce data
that can be analysed quantitatively for patterns. Furthermore, structured questionnaire
data can be processed by software packages such as Excel. Besides, regarding the
unstructured questionnaires, they are based on open questions allowing respondents the
freedom to answer in their own words and therefore to provide a greater quality in their
response. Moreover, all participants can be given the opportunity to provide feedback,
which is generally anonymous and encourages openness and honesty. Therefore, the

14
researchers used the questionnaire to investigate the seniors’ views on their difficulties,
mistakes on translating Vietnamese into English as well as the suggestions to improve
their translation skills. In some extent, the researchers can figure out necessary and
practical information for the study and suggest appropriate solutions as well. The 150
copies of the questionnaire in English were given to the students in Translation III
courses after being designed and edited cleverly many times, then they were all
collected. In the study, the questionnaire consists of 15 questions. The purposes of the
questions can be described as follows:
Question (1) was used to find out the students’ attitude towards all subjects that they
have learnt.
Question (2) was designed to get their feelings of learning translation.
Question (3) was to find out their thought of their own translation skill.
Question (4) and (6) were designed to get information on the students’ opinions whether
the Vietnamese-into-English translation is difficult or not.
Question (5) was to figure out the average time that students spend on translating a text.
Question (7) was to seek their views on the important requirement for a good translation.
Question (8) and (12) were designed to know whether the students follow correct
translation process when producing a translation.
Question (9) was to clarify what methods that the students get used to applying to their
translation.
Question (10), (11) and (13) were applied to illustrate the students’ difficulties in
translating a text.
Question (14) was related to the students’ self-evaluation on translation skills and to
find out what they did to improve their translation text.
Question (15) was to clarify the students’ opinions on the main difficulties of translation
methods.

Secondly, in order to make the study more reliable, the interview questions were
designed to get information from the lecturers who clearly concentrate on students’
mistakes in translating Vietnamese into English. This was due to “double attention”,
which means that “listening to the informant’s responses to understand what he or she

15
is trying to get at and bearing in mind that all questions are liable to get answered within
the fixed time at the level of depth and detail” (Wengraf, 2004, p.194). Doing interview
does a variety of merits. Firstly, it allows for more in-depth data collection and
comprehensive understanding. Secondly, body language and facial expressions are
more clearly identified and understood. Thirdly, the interviewer can probe for
explanations of responses.To be specific, 5 questions were designed in relation to our
general area of study, then move the interviewee closer to our specific topic step by
step. In addition, one sound recorder was also prepared so as to record the whole
interview process which was made as reference material. The researchers interviewed
the lecturers who have taught translation and have a lot of experience in teaching
translation modules.

Question (1) was to get information on the important meaning of translation and the
differences between two kinds of translation texts.
Question (2) was to know the students’ attitude towards Vietnamese-into-English
translation texts based on their teacher’s comments.
Question (3) was made to find out kinds of problems which translators usually make in
translating a text from the source language into target language.
Question (4) was designed to ask about the teacher’s advice on how to deal with a term
that does not have an equivalent in another.
Question (5) was used to figure out the possible reasons why students often pay more
attention to grammar and accuracy more than natural sound as well as ask about the
teacher’s advice to help students overcome difficulties in improving Vietnamese-into-
English translation skills.
Lastly, all the research involves the use and analysis of documents. Students are
supposed to read, understand and critically analyse the writings of other researchers; as
a result, considerable attention has already been given to the techniques of reading for
research. In other words, the focus of data collection is wholly or almost entirely on
documents of various kinds. They might be computer-based, or work-based, but in this
research, the document is principally literary-based, aimed at producing a critical
synopsis of an existing area of research writing. The whole process of document

16
treatment was carried out in 2 months and will be integrated with other chapters
throughout this research.
Interview and questionnaire are the most important and major tools in our research;
thus, our procedure was divided into 2 phases. In the first phase, the questionnaire was
aimed at finding out the students’views of the most frequent translation errors they
made, their translation procedures as well as their suggestions for avoiding these errors
in future translation. Participants included the whole 150 seniors majoring in Teaching
English. The questionnaire containing a list of 15 questions and comprising both closed-
ended and open-ended questions on the area of translation was distributed to
pedagogical seniors after the lesson, and the survey on each classroom lasted about 10
minutes. The survey was carried out on the 26th and 27th September 2017 in the rooms
B.008 and A.304 at Sai Gon University. In the second phase, as interview insights into
the nature of the issue and the individual respondent’s behavior, attitudes and
experiences through the interaction between interviewers and interviewee, the
researchers decided to conduct two interviews with two experienced teachers who were
the teachers in charge of translation classes and related modules. The interviews were
aimed at achieving in-depth answers to all the five research questions. On the 3rd
October 2017, an interview was carried out with the lecturer Mr Truong Van Anh at
room B.005 at Sai Gon University and another interview was conducted with the
lecturer Mr Nguyen Manh Bui Nghia at room B.008 at this university. Before the
interview, the researchers communicated with the lecturers by having an informal
conversation as an effort to make them comfortable. We also drew up a questioned
sample and a brief outline of the topic as well as emailing each of them to Mr Anh and
Mr Nghia with a view to making them properly prepared in advance. During the
interview, researchers were clearly assigned to different tasks: one person was in charge
of asking, the other was recording and observing. The interviews were voice recorded
with the interviewees’ permission which lasted about 20 minutes.
The researchers attended the Translation Theory class which was taught by Ms Tran
Quang Loan Tuyen at room C.A510 at Sai Gon University between September 2017
and December 2017. One of us studied the Translation III course which was taught by
Mr Nguyen Manh Bui Nghia at room C.B008 and the other studied this module by Mr

17
Ho Van Binh at room C.A304 in the first semester in 2017. There are several advantages
of observation. To begin, this was aimed to come to approaches taken by translators in
translating from Vietnamese into English. Secondly, this was the best for the study of
human behavior and also a very direct method for collecting data and information. With
regard to collected data, that was very accurate in nature and very reliable as well as
improved precision of the research results. By observation, the researchers can identify
a problem by making an in-depth analysis of the problems. Finally, this method helped
in understanding the verbal response more efficiently.
The researchers studied principles, the theories which are related to translation books,
on the Internet to get the theoretical information.
Following the data collecting phase, qualitative data were collected by analyzing
juniors’ answers and information provided by interviewees. In other words, this chapter
is focusing on the aspects of the methodology of the study such as research
questionnaire and research interview questions. Then, the data collection includes the
questionnaire, the interview questions and theoretical analysis. Last but not least,
statistical analysis was revealed, calculated as well as illustrated in-depth in the next
part of the study.

18
 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS
This chapter deals with the collected data, implemented and analyzed statistics
implemented on the responses to the questionnaires by the seniors, who are the
pedagogical students of English major at Sai Gon University (2014-2018 curriculum),
the possible causes of those errors and techniques to avoid them and to improve the
students’ translation skills.
A sheet of questionnaire paper containing 15 questions which are closed questions or
multiple choice questions and opened questions which need to be answered basing on
the respondent’s own ideas were prepared with the purpose to seek for information on
the students’ views on Vietnamese-English translation course, their recognition of
difficulties, mistakes in translating Vietnamese texts into English as well as the ways
they can improve their translation skills so as to make them more native.
The 150 copies of the questionnaire in English were delivered to the final-year students
majoring in Teaching English (2014-2018 curriculum) at Sai Gon University and all
were collected.

19
 The students'attitude towards modules
90
77.9
80
69.9
70 66
60
60
50
50
40
40 33 33
30.1
30
22.1
20
10 12
10

0
like dislike

sociology syntax translation writing IV public speaking others

Figure 3.1. The students'attitude towards modules

The bar chart compares the figures for different modules in both positive and negative
attitude of the fourth-year students at Sai Gon University. As is highlighted in the chart,
a large number of the students liked Sociology while Syntax was not satisfied the most.
According to the chart, there were a very large majority of the students who were keen
on Sociology, with almost 78%. The three most popular modules, which the students
felt satisfied with after Sociology were Public Speaking, Writing IV and Translation
with proportions of 60%,50% and 40% in that order. Whereas well above one-fifth of
the students said that they were fond of Syntax, roughly seven in ten said they disliked
this module. Public speaking ranked in the second place in dissatisfaction part, at 66%.
Approximately 33% of the seniors did not like Writing IV. Besides, there was
moderately more than 30% who said they did not fancy studying Sociology. However,
a minority (only 12%) did not enjoy learning Translation.
It can be concluded that although there were still a small amount of the students who
were not interested in learning Translation module, many of them (40%) expressed their
positive attitude toward this subject. With those positive attitudes, the researchers
believe that they can get successful when trying their best on studying translation.

