THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
------

GRADUATION PAPER
A study on grammatical errors in translating
Vietnamese-English made by third-year English
majored students in Thuongmai University

Hanoi, 2021

HÀ NỘI - 2015

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 ABSTRACT

Considering the importance of translation in working, the goal of this research is to

describe the difficulties in translation that are committed by third-year students of English
Department at Thuongmai University. This study aims to find out students’ Vietnamese-
English translation grammatical errors and identify the possible causes of those errors.
The result showed that there were many grammatical errors made by students and the
causes of them were also indicated. After that, some suggestions were given to assist
teachers and students at Thuongmai University in improving teaching and learning
translation.

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude and gratefulness to all
teachers at English Department of Thuong Mai University for giving me permission to
commence this thesis.
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor - MA. Nguyen Thuy Linh,
for her guidance and encouragement during my study. Furthermore, I really appreciate all
her help and suggestions on various drafts of the thesis. Without her valuable advice and
support, this thesis could not have been completed on schedule.
Moreover, I would like to state my special thanks to the third-year English-majored
students at English Department. They helped me to collect and summarize the data to
give research findings.
Additionally, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my dear friends for their help
and warm encouragement throughout my hard times carrying out the study. Without
them, I could not have overcome such times and concentrated on my study.
Finally, I am greatly indebted to my family, especially my loving parents for their
continuous support during my study. Thanks to their intense devotion, I have overcome
the difficult times and completed this thesis.
Hanoi, December 12th, 2021
Student
Quyen
Duong To Quyen

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ABSTRACT...................................................................................................................... 2
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.............................................................................................3
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS..........................................................................................6
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES...............................................................................7
CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY..............................................................8
1.1. Rationale................................................................................................................. 8
1.2. Previous studies......................................................................................................9
1.3. Aims of the study..................................................................................................13
1.4. Research subjects.................................................................................................13
1.5. Scope of the study................................................................................................14
1.6. Research methodology.........................................................................................14
1.7. Organization of the study....................................................................................15
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW.....................................................................17
2.1. Translation...........................................................................................................17
2.1.1. Definition........................................................................................................17
2.1.2. Dynamics of translation (Peter Newmark)..................................................18
2.1.2.1. SL writer..................................................................................................19
2.1.2.2. SL norms and TL norms.........................................................................19
2.1.2.3. SL culture and TL culture......................................................................19
2.1.2.4. SL setting and tradition and TL setting and tradition.........................20
2.1.2.5. TL readership..........................................................................................20
2.1.2.6. The truth (the facts of the matter)..........................................................21
2.1.2.7. Translator................................................................................................21
2.1.3. Criteria of a good translation.......................................................................21
2.1.3.1. Accuracy..................................................................................................23
2.1.3.2. Clarity......................................................................................................23
2.1.3.3. Naturalness..............................................................................................23

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 2.1.3.4. Rendering the cultural and historical context of original text.............24
2.1.3.5. Being culturally appropriate for the target readers.............................24
2.2. Grammatical error...............................................................................................25
2.2.1. Definition........................................................................................................25
2.2.2. Classification of grammatical errors............................................................26
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS.......................................................................29
3.1. Result of the study................................................................................................29
3.1.1 Grammatical errors relating to tense............................................................29
3.1.2. Grammatical errors relating to active voice and passive voice..................32
3.1.3. Grammatical errors relating to subject-verb agreement............................33
3.1.4. Grammatical errors relating to misuse of relative pronouns.....................34
3.1.5. Grammatical errors relating to incorrect structure....................................35
3.2. Discussion.............................................................................................................36
3.2.1. Objective causes.............................................................................................37
3.2.1.1. The negative influence of the mother tongue........................................37
3.2.1.2. Different characteristics of Vietnamese and English............................39
3.2.2. Subjective cause.............................................................................................40
3.2.2.1. Lack of background knowledge.............................................................40
3.2.2.2. Poor language competence......................................................................41
3.2.2.3. Lack of study motivation........................................................................42
3.2.2.4. Time pressure..........................................................................................44
CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS................................45
4.1. Suggestions for students......................................................................................45
4.2. Suggestions for teachers......................................................................................47
4.3. Suggestion for further studies.............................................................................48
CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................50
REFERENCES...............................................................................................................51

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 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL: English as a foreign language

DNTU: Dong Nai Technology University

TMU: Thuongmai University

SL: Source language

TL: Target language

L2: Second language

CPTPP: Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership

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 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Diagram 1: Dynamics of translation (Peter Newmark)

Chart 3.1: Common grammatical errors in Vietnamese-English translation

Chart 3.2: Common causes of errors in Vietnamese-English translation

Chart 3.3: The students' attitude toward translation

Chart 3.4: The students' point of view about translation

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 CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
1.1. Rationale
During the period of international integration, Vietnam constantly exchanges cultural,
economic, political, and social with many other countries in the world. However, the
language barrier between countries greatly affects activities such as trade, tourism,
medical, education, investment cooperation,… Translation acts as a bridge, the most
accurate method of information transmission between languages of different countries. It
is the translation field that helps the above activities to take place quickly and smoothly.
Especially in business, translation is a fundamental condition for companies to sign
contracts. For large enterprises and prestigious international organizations, accuracy in
contract language is crucial for success.

Nowadays, English is the most widely spoken language in the world. The role of English
is more and more asserted, especially in the rapid development era of information and
technology. It is the second language in most countries in the world. In most companies,
candidates with good English skills will have a competitive advantage. Most trading
contracts are written in English along with their native language. Besides, the literature
and specialized books of authors from different countries around the world are also
translated into English to help people in the world easily access them. It is essential to
master translation to translate documents more exactly so as to avoid regrettable
misunderstanding. As a result, English is one of the most important factors that set the
path for the success of an individual besides specialized knowledge, soft skills, and
computer skills. Therefore, it is necessary for Vietnamese students who will become the
main human resource in society soon to have professional Vietnamese-English translation
skills in order to meet the demand of integration and globalization.

However, translating from Vietnamese to English is a difficult task because it involves

not only the substitution of words from one language into another but also the transfer of
meanings and senses that the authors want to convey in the most natural way possible, so
almost all learners can avoid mistakes.

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In reality, students of all majors, even English majors still make many grammatical errors
in translating process. There are many reasons leading to mistakes in Vietnamese-English
translation and the most effective method for students to avoid making such mistakes
again is identifying and analyzing the errors carefully because they will learn more from
their own mistakes. Therefore, “A study on grammatical errors in translating
Vietnamese-English made by third-year English majored students in Thuongmai
University” is carried out with the hope that it will be a useful reference helping third-
year students improve Vietnamese-English translation skills to avoid regrettable
mistakes. As a consequence, it may be able to assist students in developing an appropriate
strategy for adjusting learning methods to get the best effective result.

1.2. Previous studies

The first study was researched and written by Hendra Kuswara ( Universitas Islam
Malang, 2020), entitled " Students’ Grammatical Errors in Their Indonesian-English
Translation of the Third Semester Students at Universitas Islam Kadir".

One of the language aspects required in translating English text is grammar. In addition
to word choice for example whether or not a product of translation is good can be
identified by its grammatical structure of sentences. Wrong or incomplete grammar in
writing may sometimes cause readers to get confused in understanding the message. This
study aims at analyzing grammatical errors made by students of the sixth semester of
English Department of Universitas Islam Kadiri academic year 2018, in translating first
language (Bahasa Indonesia) into the target language (English). The major types of errors
made by the students were related to incomplete clauses having no either subject, verbs,
or either both, subject-verb agreement, and the absence of subordinators and plural
nouns. Out of the six types of identified grammatical errors, incomplete plural nouns
ranked number one followed by the absence of verb and subject-verb agreement. The
highest number of students making mistakes on using plural nouns was 41 (29%), and the
lowest one on the absence of subject and verb was 7 (5%). From the error analysis, it
could be generalized that the students were probably influenced by their native language

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system which does not exist in English. Therefore, differences in the language system
especially in grammar should be introduced to the students during the translation studies.

The other study is “Common translation errors (Vietnamese-English) committed by the

third-year English majors: A case at Dong Nai Technology University” made by Tran Thi
Hoai Nam in 2016. The study had the advantage of providing some of the most common
types of errors that occur in Vietnamese-English translation, as well as the reasons for
these errors, in order to help students and teachers of English faculty at DNTU clearly
understand the situation of their teaching and learning translation.

The participants of the study are third-year English-majored students at Dong Nai
Technology University. This study is different from other similar studies on data
collection instruments. It includes both translation tests and interviews while most studies
only use translation tests.

The results of the study revealed that the vast majority of translation errors made by
third-year English-major students at DNTU, accounting for 91 percent, are micro-level
errors related to vocabulary and grammar. There are too many errors related to grammar
such as tenses, sentence structure, word order, passive voice,…. The students are
confused by the diversity of vocabulary, which includes technical terminology,
compounds, collocations, word choice,…Cohesion mistakes account for 42% of all errors
at the macro level, accounting for 9% of all errors.