20
 The student's satisfaction with translation
course

12% 12%
very satisfied
satisfied
23%
aquadate
unsatisfied
53%

Figure 3.2. The student's satisfaction with translation course

The pie chart gives information on the students’ feeling of learning translation subject.
As can be seen from the graph, the percentages of the students who liked translation
course were obviously more than those who did not like it.
When the students were asked about how they felt about learning translation, half of
them (approximately 53%) answered that they found it the aqua date. It is encouraging
to see that more than one-third of them felt satisfied with learning translation subject.
The figure in the chart also means that the students were interested in learning
translation work. It can be inferred that although translation was a difficult module for
them to master, their interest in the subject they learned would be a motive which helped
them try their best to learn and practice translation as much as they could. However,
there were 12% of the students who had not found their satisfaction with learning
translation.
From the result, it can be concluded that although there were still a small number of the
students who were not interested in learning translation subject, most of the students
express their positive attitude toward translation subject. With those advantages, the
researchers hope that the students can learn translation as well as they can and get much
success.

21
 Seniors' self-evaluation of their own translation
skill
7%
average
15% very good
2%
76% good
poor

Figure 3.3. Seniors' self-evaluation of their own translation skill

The pie chart gives information on how senior students majoring in Teaching English
at Sai Gon University self- evaluated towards their own translation skill.
The answer to the question reveals that the number of the students who thought their
level of translation was average accounted for a very large majority (76%). However,
the smallest proportion was seniors who self-evaluated their translation was excellent
(2%). Good level of translation skill was the second most thoughts’ seniors, which made
up 15%. By contrast, thoughts of the poor level were about half as much as those of
good level.
Basing on the result, it can be inferred that students were able to understand what level
they were in so that they could learn it as well as they could or they could try to find
their motivation to study this subject. Furthermore, most of the students expressed their
positive attitude towards self – evaluating their translation skills as well as their ability
to translate in general.

22
 The amount of time that the students spent on
translating a 500-word text

1 hour
18%
27%
2 hours
14%
3 hours

41% many hours

Figure 3.4. The amount of time that the students spent on translating a 500-word
text
The pie chart illustrates the figure for the time that the final-year students spent on
translating a five hundred – word text. As is clearly shown by the graph, the most
common amount of time that students usually spent was two hours for a five hundred –
word text.
With regards to the amount of time, there were 41% of the students thought that two
hours were enough for them to finish the text, while just over a quarter of them supposed
that it was about one hour. In contrast, almost a third of them thought to translate a five
hundred – word text needed three hours or more. It can be concluded that there were a
number of students who took a great deal of time to deal with a translation text, have
difficulty in finding appropriate techniques to tackle different types of text, such as
translating Vietnamese – into – English or translating English – into – Vietnamese.

23
 The amount of time on each part of the
60-minute translation test
minutes spent on each part

60

50

40

30

20

10

0
E-V part V-E part
main parts of a test

Figure 3.5. The amount of time on each part of the 60-minute translation test

The bar chart outlines the amount of time that seniors spent on each part of the 60-
minute translation test. It is obvious to know what types of translation parts which were
frequently chosen by the seniors to spend more time to cope with.
The result provided that students usually took almost 40 minutes for V- E part. On the
other hand, just over 20 minutes were spent by the students on translating English-into-
Vietnamese part.
In conclusion, the students took a lot of time to do Vietnamese-into-English texts. In
other words, they felt translating Vietnamese-into-English was much more difficult and
challenging than the other one. The difficulty of translating from mother tongue to
foreign language, particularly English, reflects that they more easily make mistakes in
this kind of texts. The reasons why they have mistaken in translating would be revealed
in the table below.

24
 The degree of attitude Proportions of students’attitude (%)

Strongly agree 26.2%

Agree 64.3%

Disagree 7.5%

Strongly disagree 2%

Table 3.1. The certain extent of students’ attitude towards the belief that V-E
translation is more difficult than E-V translation

Main reasons of their attitude Proportions of students’attitude (%)

Lacking vocabulary 21%

Difficult to find suitable grammatical 58%

ranges

Difficult to analyze the context 14%

Difficult to arrange words in English 7%

Table 3.2. The reasons of the students’ belief

The first table compares that the degree of the students’ attitude towards the belief that
translating Vietnamese-into-English was much more difficult than translating English-
into-Vietnamese. It is clear from the table that a large number of the students agreed
that Vietnamese-into-English was harder and tougher.
Looking at the table for detail, slightly higher than a quarter of them had a strong
agreement and the percentage of the agreement was slightly lower than two-thirds.
However, the figure for the disagreement was one-tenth the agreement total. In specific,
only 7.5% thought that English-into-Vietnamese translation was easier to translate. As
25
the table reveals, a very small proportion gave strong disagreement with the statement,
which accounted for only 2%.
The second table depicts that well above half of the students ( 58%) have difficulty in
grammar points, particularly in using only a very limited range of structures or making
frequent grammatical errors and faulty punctuation. Close to a fifth of the students
(21%) revealed that they used only basic vocabulary which may be used repetitively or
may be inappropriate. They usually used only a very limited range of words and
expressions with very limited control of word formation and spelling. Unlike those
students, it is quite hard for some students (14%) to understand the context. In other
words, they may lack knowledge of their mother tongue in some aspects, such as
politics, culture, economics, etc. By contrast, a minority (7%) did not arrange ideas
logically, which means they had little control of organizational features.
The result proved that the significant problems were lack of lexical resource and
grammatical range in the procedure of translating from the mother tongue to the target
language, especially English.

26
 40

35
percentages of each elements

30

25

20

15

10

0
Accuracy Sensitivity to Texture Tone others
formal
considerations
the elements required for a good translation

The elements required for a good translation

Figure 3.6. The elements required for a good translation

The bar chart illustrates the percentages of the elements which are required for a good
translation, namely accuracy, sensitivity to formal considerations, texture, tone and
others. In general, the feature which was required the most was accuracy, which
represented slightly over a third.
It is obvious to see that “sensitivity to formal considerations” was considered the second
important factor by just above 30%. However, there were roughly 15% of the students
who chose “texture” and approximately 12% of them choosing “tone”. Only a minority
of the students (about 4%) thought other elements were significant, such as cultural,
personal factors or syntax.
In conclusion, translation is a complex process, involving a variety of factors. The
researchers suggest that a discussion of these elements would be useful in establishing
effective strategies for avoiding pitfalls in translation between English and Vietnamese.

27
 Percentages of seniors doing analysis
before translating and doing proofreading
after translating
%
never

rarely

sometimes

often doing proofreading

doing analysis
usually

always

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

Figure 3.7. Percentages of seniors doing analysis before translating and doing
proofreading after translating

The bar chart illustrates findings for the survey regarding the final-year students on
whether they did an analysis before translating and proofreading after translating or not.
It is clear from the chart that the choices of never doing proofreading and sometimes
doing analysis had the highest proportions.
In terms of doing analysis, slightly higher than a third of the students sometimes
analyzed the texts before translating, while there was not much difference in the figures
for “usually” and “always” doing this, ranging approximately 23% for each group.
Whereas the percentage of the students who said they often did analyzing was about
15%, a minority said they rarely or even never did so.
Before submitting or printing a translation, never carefully proofreading accounted for
the highest percentage of the seniors, with just over 35%. A greater proportion of the
students who said they rarely did editing their works than those sometimes did, with
about 23% and 18% respectively. The proportion of often proofreading was almost the

28
same as that of often analyzing. A very small number of the students (less than 5%)
usually and always completed this process.
All in all, a large number of the students ignored the first step as well as the final one.
It is the time to perform an exacting analysis of the paper. During the proofreading
procedure, they should search for errors in spelling, word usage, grammar and
punctuation. Therefore, doing analyzing and proofreading are both essential parts of the
translating process.