According to the study, the causes leading to these errors are both subjective and
objective. Subjective causes concern the lack of knowledge of vocabulary, grammar,
culture, as well as the capacity to overcome the detrimental impact of the mother tongue
on language acquisition, concentration, and motivation. Objective causes concern the
difference between Vietnamese and English and inappropriate teaching documents and
methods.

After analyzing the errors and the causes, the study suggests some recommendations that
improve the current teaching and learning translation at DNTU.

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The next study was researched and written by Pham Phu Quynh Na. Her research is titled
“Errors in the translation of topic-comment structures of Vietnamese into English”. The
goal of this study is to see how much the typological distinctions between Vietnamese
and English influence the process of translating authentic Vietnamese sentences into
English. This investigation uses preliminary data from an error analysis of the
Vietnamese-English translations by EFL students. The focus of the analysis is on the
faults made when translating dropped subject and empty elements of Vietnamese. This is
essential given the fact that the grammatical subject is always required in English but not
in Vietnamese sentences. The translators for this study were 95 students from the
Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Social Sciences and
Humanities in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, who were in their first, second, third, and
fourth years. The data was gathered from translated texts of these students, which were
all based on the same source text. This study could aid in identifying potential
problematic errors that students may make when translating Vietnamese's topic-comment
structure, as well as providing teachers with some practical guidelines for preventing
these errors from learners in the teaching of Vietnamese-English translations.

The analysis of the translations made by 95 students shows the five different types of
errors in the process of locating and translating the sentence's subject. These include
omission of subject, repetition of subject, inappropriate choice of subject, no logical
connection between subject and predicate, the inappropriate connection between subject
and passive verbs.

The researcher demonstrates that the omission of subjects may be traced to two factors:
first, students may be unable to identify the missing subject's referent, or second, they
may be unaware that finding the missing subject is necessary for it to be rendered into a
correct English sentence. The effect of the mother tongue's Vietnamese topic-comment
structures is the biggest cause of the common errors relating to the translation of the
subjects that are mentioned above.

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After identifying typical faults and the causes leading to these errors, the researcher offers
some translation strategies for Vietnamese topic-comment structures that can be used to
avoid possible problems arising while translating Vietnamese topic-comment structures
into English.

Another study which is also about common structural errors was written by Bui Thi Kim
Phung. The title of her study is “Common structural errors in Vietnamese-English
translation made by English-majored students at Duy Tan University”. The aim of this
study is to point out common types of errors made by English-majored students in
translating different Vietnamese structures as well as the problems found in this study
that can help teachers and material designers choose an appropriate pedagogical method.

This study investigates common errors that Vietnamese students often make in the
process of translating Vietnamese sentence structures into English. The analysis focuses
on the types and frequency of errors in translating Vietnamese structures into the English
language. The subjects of the investigation were 150 English-majored students in four
Translation 1 classes of the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Duy Tan University. In the
test, students were asked to translate 30 Vietnamese sentences with different structures
into English in 60 minutes.

The analysis shows the six frequent types of errors: omission of subject, inappropriate
choice of negative form, inappropriate choice of predicate, inappropriate choice of
subject, inappropriate usage of passive form, and lack of main clause.

According to the result of this study, omitting the subject is the most frequent type of
error with 63 errors (accounting for 42%) among all types of errors relating to the
sentence subject followed by five other errors: Inappropriate choice of subject,
Inappropriate usage of passive form, Inappropriate choice of predicate, Lack of main
clause and Inappropriate choice of negative form. This result is the same as the result of
Pham Phu Quynh Na’ study.

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The study points out three main reasons leading to the errors. Firstly, the main possible
cause of students’ errors is the inability to overcome the negative influence of the mother
tongue in language learning. Secondly, it is necessary to be aware that in Vietnamese
sentences the subject is often dropped, but not in English. Consequently, students should
carefully analyze and comprehend the source text to find the missing subjects, direct or
indirect objects and so forth. Thirdly, because of “poor language competence”,
sometimes students feel “extremely embarrassed” if they cannot find any equivalent
structure in English to match the source language which is Vietnamese. Frankly speaking,
English grammar is extremely complicated for most Vietnamese learners. The limitation
of grammar knowledge leads Vietnamese students to translate word by word. As a result,
this may lead to content misunderstanding and then wrong translation.

After pinpointing the common errors and the causes leading to these errors, the researcher
gives some suggestions for students to improve their translation skills as well as some
teaching strategies for teachers to apply to EFL classroom teaching and learning.

Four studies mentioned above showed some common grammatical errors in translation.
Grammatical error, however, is a wide and complicated topic, therefore, these studies
could not cover all aspects of this topic and many aspects need to be studied.

1.3. Aims of the study

The thesis' main goal is to highlight several Vietnamese-English translation errors made
by English-majored students in TMU. From that, the researcher will suggest some
strategies and possible solutions to help them overcome the problems and improve their
own translation skills.

1.4. Research subjects

The study aims at figuring out the grammatical errors in translation of third-year English-
majored students at Thuongmai University and addressing the appropriate solutions to
improve students’ translation skills. Thus, the participants are 30 third-year English-

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majored students. They have different experiences and English levels but factors such as
sex and religion could not be controlled in the study.

1.5. Scope of the study

Translation course is one of the compulsory subjects that all third-year English-majored
students in TMU are required to study. They have to study both English-Vietnamese
translation and Vietnamese-English translation. This thesis, however, just focuses on
studying the grammatical errors in the Vietnamese-English translation made by third-year
English-majored students in TMU. Firstly, the study was conducted on 30 third-year
students at TMU. Secondly, the study only covers grammatical errors when translating
Vietnamese- English. Finally, the study concentrates on finding out the factors that
caused grammatical errors.

1.6. Research methodology

There are a lot of methods that can be used to do the research, but each of them is
appropriate with different topics. In order to provide a complete and detailed description,
the author used some methods such as qualitative research methods combined with
quantitative research methods which include:

Data collection instruments: The main instruments used in the study to collect data were
online questionnaires and translating tasks.

Questionnaire: The questionnaire is considered as a common instrument to collect data in

research. First of all, the survey questionnaire is thought to be a low-cost method of
collecting data from a large number of respondents. Second, it has the ability to reach a
large number of individuals in a short time. Finally, one of the most compelling reasons
to use a survey questionnaire is that it gives students opportunities to express their
opinions and attitudes without fear or to be embarrassed. When answering questions,
students are not required to write their names. In the study, the questionnaire consists of
two parts: evaluation and translation. They're sent through the Internet. After that, the
students had 30 minutes to finish it.

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Part 2 is to find out students’ grammatical mistakes when translating Vietnamese-
English. There, I selected several sentences from the article in Thesaigontimes.vn to
create the test for students to translate it from Vietnamese into English. From that digging
out errors to implement the analysis.

Data analysis: With the aim to confirm the accuracy of the study, the researcher decided
to apply both qualitative and quantitative methods.

Qualitative analysis: the researcher uses the qualitative methods through the questions in
interviewing to collect information sources and statistics

Quantitative analysis: the researcher uses questionnaire to collect data and numbers,
analyze the graphs and diagrams. Depending on the information of charts, the research
conducts and make judgment on results to give the accurate proportion of grammatical
errors made by students.

1.7. Organization of the study

This study is divided into four main following chapters.

The first chapter is “Overview of the study”. This chapter is a short description of the
study that provides general information about the study, but no details with seven parts:
rationale, previous studies, aims of the study, research subjects, scope of the study,
research methodology, and organization of the study.

The second chapter is “Literature review”, which consists of the concepts related to the
term “translation”. It includes some different definitions of different authors, theories
related to the theoretical background. Besides, concepts related to Vietnamese-English
grammatical errors when translating are also given and analyzed.

The third one is called“Research findings”. This chapter concludes data analysis, results
and discussion.

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The last one is called“Recommendations and suggestions”. In this chapter, some
suggestions were given to help teachers and students have suitable methods in teaching
and learning to improve the quality of Vietnamese-English translation skills.

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 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Translation
2.1.1. Definition
Translation has been variously defined. The following definitions are selected since they
are typical in some senses.
Wilss (1982) defines that “Translation is a transfer process, which aims at the
transformation of written source language text into an optimally equivalent target
language text, and which requires the syntactic, the semantic and the pragmatic
understanding and analytical processing of the source language”.The lexical gap and
syntactical, semantic, and pragmatic differences between the SL and the TL, especially
for languages belonging to different language families, contribute to the difficulties of
translation. As a result, Wilss focuses not only on the process of transferring written text,
but also on the best equivalence between SL and TL in terms of syntactic, semantic, and
pragmatic comprehension, as well as analytical processing.
Peter Newmark (1987) indicates that “Translation is rendering a written text into
another language in the way that the author intended the text “According to this
definition, the notion of equivalence is problematic in the study of translation. Although
it is not easy to achieve exact textual equivalence, equivalence could be achieved when a
translation contains the meaning that is similar, or as close as possible to that the author
intended the original text.

According to Roger Thomas Bell (1991) “Translation is the expression in another

language (TL) of what has been expressed in one language (SL), preserving semantic
and stylistic equivalencies”. In short, Bell views translation as the replacement of one
language's text with an equivalent text in another. He concentrates on the expression of
what has been expressed in the written text such as the author's thoughts or feelings that
translators have to take responsibility to preserve semantic and stylistic equivalencies.

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Munday (2004) defines translation as “the process of transferring a written text from
source language (SL) to target language (TL)”. In translation, source language (SL) is
the language being translated from and target language (TL) is the language being
translated to. In most of professional settings, the TL is the first language and SL is the
second language of the translators. According to Munday, the most important key of
translation is to focus on the process of transferring the written text.

In general, these definitions of translation mentioned above have three main similar ideas.
Firstly, translation is a process of rendering the meaning, ideas, or messages of a text
from one language to another language (from SL to TL). Secondly, the written text's
meaning must be preserved. Finally, translators must maintain the equivalencies between
two languages. These translation definitions can assist us in grasping the notion of
translation and gaining a better understanding of the translation process. Translation
consists of studying the lexis, grammatical structure, communication situation, and
cultural context of SL.

2.1.2. Dynamics of translation (Peter Newmark)

Often, though not by any means always, it is rendering the meaning of a text into another
language in the way that the author intended the text. Common sense tells us that this
ought to be simple, as one ought to be able to say something as well in one language as in
another. On the other hand, you may see it as complicated, artificial, and fraudulent, since
by using another language you are pretending to be someone you are not. Hence in many
types of text (legal, administrative, dialect, local, cultural), the temptation is to transfer as
many SL (Source Language) words to the TL (Target Language) as possible. The pity is,
as Mounin wrote, that the translation cannot simply reproduce, or be, the original. And
since this is so, the first business of the translator is to translate.

The following are 10 various directions in which a text can be pulled:

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 Diagram 1: Dynamics of translation (Peter Newmark)

2.1.2.1. SL writer
SL writer is the individual style or idiolect of the SL author. When should it be preserved
or normalized? Each author has their own style or idiolect. Idiolect refers to an
individual's distinctive and unique use of language, including speech. This unique usage
encompasses vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. That is the reason why readers
can realize the author when reading their writings.

2.1.2.2. SL norms and TL norms

The traditional grammatical and lexical usage for this type of text, depending on the topic
and the situation, are called norms. Norms influence the whole translation process, from
the selection of the text to be translated to the choice of words by the translators.
Translators need to research carefully in order to completely comprehend the topic and
the situation of both SL and TL then rely on them to choose the best usage for this type of
text.

2.1.2.3. SL culture and TL culture

SL culture is content items referring specifically to the SL and TL culture content items
referring specifically to the TL, or third language (i.e, not SL or TL) cultures. Each
country has its own distinct culture. The cultural-specific expressions are somehow
difficult to translate, even professional translators find it hard to deal with them. That is

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because the cultural context is too ambiguous; it symbolizes a society's worldview.
Culture is a complex collection of experiences. It covers topics such as history, social
structure, religion, traditional customs, and usage in daily life. This is difficult to
comprehend completely. Especially, concerning a TL, one important question is whether
the translation will have any readership at all, as the specific reality being portrayed is not
quite familiar to the reader.

2.1.2.4. SL setting and tradition and TL setting and tradition

The typical format of a text in a book, periodical, newspaper... is influenced by tradition

at the time. Different settings tend to be used for translations performed at different times.
As a result, the text's format is impacted by tradition at the time. Translators have to
choose the most likely setting: Where would the text be published in the TL? What is the
TL equivalent of the SL periodical, newspaper, book…? They are translating for whom?
And what are their requirements?  Translators have to make a number of assumptions
about the SL readership. Translators should assess whether the readership is likely to be
motivated, familiar with the topic, and culture based on the environment of the SL text as
well as the text itself. Then they consider whether the translation should be translated for
the same or a different type of TL readership, such as those who have less awareness of
the topic or culture, or who have a lower standard of linguistic education.

2.1.2.5. TL readership
The putative readership's expectations, bearing in mind that their estimated knowledge of
the topic and thethe linguistic style they use, represented in terms of the largest common
factor as one should not translate down (or up) to the readership. The readership is a
group of people for who the text is written, and this group is defined by their educational
level, social status, age, and gender. The readership of SL text should be characterized
followed by the readership of the translation in order to determine how much attention
should be paid to the TL readers.

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2.1.2.6. The truth (the facts of the matter)

What is being reported or described, determined or verified (the referential truth), where
possible independently of the SL text and the expectations of the readership. Translators
have to respect the reality of the SL text before taking responsibility for accurately
translating it into TL. If the reality is not kept, it can have terrible consequences.

2.1.2.7. Translator

The views and prejudices of the translator, which may be subjective and personal, or
maybe cultural and social, involving the translator's “group loyalty factor”, which may
reflect the translator's national, ethnic, religious, political, social class, sex, and other
assumptions.

2.1.3. Criteria of a good translation

The translation is regarded as an art form. It's a complex and often subjective process that
goes far beyond a simplistic word-for-word exchange. A good translation should preserve
the original text's meaning and tone while remaining culturally sensitive and appropriate
to the target audience. What characteristics distinguish an excellent translation? To be
regarded as a good translation, it must meet several criteria.

According to House (1977), the equivalence sought should be an equivalence of function

that is both source and translated texts must present the same function and the text's
function can only be made clearly through a detailed analysis of the text itself. In an
attempt to perform the translation quality assessment, the following questions are
presented:

 Does the text read fluently?

 Is the translation grammatically correct?
 Is the spelling correct?
 Are there unjustified inferences?
 Is vocabulary adequate?
 Is the overall result satisfying? 
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  Is the translation performed according to the assignment?

According to Larson (1984) suggest the ways in assessing translation quality are as
follows:

 Accuracy: The meaning of the target text is similar to the source text.
 Readability: Readability is intended to ensure whether the meaning of translated
text can be understood.
 Naturalness: The aim of naturalness is to confirm whether the form of translated
text is natural and equivalent to the TL.

According to Abdellah (2002) in his Translation Journal defined that a good

translation carries all the ideas of the original as well as its structures and cultural
features. Massoud (as cited in Abdellah’s Translation Journal) sets criteria for a good
translation as follow:

 A good translation is easy to understand.

 A good translation is fluent and smooth.
 A good translation is idiomatic.
 A good translation conveys to some extent, the literary subtleties of original texts.
 A good translation distinguishes between the metaphorical and the literal.
 A good translation reconstructs the cultural and historical context of the original.
 A good translation makes explicit what is implicit in abbreviation and
implications.
 A good translation conveys as much as possible the meaning of the original.

In conclusion, a translation must meet several criteria in order to be considered as a good

translation. 

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2.1.3.1. Accuracy

The most fundamental prerequisite for a successful translation is accuracy. Nothing is

more vital than the accuracy of the translator’s work. An accurate translation transmits
the same meaning as the original, or at least it tries to get as close as possible to the
intended meaning while being effective and appropriate in the TL. When someone hires a
translation, they have complete faith that the final product will be accurate. Because the
customer relies on these translations to go to court, close a business agreement, or launch
a new business abroad, therefore, any mistake could be disastrous. If a translation has bad
grammar or spelling errors, the reader is likely to lose faith in not only the document but
also the business that produced it.

2.1.3.2. Clarity

Another key factor is clarity. Regardless of how bad the original text is, a translation
must be well written and easily comprehensible. Because the final purpose of a
translation is to assist readers comprehend the text that has been translated clearly, a
translation should strive to present all of the information from the source text in a clear
manner. The clearer the translation will be, the clearer the audience will understand your
message. Long phrases are one of the most typical reasons that might cause confusion
among translators and the ultimate audience. Translators should utilize basic, direct
language and phrases that the readers will understand.

2.1.3.3. Naturalness

The translation must sound natural, which is one of the most important considerations in
any translation project. The highest level of translation is naturalness. It's crucial to make
sure that the translation makes sense and reads naturally, that it's written in ordinary
language, the common grammar, idioms and words that meet that kind of situation. There
is no such thing as a universal. Naturalness is determined by the writer's relationship with
the readership, as well as the topic or situation. What is natural in one situation could also
be unnatural in another, but everyone has a natural, 'neutral' language were spoken and

23
informal written language, more or less, coincide. It is important to achieve naturalness in
TL so that readers of the translated version do not realize they are reading a translation
product. In terms of meaning and structure, the writer can conclude that translation
should be natural. A translation's naturalness ensures that it reads smoothly and sounds as
though it were written in the TL.