29
 The figures for translation methods that the students often use (%)

Word-for-word translation 22.36

Literal translation 18.63

Faithful translation 3.72

Semantic translation 9.31

Adaptation 10.55

Free translation 14.28

Idiomatic translation 6.83

Communicative translation 14.28

Table 3.3. The figures for translation methods that the students often use (%)

The table compares the percentages of common methods that the students often used
when translating texts. It is clear that the highest proportion of method which was often
used went on word-for-word translation. On the other hand, the faithful translation
method had the lowest percentage in the table.
Out of eight common translation methods, the word-for-word translation was used
noticeably higher than the others, with about approximately 23%. The percentage of
free translation was strikingly similar to that of communicative one, at 14.28%. The
second most popular method after the word-for-word translation was a literal one, which
constituted nearly 19%. There was a marginal difference between the figures for
adaptation and semantic translation, with roughly 11% and 9.31% respectively. In
comparison with faithful translation, the proportion of idiomatic translation (at 6.83%)
was double that of the former.
It can be concluded that word-for-word translation was applied the most. However, it
does not mean that this method was the best and powerful one. Therefore, combining
various types of translation methods could bring a lot of merits.

30
 The aspects that the students pay more
attention to when producing a translation
grammar and lexical meaning beautiful and natural sound

31%

69%

Figure 3.8. The aspects that the students pay more attention to when producing a
translation

The pie chart gives information on the aspects that the seniors paid much more attention
to when producing a translation. The most striking feature of the graph is that a
significant proportion of the students (69%) focused on grammar and lexical meaning.
That means, they concentrated so much on the meaning of each individual word in the
source text and their translation texts may be too literal, stiff and unnatural. On the other
hand, just below a third of them (31%) wanted to produce natural sounding texts more
than the other one, which was a huge difficulty for all the students.
In fact, many people think that translating is easy, which they have to do is to change
words from one language to their equivalents to another. In other words, they forget or
underestimate how important naturalness is. Moreover, writing words in a particular
way would make little sense to a monolingual native speaker.
In conclusion, it will be better if they know how to well combine both factors in an
efficient way.

31
Through the question number 14, the students gave some suggestions to make an
English-into-Vietnamese translation more native. First of all, they had to use necessary
resources, reference materials and some more extra documents relating to translation in
order to improve their skills. Some of them were referred to English articles in Tuoi tre
News or “English compositions”. Secondly, grammatical ranges are important. For
example, it is better to use relative pronouns like “that” and “which”. Moreover, using
the passive voice more than the active one is better understood, direct and easier to
translate. The third one is to keep the sentences brief for about 20 words or less with a
view to increased comprehension and simpler translation. Furthermore, using Standard
English word order whenever possible is essential. This generally means a subject, a
verb and an object with associated modifiers must be put in the correct order. Besides,
ensuring correct grammatical structures and proper punctuation plays a significant stage
because mistakes can appear across source and target languages. Last but not least, they
said that it was necessary to learn Translation course and they referred the course of Mr
Nguyen Manh Bui Nghia, a master of translation.

32
 Difficulties Language Idioms and Cultural Multiple
structure expressions differences Meanings
(%) (%) (%) (%)
Methods
Word-for-word 44.5 26.6 16.5 12.4
translation
Literal translation 46.7 28.9 10.9 13.5

Faithful translation 55.3 23.3 18.9 2.5

Semantic translation 26.6 28.9 34.5 10

Adaptation 21.4 17.8 31.2 29.6

Free translation 22.9 18.7 21.6 36.8

Idomatic translation 11.2 55.8 31.4 13.2

Communicative 31.6 25.8 23.3 19.3

translation

Table 3.4. The percentages of the main difficulties of each method

The table gives information on the percentages of the main difficulties of eight different
types of translation methods. It is evident that the specialist, all eight methods spent the
majority of their problems on language structure as well as idioms and expressions, but
much less on cultural differences and multiple meanings.
To begin, language structure was the largest problem for four different methods, namely
faithful translation, literal translation, word-for-word translation and communicative
translation, at 55.3%, 46.7%, 44.5% and 31.6%, respectively. In contrast, they spent
around a quarter on idioms and expressions. However, this pattern was reversed for
idiomatic translation, which spent approximately 56% of its difficulty on idioms and
expressions, but just over 11% on language structure.
All eight kinds of translation methods spent much less on the remaining two issues,
except for adaptation and free translation. Faithful translation spent the least on multiple

33
meanings, at less than 10%, while the other five methods, apart from adaptation and
free translation, spent around the same amount, ranging between 10% and 19%. At
slightly under 37% and 30%, adaptation and free translation spent the most on multiple
meanings, whereas the latter also spent roughly similar figure for cultural differences.
It can be concluded that there were the most difficulties for the students in language
structure when using various translation methods. However, multiple meanings were
much easier for them to deal with because they were able to use dictionary. Therefore,
this problem was not too hard to tackle.

34
 CHAPTER 4: DISCUSSION
In this chapter, the findings as well as the explanation for the findings are mentioned.
This chapter also focuses on the research limitation and the most momentous part of the
research, the recommendations for future researchers. The research has attempted to
assess the plausible explanation of juniors’ scary condition towards Vietnamese -
English translation and the findings are consistent with the previous research (Hui Guo,
2012 & Lulu Wang, 2013), just as the original speculative hypothesis.
4.1. The findings and the explanation of the findings in the research
From these figures mentioned above, it can be concluded that a large number of students
self-evaluated their own translation skill at an average level and other academic subjects
such as sociology, syntax, public speaking, etc. seemed to win popularity with seniors
majoring in English while Translation Practice 1,2,3, particularly in the field of
Vietnamese – English evidently lost popularity with most of the students. Furthermore,
most students clearly failed to progress their translation skill after two translation
curricula because the amount of time that nearly fifty percent of students spent on
translating a 500-word text were still more than 2 hours and most of them still spent
two-thirds of time on a Vietnamese – English translation part of the 60-minute
translation test. Apparently, they lost the balance of time and it may lead to translation
problems.
The Lecturer of the Faculty of Foreign Languages, Nguyen Manh Bui Nghia, used to be
the vice- dean of the Faculty of Foreign Language at SGU in the early days. According
to his years of practical and professional experience in teaching Translation, when
interviewed, he defined that translation is the process of solving translation problems
so as to endure that the meaning and the style of a text in one language will be
reproduced as accurately and naturally as possible into the target language. Although
both activities follow the same translation process comprising of three core stages., viz.
analysis, transfer and restructuring and require the translator’s thorough knowledge of
the grammar, syntax, idioms, culture, semantics, pragmatics and the like of both the
source language and the target language. He also confirmed that there is a slight
difference between English - Vietnamese translation and Vietnamese - English
translation. He said that English is regarded as a second language (ESL) and our Second

35
Language Acquisition (SLA) is quite insufficient because English learners do not have
much time to study as well as expose to it. Besides, they must acquire an extensive
knowledge of the target language as well as experience in life at the same time; then
they are able to use the language to express them in our translation. Therefore, it is much
more difficult to deal with V – E translation. Especially, in some political statements,
they have to follow some special structure, which makes V- E translation much more
difficult than ever.
More importantly, he pointed out one external reality from which students could not
escape was the same as the original speculation and other studies. It is that Vietnamese
students are likely to commit less lexical, grammatical, semantic and stylistic errors, but
they might have difficulty in comprehension during translating English into
Vietnamese. On the other hand, translating Vietnamese into English, they are less likely
to have trouble with comprehension, but they are more likely to make mistakes in
spelling, grammar, semantics and particularly style. Simply put, they are not native
English speakers. In the case of Vietnamese - English translation, students’ insight of
the target language (English) is more important and needs to be deeper than their
knowledge of the source language (Vietnamese) so as to restructure or the re-encode
the meaning and style of a Vietnamese text in the target language properly. In other
words, they don’t have enough understanding of the target language. For this reason,
most of the students majoring in English are extremely scared of having to render a
Vietnamese text into English.
Mr Nguyen Manh Bui Nghia was very enthusiastic about helping us recognize that the
obvious problems encountered in translation can be separated into linguistic, cultural
and stylistic problems. First, the linguistic problems include lexical problems, lexical
and structural ambiguity and grammatical differences between Vietnamese and English.
Second, the cultural problems refer to culture – bound terms, idiomatic expressions, and
proverbs. Third, the stylistic problems comprise of word substitution versus word
repetition, inappropriate words which are either too formal or too informal, passive
structures versus active structures, and nominal structures versus verbal structures.
Furthermore, to make our research paper more persuasive, we also attended the
initiative translation course which is not included in the curriculum of English

36
pedagogy. After attending a series of interesting lectures on the translation of Ms Tuyen
(Tran Quang Loan Tuyen, the Lecturer of the Department of Foreign Language at
SGU), we could draw lots of valuable lessons and learn from mistakes through her lists
of vivacious and outstanding examples. Thus, a lot of practical examples, which were
collected in Ms Tuyen’s course, will be discussed in the later part and the next chapter.
Hence, we once again affirm that our speculation is correct and we are in the right
direction towards translation problems. As a result, through the findings in chapter 4
and especially Mr Nghia’s honest and valuable opinions and Ms Tuyen’s examples, we
can reach the conclusions that Vietnamese – English translation definitely has become
English learners’ greatest obstacle in the path of translating due to three principal
reasons.
4.1 .1. Translation problems:

First of all, there are two kinds of translation problems in Vietnamese – English
translation, which may get students to make mistakes in forms or structures when he/she
translates from their source language into their target language. The problems are
mainly due to the differences in linguistic systems and languages, especially towards
the juniors and seniors in Sai Gon University who are not very experienced in English
structures though they are English major students. According to Antar S. Abdellah
(2002), translation problems can be divided into linguistic problems and cultural
problems: the linguistic problems include: lexical ambiguity, structural ambiguity and
grammatical differences; the cultural problems refer to different situational features.
Obviously, it would be of pivotal importance to kick-start explanation by further
concentration on the linguistic problem.
4.1.1.1. Linguistic problems:

There are three kinds of linguistic problems that English learners must have a thorough
grasp of lexical ambiguity, structural ambiguity and grammatical differences.