2.1.3.4. Rendering the cultural and historical context of original text

There is always a context in which translation takes place, a history from which a text
emerges and into which a text is transposed. Culture mentions all socially conditioned
aspects of humans The translation is a social phenomenon as well as a cultural exercise.

2.1.3.5. Being culturally appropriate for the target readers

A successful translation is culturally acceptable for the intended readers, in addition to

portraying the original's cultural and historical background, because cultural norms,
beliefs, values, and expectations are the same for different countries. That is one of the
most important factors that can aid the translation in achieving the final goal, which is to
assist the target readers in comprehending the original text as intended by the author. In
Vietnamese-English translation, there are many Vietnamese words, phrases, or idioms
that do not have the equivalent one in English. Therefore, in this case, translators need to
make a translation that is culturally suitable for the intended readers.

For example:

“Tay làm hàm nhai” can be translated as “No pains no gains”

“Tốt gỗ hơn tốt nước sơn” can be translated as “Handsome is as handsome does”

“Ngưu tầm ngưu, mã tầm mã” can be translated as “Every Jack has his Jill”

2.2. Grammatical error

2.2.1. Definition
According to Harmer (2003, p.142), “grammar is the description of the ways in which
words can change their forms and can be combined into sentences in that language.”

24
Grammar is one of the most important aspects of translation. In order to make well-
structured translation, one should be mastered in grammar. As suggested by Brown
(2004, p.298) “before the learner becomes familiar with the system of the second
language, the native language is the only linguistic system upon which the learner can
draw. Therefore, not having enough knowledge in this sense will lead learners to use
their own system of syntax in the TL and this interference(s) makes them erroneous.”
Therefore, it seems impossible to learn a language without learning its grammar.
“Grammar is regarded as a whole system and structure of a language. It consists of
syntax, morphology, and sometimes also phonology and semantics, grammar
encompasses the three dimensions of morphosyntactic (form), (meaning), and pragmatics
(use)”, (Hsu, 2013, p. 513). In addition, Hsu (2013), asserts that grammatical errors thus
mean inaccurate form, semantics meanings, and use. L2 learners will use L2 accurately,
meaningfully, and appropriately after mastering these three dimensions, these errors
belong to local errors which are linguistically morphological, lexical, syntax, and
orthographic errors, while global errors mean communicative errors which show L2
learners misinterpret conversational messages.
According to Hornby (2000), grammatical is connected with the rules of grammar or
correctly following the rules of grammar. He also defined “common” as all or nearly all
members of a group. Common grammatical errors mean that errors that happen nearly all
rules of grammar in a determined category or guidance.
According to Brown (2004, p.216), “a mistake refers to a performance error in that it is
a failure to utilize a known system correctly; while an error is a noticeable deviation
from the adult grammar of a native speaker, reflecting the interlanguage competence of
the learner.”
According to Nord (1991, p.88), “linguistic problems arise from differences of structure
in the vocabulary and syntax of second language (SL) and target language (TL)”. Some
of these problems European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 25, Number 4 (2011)
526 may be caused by what Newmark (1988) calls “false friends” or by “situations of
one-to-many or one-to-zero equivalence. These problems can also be caused by lack of

25
grammar knowledge in the SL or the TL.” (Nord, 1991, p.89)
2.2.2. Classification of grammatical errors.

One of the language aspects required in translating English text is grammar. In addition
to word-choice for example, whether or not a product of translation is good can be
identified by its grammatical structure of sentences.

Utilizing incorrect grammatical can be said as a grammatical error. According to

Hancock (2005:6), grammar is an essential meaning maker of a language that rules in
arranging a set of words to form meanings. According to Amando et al (2008: 23) said
there has always been a generally accepted concept that breaking grammatical or
structural rules is equivalent to making a mistake. Errors were something that was wrong:
An error was something that was incorrect, and, therefore, more or less by definition, a
bad thing (Griffiths & Sonmez, 2015: 60).
Error analysis was a method of analyzing the performance of second language or foreign
language learners (Garza & Wu, 2014: 1256). The teacher was able to grasp the problem
that their students were having in the learning process thanks to error analysis.
Corder (1967) in Wood (2017: 4) distinguished error and mistake, namely, a mistake was
related to physical conditions (fatigue) or to psychological conditions (strong emotions),
and an error was the result of a transitory competency. Later on, errors were classified
into three types, namely; pre-systematic (the learners did not know the grammatical of the
second language), systematic (the learners knew the grammatical of the second language
but the learners used it unwell, and post-systematic (the learners knew the grammatical
but did not use the rule of language because of a lack of concentration).
In another hand, George (1972: 2), on the other hand, defined an error as an undesired
form, specifically, a form that a particular course designer or teacher did not want. While
David & Pearse (2002: 103) said that error was a part of language learning, it was not
evidence of the failure in the learning process. An error, according to Brown (2007: 226),

26
is a divergence from the adult grammar of native speakers that indicates the language
learners' internal language capabilities.
According to Yang (2010: 266), Burt and Kiparsky (1972) recommend that the researcher
or teacher should discover errors by referring to the target language. James in
Sattayatham & Honsa (2007: 173-175) classified error into two kinds, they are linguistic
category taxonomy and surface structure taxonomy.
Linguistic category taxonomy distinguished the error by linguistic category. Language
category taxonomy separated the errors into different linguistic categories. Phonology,
syntactic, and text or discourse errors all occurred in this area. The surface structure
category was initiated by Dulay, Burt, and Krashen (1982: 150) which demonstrated
surface structure change. According to them, the error occurred specifically and
systematically. This taxonomy classified errors into four categories: 1) omission, 2)
addition, 3) misformation, and 4) misordering.
The omission occurred in the sentence when one or two component of language needed
was missing. For example, “You know what you want?” In fact, in English question
sentence auxiliary do preceded subject, hence the correct sentence was “Do you know
what you want?”. Contrarily, the addition was an error that added one or two language
components in the sentence. The word was unnecessary in the sentence such as “He does
not knows me”, whereas if the sentence contained the auxiliary “do or does” of the verb
has to bare infinitive so as the correct sentence was “He does not know me”.
Misinformation was kind of an error in language construction. For example, “I buy a bag
yesterday”. The concept of that sentence was in the past so the form of the verb added “d
or ed” in regular verb and some verbs have a certain form so as the correct sentence was
“I bought a bag yesterday”. Missordering was an error in sentence structure. Using
incorrect structure such the research background is the understanding of teacher
regarding exact matter subject in teaching-learning activities. In fact, the correct sentence
was the research background is the understanding of teachers regarding the exact subject
matter in teaching-learning activities. (Any, 2013: 11). Richard in Bagheri & Heydari
(2012: 1548) proposed errors based on their cause. Based on it errors are divided into two

27
types: first, interlingual errors and intralingual errors. Interlingual errors were caused by
interference of the first language or the mother tongue. Whereas, intralingual errors are
caused by the grammatical of the language. Weinreich in Dittmar (1976) in Any (2013:
12) divided interference of
grammatical as follows: (1) utilizing language A in language B, (2) using the relationship
of grammatical of language A into language B or the denial of grammatical relation of
language B, and (3) a change in morpheme function that produced (added or reduced the
function of morpheme of language B based on grammatical language A.

28
 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS
3.1. Result of the study
Using wrong grammar can lead to regrettable misunderstandings, so English learners
need to form the habit of getting the words in the right order. A grammar error can
change the meaning of what the writers want to convey, and, sometimes, create a bad
impression for the readers. Which the above reasons, grammatical errors are unacceptable
in a translated text. As for grammatical errors, there were five common errors made by
students. The result was shown in the chart below.

40% 38%
35%
35%

30% 28%
25%
25%
21%
20%

15%

10%

5%

0%
Tense Active & passive Subject-verb Relative pronouns Incorrect structure
voice agreement

(Calculation unit: %)

Chart 3.1: Common grammatical errors in Vietnamese-English translation

3.1.1 Grammatical errors relating to tense

According to chart 3.1, 25% of students make errors in using tenses which is incorrect
and unsuitable with the context in translation texts, this figure is not the highest in
general. Common errors are specifically shown in the following examples. The

29
translations in each example are typical translations, through which we immediately
recognize the error that the students are making.

Example 1: The Vietnamese sentence:“Theo số liệu nghiên cứu thị trường, tính đến hết
tháng 11 năm 2020 Trung Quốc đứng ở vị trí thứ 3 trong các quốc gia đầu tư vào Việt
Nam với tổng số vốn đầu tư 2,1 tỷ USD.” was translated by the students:

a. According to market research data, by the end of November 2020, China ranks
3rd among countries investing in Vietnam with a total investment capital of 2.1
billion USD.
b. Market research data shows that China ranked 3rd among countries investing in
Vietnam with a total investment capital of 2.1 billion USD by the end of
November 2020.
c. Market research data shows that among the countries investing in Vietnam, China
ranks 3rd with a total investment capital of 2.1 billion USD by the end of
November 2020.