37
 A. Lexical ambiguity:
Vietnamese words may also cause translation problems when it is translated into
English.Take the word “giả” as an example, it could be easy for us to understand that
the word is used to describe something appears to be genuine, especially to cheat
people; however, it is not what it seems to be. When translating the word into English,
there will be lots of different English words according to the noun it combines with.
As a result, it could be referred that one Vietnamese word can have a wide variety of
English equivalent when translating.
Example: giả:

vàng giả  imitation gold.

( “imitation” is used to describe a copy of something especially expensive, like gold.
Usually, imitation gold is made from copper and tin and zinc, but certainly not real
gold. Thus, imitation is the most suitable equivalent of “giả” in “vàng giả”.)

tiền giả  counterfeit banknote(s).

( Counterfeit is used to describe something made to look exactly like another thing in
order to trick people into thinking that they are getting the real thing, like money. It
often comes with “note” to be depicted as unreal money. Thus, “tiền giả” is not
translated into “fake money”, and “counterfeit banknote” is used instead. )
chân giả  prosthetic leg.
( Prosthetic is used to describe an artificial part of the body, for example, a leg, an eye
or an arm. Therefore, “prosthetic leg” is the most acceptable equivalent of “chân giả”.)
tranh giả  reproduction picture.
( Reproduction is used for a thing that has been reproduced, especially a copy of a work
of art or furniture made as a copy of an earlier style. Thus, “reproduction picture” is
the perfect match for “tranh giả”.)
tên giả  pseudo-name/ assured name.
( Pseudo- is a prefix used to relate something not genuine, false or pretended, such as
name. Sometimes, assured name is also acceptable.)
súng giả  replica gun.

38
( Replica is a very good or exact copy of something and it nearly reaches the absolute
level of genuine, like the weapon. Hence, “replica gun” is a right and proper equivalent
for “súng giả”.)
B. Structural ambiguity:
Structural ambiguity is the part of linguistics that deals with language as a system of the
related structure. In other words, it is a situation where a sentence may be interpreted in
more than one way due to ambiguous sentence structure. Structural ambiguity or
syntactic ambiguity arises not from the range of meanings of single words, but from the
relationship between the words and clauses of a sentence, and the sentence structure
underlying the word order therein. That means a sentence is syntactically ambiguous
when a reader or listener can reasonably interpret one sentence as having more than one
possible structure.
Example:
1. Cô ta phải lấy một tên khác, tên Thanh.
 She had to marry another guy whose name was Thanh.
 She had to assume another name, which was Thanh.
With the first example, there are two structures when translating because of the simple
phrase “lấy....tên”. Apparently, even being a Vietnamese native speaker, it is very
straightforward for us to misunderstand its meaning or expound the phrase on two ways
of understanding : “marry another guy”, “assume another name”.
2. Tôi đã cho Lan quyển sách mới mua hôm qua.
 I gave Lan the book that I bought yesterday. ( mua hôm qua)
 I gave Lan the new book which I had just bought yesterday. (cho hôm qua)
 I gave Lan the book which I had just bought yesterday. (sách chưa hẳn đã mới)
Similarly to the second example, the word “mới” might be clarified in three structures.
Thus, there are three ways of understanding when translated: “bought”- emphasizing
that the action of obtaining the book occurred yesterday; “new” – emphasizing that the
state of the book was brand new; “just” – emphasizing that the book was obtained
yesterday but not certainly new. Undoubtedly, it is very common to cope with several
sentences with two or three structures in daily life.
3. Nó về, tôi về.

39
  If he goes home, I’ll go home.
 When he goes home, I’ll go home, too.
 Everytimes he goes home, I go home, too.
 Because he is going home, I am going home, too.
 Because he went home, I went home, too.
 Since he might be going home, I am going home, too.
Sometimes, students are not expected to confront with a number of possible structures
with so simple Vietnamese sentence. Looking at the third example, it is extremely vague
to give a precise structure to translate because there are lots of different points on which
need to be laid emphasis in each sentence. They can use “if” to translate if they want to
lead the sentence to conditional sentence, “when” if they want to point out two actions
happening at the same time, “because” and “since” if they want to put stress on the
cause for certain. They may certainly not handle with such special structure regularly,
so it clearly might be a problem for seniors majoring in English when translating.
C. Grammatical differences:
Sometimes, English learners may think that grammatical differences might be slightly
similar to structural ambiguity; however, there is not completely the same. Grammar is
a set of rules that set forth the correct standard of usage in a language. These rules dictate
how they should say things correctly. For example, the agreement between words in
relation to other constructions in the sentence. Structure or syntax is the study of
sentences and their structure, and the constructions within sentences. Syntax tells us
what goes where in a sentence. Grammatical differences between Vietnamese and
English may include articles (a/an/the), plural and singular, tenses, preposition, ..... etc.
That surely make up the challenge for English learners, even some experts in English
translating.
Example:
1. Nếu là chim, tôi sẽ là loài bồ câu trắng.
 If I am a bird, I will be a dove. (incorrect)
 If I were a bird, I would be a dove. (correct)
With the first example, the tense must be paid attention to because this is a conditional
sentence type two. Obviously, when Vietnamese students are thinking about a situation

40
 in the present or future that is hypothetical, unlikely or impossible, they use the second
condition. Therefore, in this sentence, the author is imagining to be a kind of bird –
dove, conditional sentence type two will be the best choice when translating.
2. Ông ta già rồi, mặt ông ta có nhiều nếp nhăn.
 He is getting old. There are a lot of wrinkles in his face.
Remember to use a simple past verb to talk about the hypothetical circumstance in the
first clause and the auxiliary would + bare verb in the second clause. With the second
sentence, students also have bear in mind the tense because nighty percent of seniors
may certainly use the simple past tense immediately to translate when dealing with this
sentence. Although the sentence has the phrase “già rồi”, they must not use the simple
past because if they translate into “he was old”, the meaning will be completely different
from that of the original one. At that moment, it might mean “he” was old in the past
and no longer old at the present. However, the original sentence means that he is being
in the process of senescence, so using the present continuous tense is correct.
3. Tôi đã gửi bưu thiếp đó bằng đường hàng không.
 I’ve sent that parcel by airmail.
4. Đừng viết bằng bút chì.
 Don’t write in pencil.
5. Hoa đã cắt quả cam bằng một con dao cùn.
 Hoa cut the orange with a blunt knife.
Finally, considering the word “bằng” in the last three examples, there are three
prepositional equivalents (by /in /with) according to the situation of each sentence. To
show how or in what way something is done, “by” must be used; to show what material
is used to complete an action, “in” must be, to use a sharp tool to divide something into
two or more pieces, “with” must be used. All in all, these are the common cases of
grammatical differences between English and Vietnamese that always make seniors
make mistakes when translating.
4.1.1.2. Cultural problems:

Three crucial factors of cultural problems which must be taken into account are cultural-
bound terms, idiomatic expressions, and proverbs.
A. Culture-bound terms
41
Cultural – bound terms are the set of technical words which depicts outlooks, behaviors,
or actions which are the result of a specific society and they are restricted in character
or outlook by belonging or referring to a particular cultureand which aren't frequently
observed in other societies or groups. In addition, these terminologies are often used in
a particular subject or meanings.
Example:
xe ôm motor-taxi/ grab bike.
Looking at the first term carefully, “xe om” is an informal word that Vietnamese use to
refer to “motor-taxi”. Figuratively speaking, “xe om” means “hug the driver” in
Vietnamese; that means, one simply needs to board behind the back of the driver, put
the helmet on and get ready to be a part of the Vietnamese traffic. There is no doubt that
motorcycle is the main means of transportation in Vietnam, and “xe om” is the cheaper
and more interesting way for tourists to get around when travelling to “the country of
motorcycles”. Therefore, this kind of service is totally unique in Vietnam, so it is very
difficult for English learners to translate it into English and the only way to do this is to
use one common translation procedure – descriptive equivalent (explained in detail in
the later part) so as to explain the term in many words.
áo dài ao dai
In addition, the term “áo dài” is the national costume of Vietnam for women.
Vietnamese wear ao dai for formal occasions, at school or for work. The ao dai is found
in every part of Vietnam, and in overseas Vietnamese communities. The prefix “áo”
classifies the item as clothing. “Dài” means "long." Once condemned as decadent by
the country's rulers, the dress became popular again in the 1990s. Costume and evening-
gown áo dài may have colorful designs with flowers, birds, and pictures. The price of
an evening gown ao dai is reasonable, but may be expensive depending on the choice
of fabric and the dressmaker. The term is translated by using other translation procedure
– naturalisation ( also explained in the later part). Sometimes, because of terms like this,
students have to scratch their heads hours by hours or even weeks by weeks just to
discover its usable English equivalent. These above terms are some special
characteristics only found in Vietnam. Certainly, students do not have the equivalent
in English because in the USA culture, they do not have “xe ôm”, “ao dai”,......or

42
anything like that. That surely become other problems for students. In fact, there are a
lot of technical terms like “ao dai” and if seniors majoring in English have a good grip
of some popular translation procedures, E –V translation will not be so hard anymore.
B. Idiomatic expressions
Idiomatic expressions are set of words, or phrases that have a figurative meaning
conventionally understood by native speakers. This meaning is different from the literal
meaning of the idiom's individual elements. In other words, they are types of informal
English that don't mean exactly what the words say. They have, instead, hidden meaning.
Furthermore, with the same meaning, the expressions will be changed into different
ways of sayings according to indigenous culture or cultural identity.
Example:
Còn khuya/ làm gì có chuyện đó.  When pigs fly.

Vietnamese students all know that when they want to express that they do not believe
in something never happen, in Vietnamese, they say “còn khuya, làm gì có chuyện đó”;
in English, they always say: “I do not believe that!”, “never”,..... Those are correct, but
not natural enough! Broadly speaking, no matter how brilliant seniors as well as
translators are, they always make a mistake in common. That is, they most often
translate the text extremely accurately, but sounds very unnatural instead. In fact, the
only way to make it more natural is that they have to choose the most appropriate idioms
to translate the saying. Back to the issue, with the phrase “còn khuya, làm gì có chuyện
đó”, to say more like native speakers, “when pigs fly” will be the best choice. This
idiom uses the picture of flying pig (of course they know that the pig can never fly) as
a response when someone tells us something that they think is impossible or very
unlikely. It is also a humorous/sarcastic remark, used to indicate the unlikeliness of
some event or to mock the credulity of others; for example. For example, if person A
says “Do you think Mary will quit her job now that she’s pregnant?” and person B
responds “Yeah, when pigs fly! There is no way she is giving up her career!” Person B
thinks that it is very unlikely that Mary will quit her job. By that way, when they
communicate with foreigners, our conversation might be smoother.
Chúc may mắn  Break a leg.

43
Sometimes, students will encounter with idioms which are not precisely what the
expression means. What will they translate in English if they want to say “chúc may
mắn”? Just simply using “Good luck” to translate? In reality, it is not that easy. If they
use “good luck” to translate, it will not be a native speakers’language. Have they ever
heard the idiom "Break a leg" before? It truly sounds weird, but it is certainly natural
English. It is an idiom in theatre used to wish a performer "good luck" in an ironic way.
Well-wishers typically say "Break a leg" to actors and musicians before they go on stage
to perform. The expression reflects a theatrical superstition in which wishing a person
"good luck" is considered bad luck. The expression is sometimes used outside the
theatre as superstitions and customs travel through other professions and then into
common use. The term “break a leg” was used originally, many say, to discourage evil
spirits from deliberately causing one’s performance to suffer. According to this theory,
wishing someone “good luck” would be invoking the “evil eye”. So “good luck” would
actually cause bad luck for the actor. Thus, “break a leg”, by this logic, is not to curse
someone to break their legs, but a wish for good luck. Therefore, by that way, the
listeners or readers might think true English is being used. Through these two cases, it
is easier for us to explain why the next two idioms are used to translate into that way.

44
 C. Proverbs:
The Proverb is a well-known phrase or sentence that gives advice or say something
that is generally true. In other words, a proverb is a saying that expresses a common
truth. It simply and concretely deals with the truth and teaches the listeners a lesson. It
can help to understand a culture and can help to determine if it is a group-or individual
- oriented culture. It may also help in understanding what is desired and undesired as
well as what is considered correct or incorrect in the culture. (Ferraro, 1990).
Example:

Nhập gia tùy tục. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

The Vietnamese proverb “nhập gia tùy tục” means that Vietnamese people should adapt
to the customs of societies where they visit, or behave in an appropriate manner
according to how people around they behave. That means, when they are visitors
somewhere away from home, they should act like everyone else does. It is polite to do
so, and could keep us from getting into trouble. However, how to translate it into
English in a natural way? It is apparently many English learners sometimes might
translate the proverb word-for-word like “Enter the house, follow the rules” when they
could not think of any culturally acceptable proverb in English. Surely, it is right in
grammar aspects, but not correct in cultural aspects. In American or Britain, no one will
say like this. Therefore, they must find an equivalent proverb in English. “When in
Rome, do as the Romans do” is the most popular saying in Western culture. This
proverb is from the ancient days of the Roman Empire when the capital city had visitors
from all over the world. Cultures were very different between cities in those times. But
while in Rome, one would behave like a Roman, no matter where they came from.
Một nụ cười bằng mười thang thuốc bổ An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
Sometimes, lots of Vietnamese as well as English proverbs are based on scientific logic.
The Vietnamese proverb “một nụ cười bằng mười thang thuốc bổ” tells people to keep
smiling on their face regularly, then they will not need any tonic or sustenance to make
them stronger and healthier. In Vietnam, smiling is a kind of preventive measure; in
Western, apple is absolutely preventive medicine by contrast. Thus, when translating
this proverb into English, “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” will be the best choice.
An apple is full of Vitamin C, which keeps us healthy. Literally speaking, the proverb
45
tells us to eat an apple every single day so as to get the benefit of the fibre, vitamins and
other nutritional advantages this fruit offers. In other words, it motivates us to take
positive action to look after our health. It emphasizes the importance of well being and
of valuing ourselves by taking good care of ourselves every day. If people eat well and
their diet includes a lot of fruits and vegetables, there will be no need to visit the doctor.
Once again, with a flash of well-rounded insight, it is clear that the proverb emphasizes
the importance of culture and reflect very well culture diversity. In this way, the proverb
is one way or another a good means of analyzing what another kind of culture is and
why it is being so. It also offers great depth of information on culture pattern or culture
value orientation. Although it is classified as one of the cultural problems, there are still
many ways to tackle with it if seniors are willing to spend time discovering, researching
so as to be highly proficient in Western culture.

46
4.1.2. Limited vocabulary:

Obviously, limited vocabulary makes Vietnamese -English translation more difficult

than E-V translation. Clearly, limited vocabulary is a serious problem that seniors must
suffer when English is their second language. That means, they had to deal with many
English usages consisting of collocation, expressions, idioms,.. Vocabulary learning is
an essential part of foreign language learning as the meanings of new words are very
often emphasized, whether in books or in classrooms. It is also central to language
teaching and is of paramount importance to a language learner. Vocabulary knowledge
is often viewed as a critical tool for second language learners because a limited
vocabulary in a second language impedes successful communication. Rivers and Nunan
(1991) argued that the acquisition of an adequate vocabulary is essential for successful
second language use because without an extensive vocabulary, seniors will be unable
to use the structures and functions they may have learned for comprehensible
communication. Moreover, second language learners rely heavily on vocabulary
knowledge and the lack of that knowledge is the main and the largest obstacle for second
language learners to overcome (Huckin,1995). Hence, if English learners are not able
to acquire enough extensive vocabulary including active vocabulary ( the words that
people often use) and passive vocabulary ( the words that people understand but people
don’t use), they definitely can not work on any translation work automatically, not to
mention Vietnamese – English translation.