Maybe students do not fully understand the original text, so it leads to using the wrong
words when translating. Because the sentence is about an event which occurred already in
the past, it is not correct to use simple present tense as the sentence (a), (b), (c). The
correct tense using in translating this Vietnamese sentence is simple past tense. The
original sentence also does not have a clear division of structural components in the
sentence, leading to students' confusion about the subject, predicate and other
components.

Example 2: The Vietnamese sentence “Dòng vốn đầu tư trực tiếp nước ngoài (FDI) từ
Trung Quốc bất ngờ tăng rất mạnh tính từ đầu năm nay, điều này một mặt tạo nguồn lực
phát triển kinh tế nhưng nó cũng gây sức ép không nhỏ cho các doanh nghiệp nội địa .”
was translated by the students:

30
 a. “China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows suddenly increase from early of
this year, which on the one hand creates resources to develop economy, but on the
other hand puts a lot of pressure on domestic enterprises.”
b. “Foreign direct investment (FDI) from China suddenly rises up from early of this
year, it not only creates resources for economic development, but it also puts a lot
of pressure on domestic enterprises.”
c. “The inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) from China suddenly increased
significantly since the beginning of this year, which on the one hand creates
resources for economic development, but on the other hand puts a lot of pressure
on domestic enterprises.”

Vietnamese sentence is very good, but it is also easy to cause unfortunate

misunderstandings for students. All three translations above were translated very closely,
but unfortunately, all of them use the wrong tense of sentence. Because the Vietnamese
sentence is about events that started in the past and continue to the present. It has a
relationship with the present. Therefore, it is not correct to use simple present tense as the
sentences (a), (b) or to use simple past tense as (c). The correct tense using in translating
this Vietnamese sentence is present perfect tense.

This is the most common error relating to the grammatical aspect. One of the main
reasons leading to grammatical errors relating to tenses is that the concept of tenses does
not exist in Vietnamese but in English, there are strict rules of 12 tenses which are given.
Each tense has its own use and form of verb tense. Therefore, it is difficult for students to
feel confused when they have to choose the appropriate tense in translation.

Coming along with objective cause, there is also subjective cause. Students do not clearly
and deeply understand the use and form of verbs of 12 tenses. When analyzing
Vietnamese text, sometimes, students do not correctly identify if the events or actions
that are indicated in Vietnamese text happened or not. That is why students always feel
confused when they have to choose the appropriate tense in translation, then they often
make errors relating to tenses.

31
3.1.2. Grammatical errors relating to active voice and passive voice

The active voice describes a sentence where the subject performs the action stated by the
verb while in the passive voice sentence, the subject is acted upon by the verb. The
students often feel confused when choosing between active voice and passive voice that
21% of them often make these errors. One of the reasons is that active voice is often used
in Vietnamese while passive voice is often used in English. Those are reasons why
students often make grammatical errors relating to active voice and passive voice in
Vietnamese-English translation. Below are illustrative examples, the translations in each
example are typical translations, through which we immediately recognize the mistakes
that students are making.

Example 1: The Vietnamese sentence:“Ở góc độ kinh tế, nhiều người nghĩ là tầm
thường khi ngân hàng HSBC Việt Nam đặt mục tiêu cắt giảm 8% năng lượng sử
dụng, 11% lượng nước, 10% chất thải và 6% lượng khí thải thải ra môi trường từ nay
đến năm 2011 qua nhiều chương trình”was translated by the students:

a. From the economic angle, many people must have thought to be trivial when the
bank HSBC Vietnam targets to cut 8% of energy use, 11% of water, 10% of
wastes and 6% of exhaust fumes discharged to the environment from now to 2011
via many programs.
b. From the economic angle, many people thought is trivial when the bank HSBC
Vietnam targets to cut 8% of energy use, 11% of water, 10% of wastes and 6% of
exhaust fumes discharged to the environment from now to 2011 via many
programs.

Regarding the original sentence, there is nothing to mislead students. This is due to
the translation style of each student. We can freely choose to translate according to
active or passive sentences, but depending on the context, students should choose the
appropriate translation to make the sentence better.In this sentence, the subject
performs the action stated by the verb. Therefore, the active voice should be used in
order to make the translation be suitable with the context.

32
Example 2: The Vietnamese sentence:“FDI từ Trung Quốc một mặt tạo ra nguồn vốn
phát triển kinh tế, song mặt khác, doanh nghiệp nước này tràn vào thị trường nội địa
Việt Nam sẽ cạnh tranh với doanh nghiệp Việt Nam để tận dụng cơ hội từ các hiệp định
thương mại tự do thế hệ mới.” was translated by a student:

a. “FDI from China, one hand, motivated Vietnam’ economic, other hands, it opened
way to welcome Chinese businessman going into Vietnam’s domestic market, that
would be competed with domestic companies to take advantages from new
generation of trade agreements.”
b. “FDI from China give capital to develop Vietnam’ economy, in other side,
Chinese enterprises invest into Vietnam’s comestic market, which were competed
with domestic companies to take advantages from new generation of trade
agreements.”

In the two translations, students use different translation styles to create newness for their
translations. In sentence (a), the student is faithful to the original or can be said to
translate word-by-word. Sentence (b) is also faithful to the original but has a newness
than (a). The original sentence can be translated into active or passive voice, but
according to the context, active voice should be used in order to make the translation be
suitable with the context.

3.1.3. Grammatical errors relating to subject-verb agreement

Subject-verb agreement means the subject and verb must agree in number. This means
both need to be singular or both need to be plural except for some special cases that do
not follow the normal English grammar rules. This is one of the most errors that students
often make, it accounts for 38% according to the survey result. Below are illustrative
examples, the translations in each example are typical translations, through which we
immediately recognize the mistakes that students are making.

33
Example 1: The Vietnamese sentence:“Bên cạnh đó, một số lượng không nhỏ các doanh
nghiệp từ Mỹ, NhậtBản, Hàn Quốc,…đang hoạt động tại Trung Quốc chuyển sang Việt
Nam.” was translated by the students:

a. “Besides, amount of enterprises which is from US, Japan, Korea,…are moving to

Vietnam.”
b. “Besides, the large amount of enterprises from USA, Japan, Korea,… running in
China moves to Vietnam.”
c. “Besides, a number of businesses from USA, Japan, Korea,…has worked in
China turning into Vietnam.”

In this sentence, the subject is plural, therefore, it is not correct to use single verb form as
sentences (a), (b), (c). Besides, the student who translated sentence (c) did not identify
correctly the main verb. The sentence is about an event which occurred already in the
past. Therefore, the correct tense using in translating this Vietnamese sentence is simple
past tense.

Example 2: The Vietnamese sentence: “Điều này một mặt tạo nguồn lực phát triển kinh
tế nhưng nó cũng gây sức ép không nhỏ cho các doanh nghiệp nội địa.” was translated
by the students:

a. “This creates resources for economic development but also causing significant
pressure for domestic businesses.”
b. “That motivate to develop economy but make pressure to domestic businesses.”
c. “Which creates force to develop the economy but it also put a huge pressure on
our domestic companies.”

In this sentence, the subject is singular, therefore, it is not correct to use plural verb form
as sentences (b), (c). Two verbs state the actions of one subject so it is not correct to use
Verb-ing as sentence (a). The subject in the original sentence is not clearly indicated that
causes students to encounter errors when translating. Maybe they can't determine whether
the subject is singular or plural, so that word leads to using the wrong tense of the verb.

34
3.1.4. Grammatical errors relating to misuse of relative pronouns

The grammar errors related to the misuse of relative pronouns often occur when complex
Vietnamese sentences are translated into English. 28% of students supposed that they
found it difficult to deal with relative pronouns then make these mistakes. Below are
illustrative examples, the translations in each example are typical translations, through
which we immediately recognize the mistakes that students are making.

Example 1: The Vietnamese sentence “Nhà đầu tư nước ngoài tham gia đầu tư vào Việt
Nam trong hơn 30 năm qua chủ yếu tập trung ở 15 quốc gia và vùng lãnh thổ”was
translated by the students:

“Foreign investors have invested in Vietnam over the past 30 years which are mainly
concentrated in 15 countries and territories.”

The error of this example is that the wrong combination of the noun phrase “Foreign
investors ” and the relative pronoun “which” fails to express the meaning. In this case,
the relative pronoun “which” must be replaced by the relative pronoun “who”.

Example 2: The Vietnamese sentence:“Số lượng lớn các doanh nghiệp đến từ các nước
như Nhật Bản, Hàn Quốc, châu Âu… đều có hoạt động sản xuất kinh doanh phát triển,
đóng góp quan trọng vào nguồn thu ngân sách, giải quyết việc làm cho lao động Việt
Nam.” was translated by the students:

“A large number of enterprises from many countries such as Japan, Korea, Europe... have
developed business who made important contributions to state budget revenue and
created jobs for Vietnamese laborers.”