47
4.1.3. Lack of linguistic analysis of a text:
Lacking linguistic analysis of a text is the third reason leading seniors majoring in
English to produce a translation grammatically rather than naturally. Obviously, they
always forget the first task of translating which is analyzing the original text for three
purposes: understanding what it is about, learning the readership, and learning the
stylistic scale.
1. Reading the text:
Understanding the text requires both general and close reading. Sometimes, student
translators may have to read encyclopaedias, textbooks, or specialist papers, always
bearing in mind that for a translator, they do not need to read the whole text from the
beginning to the end to understand the subject. In other words, the aim is not to get a
detailed understanding but rather an overview of a text that may be relevant to our
enquiry. In fact, general reading or skimming can be a useful technique to have when
translating. Close reading or scanning is an intensive analysis of a text in order to come
to terms with what it says, how it says it, and what it means. Close reading is required,
in any challenging text, of the words both out of and in context. Skimming as well as
scanning is the basic skill of reading that they have to master and the first step they have
to take before heading towards translating. People can compare the translating activity
to an iceberg: the iceberg - what is visible, what is written on the page, the translation -
the activity, all the work they do, often ten times as much again, much of which they do
not even use. (Peter Newmark, 1988).
2. Learning the readership:
On the basis of the variety of language used in the original, students attempt to
characterise the readership of the original and then of the translation and to decide how
much attention they have to pay to the TL readers. Through reading the text carefully,
translators might answer a list of questions: “Who is the reader?”, “What education,
class, age, sex?”, “expert, educated layman or uninformed?”, “Where would the text be
found in the TL?”, “ What is the TL equivalent of the SL periodical, newspaper,
textbook,...?”, etc.
All this will help seniors to decide on the degree of formality, generality (or specificity)
and emotional tone they must express when they work on the text. In other words, we

48
can decide on the stylistic scales and take account of briefer titles, the absence of sub-
titles and sub-headings, shorter paragraphs and other features of the TL house style.
3. Learning the stylistic scale:
The scale of formality has been variously expressed. Martin Joos and Strevens
suggested the following degrees of formality.
Source language: “ Không được ăn uống ở nơi này”.
Officialese:“The consumption of any nutrients whatsoever is categorically prohibited
in this establishment.”
Official: “ The consumption of nutrients is prohibited.”
Formal: “ You are requested not to consume food in this establishment.”
Neutral: “Eating is not allowed here.
Informal: “Please don't eat here.”
Colloquial: “You can't feed your face here”
Slang: “ Lay off the nosh.”
Taboo: “ Lay off the fucking nosh.”
Through these above-mentioned examples, it is realized that there is some correlation
between formality and emotional tone, in that an official style is likely to be factual,
whilst colloquialisms and slang tend to be emotive. In other words, if students are
translating an original text into a legal document, official contract, deed, birth/
examination/ health certificate; they have to apply it in an official or formal style. If
they are translating an original text into a notice board, information bulletin, they might
apply it in a fairly neutral or informal style. Therefore, due to various styles, they will
translate the text into different ways.
Example: Xin đừng sờ vào hiện vật.
 Please don’t touch the exhibits. (informal)
 Visitors are requested not to touch the exhibits. (formal)
In this example, if it is for customers in the supermarket, bookshop,... informal style is
acceptable; but if it is for visitors, tourists in the gallery, museum,...(solemn places),
formal style is obligatory.
In principle, a translational analysis of the SL text based on its comprehension is the
first stage of translation and the basis of the useful discipline of translation criticism. In

49
fact, such an analysis is an appropriate training for translators, since by underlining the
appropriate words they will show they are aware of difficulties they might otherwise
have missed. Thus, they relate translation theory to the text not for itself but as
something that may have to be reconstituted for a different readership in a different
culture. Furthermore, they have to determine its intention and the way it is written for
the purpose of selecting a suitable translation method and identifying particular and
recurrent problems. If seniors master the three main purposes of analyzing the text, they
will definitely produce a translation not only correctly but also naturally.

50
4.2. Some recommendations for the findings and conclusion:

The extensive research on translation problems revealed that the biggest problems of
seniors are still believed to exist in the fact that they could not produce an exact
equivalent of English word or phrase. Thanks to Mr Nghia’s point of view in the
interview and Ms Tuyen’s practical examples, it might be led to the conclusion that
there are three solutions to this problems. Firstly, the best tip for student translators
would be to read all over again. Doing an extensive reading of different kinds of
publications in English, they can familiarise themselves with English words, sentence
structures and stylistic scales, which will enable them to produce a natural translation
in the target language in the long run. Secondly, another great tip on how to improve
their foreign language skills is to watch television shows in English, which will help
them to learn the language effectively and develop better translation skills. According
to Mr Nghia, it is the negative interference of mother tongue that results in semantic
errors in students’ translation. Very often, their Vietnamese – English translations seem
to be obscure because they fail to convey the same or appropriate meaning. Therefore,
last but not least, to translate a word or a phrase in the source language which do not
have an exact equivalent in the target language, students can resort to one of the
following translation procedures to compensate for this: transference, naturalisation,
cultural equivalent, functional equivalent, descriptive equivalent, synonymy and
couplet.
While translation methods like word-for-word translation, literal translation, free
translation, etc. (which are surely familiar with student translators) relate to the whole
texts, translation procedures (which might sound strange as it may seem towards student
translators) are used for sentences and smaller units of language. There are lots of
procedures which always depend on a variety of contextual factors.

51
 translation
procedures

transference cultural functional descriptive couplets

naturalization
equivalent equivalent equivalent / triplets

4.2.1.Transference:
Transference is the process of transferring a source language to a target language text
as a translation procedure. This procedure includes transliteration which relates to the
conversion of different alphabets, e.g, Russian, Greek, Chinese, etc. into English or
Vietnamese. The word then becomes a “loan word”. Some authorities deny that this a
translation procedure, but no other term is appropriate if a translator decides to use an
SL word for his or her text.
The following are normally transferred:
1. Proper names: Bill Gates, Donald Trump,... .
2. Geographical names: Washington D.C., New York, .....
3. Periodical and newspaper names: New York Times, Daily News, Houston
Chronicle, the Wall Strret Journal,..... .
4. Names of literary works, plays, films: Harry Potter, Jane Austen, Jane Eyre, the
Odyssey, Lollita, ....... .
5. Company names: Microsoft, Yamaha, Starbucks, Channels,..... .
6. Street names: Liverpool, Champs-Élysées, Broadway, Abbey,..... .
All in all, there are not Vietnamese equivalents of these above names when translating;
therefore, most of such special names remain unchanged after being translated. It is the
so-called transference procedure. Probably this procedure is unaccustomed to many
student translators, but it is irrefutable that transference is a useful way to solve the
problem that students can not think of a suitable word to translate.

4.2.2.Naturalisation:
This procedure succeeds transference and adapts the SL word first to the normal
pronunciation, then to the normal morphology (word-forms) of the TL.
Example: 1. Proper names: Barrack Obama  Ba rắc ôbama

52
 Donald Trump  Đô na trâm
Bill Gates Biêu géc.
Napoleon Nã phá luân.
2.City names: London Luân Đôn.
Beijing  Bắc Kinh.
Brunei Bru-nây.
3.Romanized personal proper names: Karl Marx  Các Mác.
Lenin  Lê nin.
4.Culture-bound terms: curry  cà ri.
Coffee  cà phê.
mayonnaise sốt Ma-dôn-ne.
buffet  búp phê.
cowboy  cao bồi.
5.New technical concepts: cassette  cát sét.
radar  ra-đa.
robot  rô bốt.

Naturalisation is another effective way to translate because seniors also do not need to
find the equivalent at all. All they need to do is to focus on the pronunciation of the
word, then adapt it to their mother-tongued pronunciation. Honestly, the process of
naturalisation and transference is not so brand-new to them because they appear around
them in daily life, just the names of the process make us feel strange and hard to familiar
with. If students are willing to pay more attention to these procedures, it will not be so
difficult to adapt their translation.
4.2.3.Cultural equivalent:
This is an approximate translation where an SL cultural word is translated by a TL
cultural word.
Example:1. Culture-bound words or phases:
bằng tú tài  A Level.
cá tháng tư  April’s Fool Day.
thẻ sinh viên  student card
bằng tốt nghiệp HSC – Higher School Certificate.
53
 lễ phật Đảng Buddha’s Birthday.
chị Hằng  the Moon Lady.
Cô ta có bầu 6 tháng She is twenty-four weeks pregnant.
Tôi đã giảm được 5 ký từ khi bắt đầu ăn kiêng.
 I have lost 10 pounds since I started my diet.
Cô ta sinh năm Mùi.
She was born in the year of the Goat/Sheep.
2. Collocations:
siêu mẫu  Top model.
chợ trời  Flee market.
sữa tắm  shower cream.
tiền giọt dầu  cash donation.
rau sạch organic vegetables.
mũ bảo hộ lao động  hard hat.
The above are approximate cultural equivalents. Their translation uses are limited, since
they are not accurate, but they can be used in general texts, publicity and propaganda,
as well as for brief explanation to readers who are ignorant of the relevant SL culture.
They have a greater pragmatic impact than culturally neutral terms. As said before, to a
certain extent, this procedure requires the profound knowledge of both two cultures. It
seems quite challenging for students to master this procedure, but in fact, almost all of
the equivalents are not technical terms; they are some very popular words which people
use every day. In reality, these above cultural equivalents are simple words which are
connected together in some way due to each culture in each country. If they are perfectly
willing to spend time studying usage and collocation of English words, it will not be
hard anymore.

4.2.4.Functional equivalent:
This common procedure, applied to cultural words, requires the use of a culture-free
word, sometimes with a new specific term; it therefore neutralises or generalises the SL
word. This procedure, which is a cultural componential analysis, is the most accurate
way of translating. Functional equivalent is used in many different fields. Sometimes,

54
the phrase is also used in computer software to describe different types of data that
perform the same function.
Example: hệ thập phân decimal system
dữ liệu số numerical data.
Sometimes, functional equivalent is used to describe a job, especially an important one
in a large organization, such as the government post. In different countries, the post can
be called by different names.
Example: 1. Chủ tịch nước Trương Tấn SangPresident Truong Tan Sang.
Tổng thống Ba rắc Ôbama  President Barrack Obama.
2. Thủ tướng Việt Nam  Prime Minister.
Thủ tướng Pháp  Premier.
Thủ tướng Đức  Chancellor.
3. Quốc hội Mỹ  the US Congress.
Quốc hội Anh  the Bristish Parliament.
Quốc hội Việt Nam the Vietnamese National Assembly.
Quốc hội Nga  the State Duma.
Quốc hội Đức  the Bundestag.
Quốc hội Trung Hoa  the National People’s Congress.
Quốc hội Israel  the Knesset.

4.2.5.Descriptive equivalent:
In translation, the description sometimes has to be weighed against function.
Description and function are essential elements in explanation and therefore in
translation. In translation discussion, the function used to be neglected; now it tends to
be overplayed. In other words, the meaning of the culture-bound term is explained in
several words in this procedure.
Example: 1. bánh cống  Deep-fried shrimp cupcake.
bánh xèo  Vietnamese “sizzling” pancake.
bánh bèo Thin white cake.
bánh chưng  Square sticky rice cake.
2. giò chả pork pie.
cơm tấm  Vietnamese broken rice.
55
 phở  Vietnamese beef soup.
3. tiệc tân gia  house-warming party.
tiệc thôi nôi  craddle – quitting ceremony.
These above local foods in example 1, 2 are some well-known regional specialities in
Vietnamese (which can not be found in other places in the world). As said in chapter
4, it is impossible to find some English equivalents to translate such words or phrases.
Therefore, using some simple words to give a brief description of a thing is the only
way to translate cultural words. This procedure is the so-called descriptive equivalent.
It is also a practical way for seniors to apply in their translation. As for example 3,
according to different purposes of the party, students will use some equivalent words
to describe. “tiệc tân gia” means a party given by someone who has just moved into a
new house, so they use “house-warming” to translate the word “tân gia”. “tiệc thôi nôi”
means a party to celebrate an occasion which a baby does not need a craddle anymore
or they can say he/she quits the craddle, so “craddle-quitting” is the most suitable
equivalent for “thôi nôi”.

4.2.6.Synonymy:
Synonymy is a near TL equivalent to an SL word in a context, where a precise
equivalent may or may not exist. This procedure is used for an SL word where there is
no clear one-to-one equivalent, and the word is not important in the text, in particular
for adjectives or adverbs of quality (which in principle are 'outside' the grammar and
less important than other components of a sentence).
Example: Em như cô gái hãy còn xuân.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
A translator cannot do without synonymy because this kind of procedure is extremely
popular in works, poems, plays.... . If the original text is a famous work from a legendary
author or poet, students might at least have enough surface knowledge about “synonymy”
so as to comprehend the text, then translate it. In reality, synonymy is a way of using
the fact of two or more words or expressions having the same meaning to describe a
thing or phenomenon. Take the sentence above as an example, instead of saying the girl
is still young, it might be more mellifluous to compare the “youth” - the best period of
one’s lifetime - with the “summer” – the warmest and the most gorgeous season in the
56
year. Honestly, being ready to use “synonymy” skillfully require a great deal of
considerable effort, but it is unquestionably a step in the right direction of translating.

4.2.7.Couplet and triplet:

Couplets, triplets, quadruplets combine two, three or four of the above-mentioned
procedures respectively for dealing with a single problem. They are particularly common
for cultural words, if transference is combined with a functional or a cultural equivalent.

Example:
Tsar  Sa hoàng. To translate the word “Tsar” into Vietnamese, a translator has to use
at least two procedures, viz. Expansion and naturalisation. This is called a couplet.
Tsar Hoàng đế Nga. To translate the word “Tsar” into Vietnamese, a translator can
also use three procedures, viz. Expansion, naturalisation and functional equivalent. This
is known as a triplet.
Therefore, with one word “Tsar” - the title of the emperor of Russia in the past, student
translators can apply two or more procedures (especially naturalisation and functional
equivalent) to translate it into Vietnamese. This procedure is very beneficial to student
translators when they could not find a suitable equivalent to translate because all they
must remember is to understand its meaning, pronunciation and function, then apply it
into the target language. It is typically found in English – Vietnamese translation as
well.

57
4.3. Limitations:

However, we readily acknowledge that our research is exploratory and there are
problems with the statistical model during our research process. Firstly, this small-scale
research was carried out in only two weeks with just a small number of students, so it
was relatively difficult for us to come to a definite conclusion on how to approach all
of the students’ difficulties as well as solutions equivalent to their matters. Secondly,
many external and internal factors such as personal experience, learning environment,
etc also contributed to translation skills but our study could not put all of them under
control. Furthermore, translation is a fairly broad field research, even when we had
narrowed down the scale of the study (Vietnamese – English translation); we believe
that there are still more difficulties we have not discussed completely in such a few
dozen papers. Finally, suggested ways to solve students’ problems seem to be idealistic
solutions to students, but it still takes students’ time to follow and comply them
skillfully.
The limitations in field survey notwithstanding, this study is of considerable importance
since it recapitulates some popular problems in translation and suggests lots of useful
pieces of advice for students to take into practice. We expect our experiment to be a
great source of information for other teachers and researchers should they need to look
into this subject. Therefore, we hope that more large-scale and properly-controlled
studies focusing on similar topics would take place in the future to rectify these
persistent problems.

58
 REFERENCE

1. Antar S. Abdellah (2002). What Every Novice Translator Should Know.

Translation Journal, Vol. 6, No. 3.
2. Berkenkotter, C., & Huckin, T. N. (1995). Genre Knowledge in Disciplinary
Communication: Cognition/Culture/Power. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
3. Bui Tien Bao and Dang Xuan Thu (1997), Interpreting and translation
coursebook, Hanoi University of Foreign studies, Hanoi.
4. Catford. J. C. 1965. A linguistic theory of translation. London: Oxford
University Press.
5. Christina Schäffner (2000) Developing Translation Competence.
6. Hale and Sandra ( 2013) Research Methods in Interpreting: A Practical Resource
(Research Methods in Linguistics).
7. Hui guo (Therory and Practice in Language Studies, 2012).
8. Lulu Wang (2013), Journal of Language Teaching and Research, Vol. 4, No. 3,
pp. 530-535, May 2013.
9. M.Fyodorov (1950) Fëdorov, A. V. 1953. Vvedenie v teoriû perevoda. Moskva:
Izdatel’stvo literatury na inostrannyh âzykah.
10. Mr Fanit Rabeh (Problems in Translating collocations, p.13, 2009-2010).
11. Newmark, Peter (1989), A Textbook of Translation, Printice Hall International,
Herfordside.
12. Nunan, D. (1991). Language Teaching Methodology: A Textbook for Teacher.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
13. Nguyen Manh Bui Nghia, Giáo trình Translation Theory (Nhập môn dịch thuật
và biên dịch), Trường Đại học Sài Gòn.
14. Richards, I. A. 1953. Toward a Theory of Translating. In: Wright, Arthur F. (ed.),
Studies in Chinese Thought. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 247-262.
15. Toury, Gideon (1995) Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond.
16. Williams, Jenny, Chesterman, Andrew (2002) The Map. A Beginner's Guide to
Doing Research in Translation Studies. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing. Back
cover blurb.