The error of this example is that the wrong combination of the noun phrase “A large
number of enterprises” and the relative pronoun “who” fails to express the meaning. In
this case, the relative pronoun “who” must be replaced by the relative pronoun “which”.
3.1.5. Grammatical errors relating to incorrect structure

When using English structure to describe ideas in Vietnamese, the students had problems
with structures because of the difference between two languages, it accounts for 35% of
35
them. The Vietnamese empty elements can cause some difficulties for the translation
process. In Vietnamese, there are many sentences in which the subjects are often omitted
but not in English. Sometimes, students cannot identify the subject because Vietnamese
sentences are too long for them to clearly understand and correctly identify the main
subject of the sentence. Therefore, students often make errors relating to omission of
subject, inappropriate choice of subject, lack of relational pronoun, or lack of main
clause. Below are illustrative examples, the translations in each example are typical
translations, through which we immediately recognize the mistakes that students are
making.

Example 1: The Vietnamese sentence: “Đặc biệt, việc tham gia ngày càng sâu vào chuỗi
cung ứng toàn cầu thông qua một loạt hiệp định thương mại tự do, đặc biệt là hiệp định
đối tác toàn diện và tiến bộ xuyên Thái Bình Dương (CPTPP), giúp Việt Nam có sức hút
hơn trong mắt doanh nhân quốc tế.” was translated by a student:

“Especially, by gradually participating deep in global supply chain through a number of

free trade constitutions, especially CPTPP, helps Vietnam to become more attractive in
the eye of international entrepreneurs.”

There are some errors in this translation. The first error relates to omission of subject.
The student did not identify the correct subject and change subjects into adverbs. That is
why there is no subject in the translation. Besides, this translation contains errors relating
to word choice, collocation.

Example 2: The Vietnamese sentence: “Do tình hình dịch bệnh phức tạp, hầu hết các nhà
hàng, quán xá, cửa hàng,…đang hoạt động offline phải chuyển sang hình thức online.”
was translated by a student:
“Due to the complicated epidemic situation, most of the restaurants, bars, shops,...
operating offline to online.”
This sentence contains the error relating to the lack of the main clause. This translation
sentence has no main verb therefore its structure is not correct.

36
3.2. Discussion

In the process of language perception, errors are unavoidable. The causes of errors vary
from student to student. From data collected through the survey questionnaires, there are
some causes of errors in Vietnamese-English translation made by students found. These
causes were divided into two main cause categories: subjective causes and objective
causes.

90%
79.60%
80%

70%
60.80%
60% 58.40%

50% 45.00%

40%

30% 25.10%

20%
10.00%
10%

0%
e h e ce on e
ng lis g
ati ur
to
u g led ten v ss
er En ow p e
o ti pre
h e& kn om m e
ot es d e c
dy Ti
m
M
am o un g ag stu
n g an of
iet ck rl
V ba oo ck
ee
n of P La
tw ck
be La
nt
ere
iff
D

(Calculation unit: %)

Chart 3.2: Common causes of errors in Vietnamese-English translation

37
3.2.1. Objective causes

3.2.1.1. The negative influence of the mother tongue

One of the main possible causes of students’ error is the failure to overcome the
detrimental impact of the mother tongue in language acquisition, which accounts for 45%
of students. Our mother tongue has a significant impact on our way of thinking and to
some extent, our use of the target language while learning a foreign language. Thanks to
the translation, we can better grasp the interference of the mother tongue when studying a
new language. We will be able to explore the potential of both languages, as well as their
advantages and shortcomings by using contrastive analysis. In fact, English and
Vietnamese share both similarities and differences. The similarities between English and
Vietnamese such as the same sounds, punctuation marks,…make translation easier for
students. However, the mother tongue differences interfere in Vietnamese-English
translation.

Firstly, the concept of tenses does not exist in Vietnamese, but in English, there are strict
rules of 12 tenses that are given. Each tense has its own use and form of verb tense.
Students always feel confused when they have to choose the appropriate tense in
translation, then they often make errors relating to tenses.

Secondly, the structures words of English like the articles, prepositions and
demonstratives are not always equivalents in the mother tongue. The difference can be
proved by some examples below.

Example 1: The preposition “in” means “trong” in Vietnamese and the preposition “on”
means “trên” in Vietnamese. The Vietnamese sentence “Những ngôi sao đang tỏa sang
trên bầu trời.” is often translated as “Stars are shining on the sky.” However, the correct
translation is “Stars are shining in the sky.”

Example 2: An adjective or possessive adjective follows a noun. However, in English, an

adjective precedes a noun and the same position for possessive adjective as in the
following formula:

38
Vietnamese: N + Adjective/possessive adjective

 “Một món quà dễ thương”

English: Adjective/possessive adjective + N

 “A lovely gift”

Thirdly, the sentence structures in Vietnamese and English are different. In Vietnamese,
many sentences omit the subjects or begin with a verb, but not in English. It is necessary
to be aware that in Vietnamese sentences the subject is often dropped, but not in English.
Consequently, students should carefully analyze and comprehend the source text to find
the missing subjects, direct or indirect objects and so forth. However, the negative
influence of the mother tongue makes students often make errors. This can be shown by
the examples below.

The Vietnamese sentence that omits the subject: “Vào mùa đông, trên Sapa thường có
tuyết.” was translated as “In Sapa in the winter is often snows.” This sentence does not
contain the subject, the correct translation is “It is often snows in Sapa in winter.”

The Vietnamese sentence that begins with a verb: “Tập thể dục là giữ gìn sức khỏe.” was
often translated as: “Do exercise is preserve health.” This translation is not correct. In
English, it is not correct to begin a sentence with a verb. The correct translation is
“Doing exercise is to preserve one’s health.”

3.2.1.2. Different characteristics of Vietnamese and English

58.4% of the students make this mistake due to some reasons.

Firstly, the characteristics of meaning components are referred to a phenomenon of the

differences among languages. Meaning components are packaged into lexical items, but
they are packaged differently from one language to another one. Almost all languages
have a meaning of plurality. In English, for example, the last letter "s" stands for
plurality. It occurs in grammar as a suffix of the nouns. However, in Vietnamese,
plurality is expressed in an isolated word “những”, “các” or “vài”, etc. A single word in

39
the SL – English may need to be translated into the TL – Vietnamese by several words,
and vice versa.

Secondly, it is the characteristic of languages that the same meaning components will
occur in several surface structure lexical items. In English, the words “lamp”, “ram” and
“ewe” all have the meaning “sheep” in English. They include the additional meaning
components of a young sheep by “lamp”, an adult male sheep by “ram” and an adult
female sheep by using the word “ewe”.

Thirdly, it is about further characteristics of language that one form will be used to
represent several alternative meanings. Most words have more than one meaning. There
will be a primary meaning which usually comes to mind when the word is said in
isolation and the contextual meaning (or secondary meaning or the additional meaning)
which a word has in other specific contexts with other supporting words in certain orders.

For example, in English, the word “run” in the sentence “The boy runs.” comes to our
mind that “The boy moves fast”. However, in the sentence “He runs a company”, it is
necessary to think carefully that “run” here has the contextual meaning which means
“operating a company”.

3.2.2. Subjective cause

3.2.2.1. Lack of background knowledge

Background knowledge is extremely important for translators' success. Translators have

to expand their background knowledge in as many areas as possible to become competent
translators, including politics, economy, society, culture, education, health,… Our world
continuously changes and evolves day by day; hence, our understanding and knowledge
about it undeniably needs constant updating. However, most students do not devote much
effort to keeping up with the news since it is not a particularly interesting topic for them..
As a result, 79.6% of students lack prior information and the consequence is that most
students find it difficult and make many mistakes relating to lack of background
knowledge.

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Besides, lack of accessibility to translation theories also makes students often make errors
in translation. It is comprehensible as students majoring in English are taught Translation
Theories in the 3rd year. However, students often feel bored when studying theories so
they often do not carefully study theories leading to the consequence is that they lack
background knowledge about translation theories.

3.2.2.2. Poor language competence

60.8% of the student have problems with this matter. Poor language competence includes
both grammatical aspects and lexical aspects. As mentioned above, the multiple-choice
test format is applied to the examinations the multiple-choice test format is used in
examinations, resulting in students not understanding what they are taught thoroughly
and clearly.

As for the lexical aspect, most of students lack vocabulary. This is one of the main causes
that lead to students’ errors relating to lexical errors. Words are essential for any language
learner who wants to develop their own vocabulary system and improve their language
learning in general, and Vietnamese-English translation in particular. Vocabulary is the
fundamental component of translation. The more vocabulary one has, the easier for him
to obtain a good translation.

Lack of vocabulary makes students feel difficult when choosing English words to
translate a Vietnamese text into English. It will be simple for learners to translate into the
target language text if learners have no difficulty in new words. In contrast, they seem to
fail to translate. Because most English words have several meanings, translators often
struggle to find a suitable and appropriate word that has the exact meaning to apply to the
target language text. When students do not find out any English word they often decide to
omit them.

Besides, another error that students often make is using an inappropriate word that is not
suitable with the original context. Some students have used word-by-word translation and
depended much on the meaning of words that they find in dictionaries. They frequently

41
select synonyms and utilize them in translation without considering the context. In
actuality, the pairs of synonyms have at least one sense in common, but they are not
identical in all senses.

Therefore, the students must recognize that a word is only suitable in certain cases and
other words, despite having similar meanings, cannot be used effectively in certain
situations. Obviously, vocabulary is one of the most significant factors in assisting
translators in increating a good translated text. The more meanings of a word we know,
the more advantages we have in the translation process. Paying attention to meanings of
word will partly help translation products looks smoother and more exactly.

Vocabulary is really important but it is insufficient for translation. Grammar or

grammatical structure is another special means to make translating meaningful. As for the
grammatical aspect, students often feel “extremely embarrassed” if they cannot find out
any equal structure in English to match the Vietnamese structure. Frankly speaking, most
Vietnamese students find English grammar to be incredibly difficult. It goes by very strict
structures while the Vietnamese language is much more flexible by the way it does not
always use articles. In English, there are many tenses being used with a particular
structure. Readers will be unable to grasp or misunderstand the meaning of an incorrect
tense if it is utilized. The limitation of grammar knowledge leads Vietnamese students to
translate word by word. As a result, this may lead to content misunderstanding and then
wrong translation.

3.2.2.3. Lack of study motivation

Motivation is a process. It is not a goal. In contrast, it is a tool that assists us in achieving

our goals. First, we feel interested and set a goal and decide to take an action. Then, we
strive to keep our attention and work hard to achieve our objective. This process plays a
big role especially in Vietnamese-English translation since it makes students see the
value of Vietnamese-English translation and attach importance to it.

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According to chart 3.4 as below, 54.7% of students like to learn translation, moreover,
22% of them really like this course. It shows that this attitude has beneficial impact on
the motivation of students which leads to the high level of translation.

23.30% 22.00%

54.70%

Really like Like Medium

(Calculation unit: %)

Chart 3.3: The students' attitude toward translation

On the contrary, lack of motivation might have a psychological impact on students. A lot
of students believe that translating from Vietnamese to English is considerably more
difficult than translating from English to Vietnamese.

12.20%
3.80%

83.60%

Difficult & interesting Easy & interesting Hard & boring

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 (Calculation unit: %)

Chart 3.4: The students' point of view about translation

According to Chart 3.5, 84% of the students suppose that translation is hard but
interesting. Just only 3.8% of them think that translation is easy and interesting. But
12.2% of them find it hard and boring to translate. Therefore, they often feel discouraged
when studying Vietnamese-English translation. Motivation provides students a purpose
and direction to follow. For this reason, it is extremely important in learning Vietnamese-
English translation in particular, as well as learning in general.

However, in the case of insufficient motivation, several problems begin to appear. They
do not have motivation for study leading to spending less time studying. Furthermore, it
makes students less engaged in their studies. Whenever facing difficulties, they easily
leave them out. Therefore, their translation skills are not improved results in many errors
in their translation.

3.2.2.4. Time pressure

In translation, limited time also puts huge pressure on students, 10% of them consider it
as one of the causes lead to errors in translation according to chart 3.3. Many students
claim that they only have enough time to read the original text once and make some
minor adjustments before starting the translation process. Especially, when doing
examinations, time pressure seems to be bigger. Students frequently worry that they will
not have enough time to finish their exams. That is the reason why they attempt to
translate as rapidly as possible, which results in their errors. In some cases, students only
have enough time to complete their tests but they do not have time to check their
products. That is why it is necessary for students to control and distribute their time
reasonably to have a good translation and avoid making unfortunate errors.

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 CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

In this chapter, some suggestions are given from the possible causes pointed out in
chapter 3 with the aim that provide some suggestions to help students overcome the
problems, avoid making errors as much as possible and improve their own translation
skills. To improve students’ Vietnamese-English translation skills, both teachers and
students need to collaborate to adapt teaching and learning methods.

4.1. Suggestions for students

Self-study is the best way that can help students improve their translation skills quickly.
In order to develop their Vietnamese-English translation skills, students need to find out
learning methods that are appropriate to themselves and have self-conscious attitude
toward learning. It is obvious that grammar and vocabulary enhancement plays an
important role in improving language competence. There are some suggestions for
students given below.

First and foremost, it is obvious that grammar enhancement plays an important role in
improving language competence. Sufficient grammar enables students to feel more
confident in using English words and structures, succeed in conveying targeted texts’
ideas, and particularly avoid awkward expressions.

As for grammar, it is beneficial to have a comprehensive reference book that contains not
only uses and forms of all English tenses but also many exercises of each tense for the
learners to practice. If students try to read and do exercises regularly, their knowledge of
grammar in English will be better. Nowadays, there are grammar books solve in the
market that are suitable for all levels of learners, such as “English grammar in use”
(Raymond Murphy), “Collins Cobuild English grammar”, “The grammar book”

45
(Marianne Celce, Diane Larsen – Freeman) and “The good grammar book” (Oxford). It is
a strong hope that these suggested grammar books would assist pupils in improving their
grammar easily and quickly.

The Internet is another way for students improving their grammar. Internet is developing
day by day and becomes popular tool that allows individuals to conveniently access
anything except for materials for learning. There is lots of information about English
grammar on the Internet and it is really easy for the students to learn and get the
information just with one simple click. The learners just need to type some letters in
search boxes of Google. Then there are a variety of WebPages with excellent
explanations that assist students in learning grammatical principles and doing more
exercises. Furthermore, students should always keep a notepad with them to note all
grammar points that they learn or encounter in their own arrangement. That is one of the
most effective ways for students to remember the points of English grammar as well as
review the point quickly in their own notebook.

Secondly, students should try to overcome the negative influence of the mother tongue in
Vietnamese-English translation. Students often heavily depend on Vietnamese texts and
the negative influence of their mother tongue makes them feel obsessed with Vietnamese
structures. To overcome the negative influence of the mother tongue students should
avoid word by word translation or getting the wrong choice of structure in English as the
target language, escape from Vietnamese obsession and translate Vietnamese texts into
English naturally and culturally.

Thirdly, students should create their own motivation for study. After having a strong
motivation, they can find out the most suitable learning methods for themselves. Once
they are interested in learning, they will spend more time studying. One of the best ways
that help students have stronger motivation is learning with their friends. It can be bored
if students just sit at the desk and learn through the traditional ways. Working in pairs or
in groups can not only create the competitiveness that is one of the best motivations

46
among students but also provide an effective learning method for them. When studying in
pairs or in groups, students can learn from their friends.

Besides, students should fully attend the translation class at university and actively
involved in pre-class, during-class, and post-class activities. Prior to translation class, a
careful preparation of translation assignments is a prerequisite for students to follow what
the teacher checks in class. Teachers have many experiences in translation, therefore,
they not only point out students’ errors but also give students valuable knowledge that
they gained to help students improve their translation skills. Especially, teachers will
provide tips that students cannot find in any books and they can apply into translation
along with the theories in the books. Moreover, teachers can provide students with a
learning route that helps students gradually access to translation from basic to advanced
level.

Last but not least, it is obvious that practice is the best way to improve students’
translation skills and to reduce grammatical errors. The enrichment of language
competence, background knowledge, and translation skills are not the matters of days or
weeks but it takes a long time to be good at. Thus, it is vital for students to practice day
by day. From our life experiences, we all know the importance of practice in order to get
better at something. The sentence “Practice makes perfect” is an old saying that we are all
familiar with. Making mistakes in Vietnamese-English translation is inevitable. Errors
and mistakes are an integral part of the learning process. However, through practice with
feedback, students learn to correct errors or mistakes and from that, they can improve
their translation skills. The more time students spend on practicing, the better they will
become. It depends much on students’ self-consciousness.

4.2. Suggestions for teachers

Teaching and learning go hand in hand, so teachers play an important role in guiding and
supporting students in the learning and translation process. Student's learning is closely
related to teaching method and teacher's activities, so there are some suggestions for
teachers given below to help students achieve higher efficiency in the translation process.

47
Firstly, teachers need to develop new and creative teaching methods to arouse students'
interest in learning. Linking lesson content with practical applications will make teachers'
teaching fresh and enrich learning. Through real-life situations will make the lesson easy
to understand and learn. It will spark students' interest and get them excited to participate.

Secondly, teachers should regularly correct translation exercises and apply various error
correction methods, so that students can admit their mistakes and correct their own
mistakes. Teachers need to take examples of grammatical errors that students often make,
then let students analyze each sentence to see where it is wrong, what is missing, the
words are reversal or not,... The teacher shows how to correct those sentence errors, then
helps students correct those sentences. Therefore, grammatical errors will be limited in
the next translation exercises.