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60
 APPENDIX I: TABLES AND FIGURES

Tables Page

Table 3.1. The certain extent of students’ attitude towards the belief that V-E
25
translation is more difficult than E-V translation

Table 3.2. The main reasons towards the belief that V-E translation is more
25
difficult than E-V translation

Table 3.3. The figures for translation methods that the students often use 30

Table 3.4. The percentages of the main difficulties of each method 33

Figures Page

Figure 3.1. The students’ attitude towards modules 20

Figure 3.2. The students’ satisfaction with translation course 21

Figure 3.3. Seniors’ self-evaluation of their own translation skill 22

Figure 3.4. The amount of time that the students spent on 23

translating a 500-word text

Figure 3.5. The amount of time seniors spent on each part of the 24
60-minute translation test

Figure 3.6. The elements required for a good translation 27

Figure 3.7. Percentages of seniors doing analysis before 28

translating and doing proofread after translating

Figure 3.8. The aspects that the students pay more attention to 31
when producing a translation

61
 APPENDIX II : QUESTIONNAIRE AND INTERVIEW
I. SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE
Hello,
Thank you for allowing us to communicate with you. We have been carrying out
extensive research into Vietnamese-English translation, so we would like to find some
suggested ways to make it more native. Then, we sincerely hope that you will answer
all the questions in this questionnaire as honest as possible. We assure you that all
responses will be held strictly confidential.
We deeply appreciate your time and generosity.
------------------------------------
1. What is your favourite and least favourite module?
My favourite module is ....................................................................................
My least favourite module is …………………………….........................

2. How can you rankyour satisfaction with the two translation curriculums?
A. Very satisfied
B. Satisfied
C. Adequate
D. Unsatisfied
E. Very unsatisfied

3. How do you evaluate your translation skill?

A. Very good
B. Good
C. Average
D. Poor
4. Do you agree thatVietnamese-English translation is moredifficult than English-
Vietnamese translation? Why?
A. Strongly agree
Because______________________________________________________
B. Agree
Because______________________________________________________

62
 C. Disagree
Because______________________________________________________
D. Strongly disagree

Because______________________________________________________

5. How long does it take you to translate a text with no more than 500 words?
A. One hour
B. Two hours
C. Three hours
D. Many hours

6. Which part of the 60-minute translation test do you always choose to do first?
Why?
A. English-Vietnamese translating.
Because______________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
B. Vietnamese- English translating.

Because______________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

7. Which elementsare mostly required for a good translation?(You can choose

one or more options)
A. Accuracy
B. Sensitivity to formal considerations
C. Texture
D. Tone
E. Others:__________________________________________

8. Have you made the analysis of a text before translating?

A. Always
B. Usually
C. Often
D. Sometimes
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 E. Rarely
F. Never

9. What translation methods do you often use? (You can choose one or more
options)
A. Word-for-word translation.
B. Literal translation.
C. Faithful translation.
D. Semantic translation.
E. Adaptation.
F. Free translation.
G. Idomatic translation.
H. Communicative translation.

10. What would you do if you did not understand a term when translating?
A. Translating by computer.
B. Translating that term word- for-word.
C. Creating the meaning in your own words.
D. Others……………………………………………………………

11. Which problematic areas do you often deal with?(You can choose one or
more options)
A. Lexical-semantic problems.
B. Grammatical problems.
C. Syntactical problems.
D. Rhetorical problems.
E. Pragmatic problems.
F. Culture issues.

12. Have you ever done proofreading of your own translation?

A. Yes
Because______________________________________________________
B. No
Because______________________________________________________
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13. Have you ever produced a translation which was paid more attention to
grammar and lexical meaning rather than the natural style?
A. Yes.
B. No.

14. What made your translation improved after the two translation
curriculums?Give some suggestions.
_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

15. What do you think as the main difficulties of some methods of translation?
Please rank all those relevant in order from 1 to 4.
( 1: easy ; 2: normal ; 3: difficult; 4: very difficult )

Difficulties Language Idioms and Cultural Multiple

structure expressions differences meanings
Methods

Word-for-word translation

Literal translation

Faithful translation

Semantic translation

Adaptation

Free translation

Idomatic translation

Communicative translation

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 II. INTERVIEW
1. According to your years of practical experience in teaching modules of
Translation 1– 2 – 3, how can you define the term “translation”? Are there any
differences between English-Vietnamese translation and Vietnamese-English
ones?
2. Can you tell me why most of students majoring in English are extremely scared
of translating a text from Vietnamese to English?
3. What are the most obvious problems that translators have to encounter
while translating a text from a source language into a target one?
4. What will you do if you need to translate words or phrases which do not have an
an exact equivalent in another?
5. When it comes to Vietnamese – English translation, what is the contributing
factor making students focus on grammatical accuracy rather than its meaning?
Are there any practical and powerful ways to help students majoring in English
produce a more native translation?

Mr Truong Van Anh’s answers:

1. Changing one structure in a source language into a target one means translation.
The structures are often different, and so are the translations.
2. English structures are not difficult, especially the strange ones. As a result,
students are afraid of translating a text from Vietnamese to English.
3. The new structures in both languages seem the obvious problems.
4. I will find the same meaning or even near meaning.
5. It is the structures. Basic sentence patterns are practical and powerful ways to
help studentsin English produce a more native translation.

Mr Nguyen Manh Bui Nghia’s answers:

1. Translation is the process of solving translation problems so as to ensure that the
meaning and style of a text in one language will be reproduced as accurately and
naturally as possible into another language.
Although both activities follow the same translation process comprising of the
three core stages, viz. analysis, transfer and restructuring and require the
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 translator’s thorough knowledge of the grammar, syntax, idioms, culture,
semantics, pragmatics and the like of both the source language and the target
language, there is a slight difference between English – Vietnamese translation
and Vietnamese – English translation. Translating English into Vietnamese,
Vietnamese students are likely to commit less lexical, grammatical, semantic and
stylistic errors, but they might have difficulty in comprehension. On the other
hand, translating Vietnamese into English, they are less likely to have trouble
with comprehension, but they are more likely to make mistakes in spelling,
grammar, semantics and particularly style.
2. Simply put, they are not native English speakers. In the case of Vietnamese –
English translation, students’ insight of the target language (English) is more
important, and needs to be deeper than their knowledge of the source language
(Vietnamese) so as to restructure or the re-encode the meaning and the style of a
Vietnamese text in the target language properly. In other words, they do not have
enough understanding of the target language. For this reason, most of students
majoring in English are extremely scared of having to render a Vietnamese text
into English.
3. The obvious problems encountered in translation can be separated into linguistic,
cultural and stylistic problems: the linguistic problems include lexical problems,
lexical and structural ambiguity, and grammatical differences between
Vietnamese and English; the cultural problems refer to culture-bound terms,
idiomatic expressions, and proverbs; and the stylistic problems comprise of word
substitution vs. word repetition, inappropriate words which are either too formal
or too informal, passive structures vs. active structures, and nominal structures
vs. verbal structures.
4. To translate a word or a phrase in the source language which do not have exact
equivalent in the target language, you can resort to one of the following
translation procedures to compensate for this: borrowing, naturalization, cultural
equivalent, functional equivalent, descriptive equivalent, paraphrase, and
couplet.

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5. To me, it is the negative interference of mother tongue that results in semantic
errors in students’ translations. Very often, their Vietnamese-English translations
seem to be obscure because they fail to convey the same or appropriate meaning.
Doing extensive reading of the different kinds of publications in English, they
can familiarize themselves with English words, sentence structures and stylistic
scales, which will enable them to produce a natural translation in the target
language in the long run. Another great tip on how to improve their foreign
language skills is to watch television shows in English, which will help them
learn the language effectively and develop better translation skills.

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