Thirdly, teachers can organize small discussions between groups of students in the class,
so that students are free to give their opinions and useful tips to avoid grammatical
translation errors. Through such discussions, students will absorb the lesson more
thoroughly and learn more useful things.

4.3. Suggestion for further studies

Based on the limitations of the research, it is essential to modify these limitations for
further studies.

Firstly, the sample of the study should be expanded with the different departments in
Thuongmai University in the further studies in order to the exact evaluations. Further,
studies could be done with a larger number of participants to increase the possibility of
generalization.

Secondly, the further studies should collect more than one assessment to affirm correct
research findings as the result make the study more persuasive.

Thirdly, the further studies should be conducted over a longer period and set up a specific
plan for conducting.

48
Although the researcher has made a great effort towards conducting this study, there
undoubtedly exist some limitations.

Firstly, the sample of the study was just 30 English major students at Thuongmai
University. It would be difficult to determine whether the same results with a larger
number of samples.

Secondly, the researcher only collected one assessment of each student. As a

consequence, it would be impossible to affirm that these problems were outstanding. The
evaluation of the researcher might be limited in the scope of little assessment.

Thirdly, the study was conducted in a short time. Thus, the result of the study might be
less convincing and it could not cover all types of errors in Vietnamese-English
translation.

49
 CONCLUSION

Errors have been regarded as a significant part to both teachers and students in the
process of teaching and learning. The purpose of this study was to identify some
grammatical errors in Vietnamese-English translation from that give some suggestions
for teaching and learning Vietnamese-English translation in order to help students avoid
making errors as much as possible and improve their translation skills.

This research is divided into four main chapters. The first chapter is “Overview of the
study”. This chapter is a short description of the study that provides general information
about the study, but no details with seven parts: rationale, previous studies, aims of the
study, research subjects, and scope of the study, research methodology, and organization
of the study. The second chapter is “Literature review”, which consists of the concepts
related to the term “translation”. It includes some different definitions of different
authors, theories related to the theoretical background. Besides, concepts related to
Vietnamese-English translation errors are also given and analyzed. The third one is called
“Research findings and Discussion”. This chapter concludes data analysis, results, and
discussion. The last one is called “Recommendations and Suggestions”. In this chapter,
some suggestions were given to help teachers and students have suitable methods in
teaching and learning to improve the quality of Vietnamese-English translation skills.

Nevertheless, this study had some its own limitations. Due to the limited time and the
researcher’s limited knowledge, mistakes in this study are unavoidable. However, the
researcher strongly hopes that, in the study’s scope, the research is able to contribute its
usefulness to help English-majored students in particular and readers who are interested
in Vietnamese-English translation, in general, find out the most appropriate learning
methods to enhance their own Vietnamese-English translation skills.

50
 REFERENCES

1. Pham Phu Quynh Na. “Errors in translation of topic-comment structures of Vietnamese

into English.”

2. Bui Thi Kim Phung. “Common structural errors in Vietnamese-English translation

made by English-majored students at Duy Tan University.”

3. Tran Thi Hoai Nam. “Common translation errors (Vietnamese-English) committed by

the third-year English majors: A case at Dong Nai Technology University.”

4. Peter Newmark (1998). “Approach to translation.”

5. Peter Newmark (1988). “A textbook of translation.”

6. Munday.J (2004). “Introducing translation study. Theories and Applications, Londres-

Nova York, Routledge.”

7. Wilss (1982). “The science of translation: Problems and methods.”

8. Roger Thomas Bell (1991). “Translation and translating: Theory and practice.”

9. Abdellah (2002). “Translation Journal”

10. Juliane House (1977). “A model of translation quality assessment.”

11. Larson (1984). “Meaning-Based Translation: A Guide to Cross-Language

Equivalence. University Press of America, Lanham, MD.”

12. Brown, H.Douglas (2004) “ Language assessment: Principles and classroom

practices.

13. Lennon (1991). “Error: Some problems of definition, identification and distinction.”

51
14. Brian Mossop (1989). “Objective translational error and the cultural norm of
translation.”

15. Pym (1992). “Translation and text transfer: An Essay on the principles of intercultural
communication. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.”

16. Melis & Alber (2001). “Assessment in translation studies: Research needs.”

17. Benhaddou (1991). “Translation quality assessment: a situational/textual model for

the evaluation of Arabic/English translation, PhD thesis, University of Salford, UK.”

18. Nord, C. (1997). “Translating as a Purposeful Activity. Functionalist Approaches

Explained. St Jerome, Manchester.”

19. Wang, B. (2009). “Translating publicity texts in the light of the skopos theory:
Problems and suggestions.”

20. Nguyen Van Tuan (2006). “Translation 1&2”

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 APPENDIX

Hello everyone! My name is Duong To Quyen. I am a senior at Thuongmai University.

This survey questionnaire is designed to serve the thesis "A study on grammatical errors
in translating Vietnam-English by third-year English majors at Thuongmai University",
with no further purpose. I hope you will take your time to help me complete this survey
seriously so that the survey results are the most accurate.
Sincerely thanks!

I, Please choose the answer that matches your personal opinion

1. What do you think about the importance of translation?

a. Extremely important
b. Important
c. Less inportant
d. Unimportant
2. Do you like to learn translation?
a. Really like
b. Like
c. Medium
d. Dislike
e. Really dislike
3. How do you feel about translation?
a. Hard but interesting

53
b. Easy and interesting
c. Hard and boring
d. Easy and boring 
4. How do you rate your translation ability?
a. Very good
b, Good
c, Normal
d, Bad
e, Very bad
5. What do you usually do before attending translation classes? 
(You can choose more than 1 answer)
a. Check homework
b. Translate more articles on the Internet, newspapers, magazines, books, ...
c. Pre-read the documents, hand-out have been assigned
d. Research content, new words of the articles, documents have been assigned
e. Do nothing
f. Other
6. What do you usually do after learning translation in class? 
(You can choose more than 1 answer)
a. Do homework
b. Review lessons learned in class
c. Research and translate articles, documents, references on the Internet
d. Learn new words, structures from the previous lessons 
e. Do nothing
f. Other
7. How do you often do to translate exercise?
a. Read and underline difficult words and then look up in the dictionary
b. Read and translate from beginning to end and then look up the difficult words in the
dictionary

54
c. Read and translate in parallel
d. Use google translate then correct it
8. How much time do you usually spend on learning translation? 
a. Less than 1 hour/week
b. 2-3 hours/week
c. 3-4 hours/week
d. Over 4 hours/week
9. What grammatical errors do you often make when translating?
(You can choose more than 1 answer)
a. Grammatical errors relating to tense
b. Grammatical errors relating to active voice and passive voice
c. Grammatical errors relating to subject-verb agreement
d. Grammatical errors relating to misuse of relative pronouns
e. Grammatical errors relating to incorrect structure
f. Other
10. In your opinion, what causes you to make those mistakes?
(You can choose more than 1 answer)
a. The negative influence of the mother tongue
b. Different characteristics of Vietnamese and English
c. Lack of background knowledge
d. Poor language competence
e. Lack of study motivation
f. Time pressure
g. Other

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11. How would you rate the impact of the causes of grammatical errors in
translation? Please indicate the impact according to the level.

Rate Extremely Influential Normal Less No

Cause influential influential influential
The negative
influence of the
mother tongue
Different
characteristics
of Vietnamese
and English
Lack of
background
knowledge
Poor language
competence
Lack of study
motivation
Time pressure

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II. Please translate these Vietnamese sentences into English.
(No dictionaries or translation tools were permitted).
1, “Theo số liệu nghiên cứu thị trường, tính đến hết tháng 11 năm 2020 Trung Quốc đứng
ở vị trí thứ 3 trong các quốc gia đầu tư vào Việt Nam với tổng số vốn đầu tư 2,1 tỷ USD.”
2, “Ở góc độ kinh tế, nhiều người nghĩ là tầm thường khi ngân hàng HSBC Việt Nam đặt
mục tiêu cắt giảm 8% năng lượng sử dụng, 11% lượng nước, 10% chất thải và 6% lượng
khí thải thải ra môi trường từ nay đến năm 2011 qua nhiều chương trình”
3, “Bên cạnh đó, một số lượng không nhỏ các doanh nghiệp từ Mỹ, Nhật Bản, Hàn Quốc,
… đang hoạt động tại Trung Quốc chuyển sang Việt Nam.”
4, “Nhà đầu tư nước ngoài tham gia đầu tư vào Việt Nam trong hơn 30 năm qua chủ yếu
tập trung ở 15 quốc gia và vùng lãnh thổ.”
5, “Do tình hình dịch bệnh phức tạp, hầu hết các nhà hàng, quán xá, cửa hàng,… đang
hoạt động offline phải chuyển sang hình thức online”

57