A STUDY ON COMMON MISTAKES IN VIETNAMESEENGLISH TRANSLATION BY ENGLISHMAJORED STUDENTS AT THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY

A STUDY ON COMMON MISTAKES IN VIETNAMESEENGLISH TRANSLATION BY ENGLISHMAJORED STUDENTS AT THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY A STUDY ON COMMON MISTAKES IN VIETNAMESEENGLISH TRANSLATION BY ENGLISHMAJORED STUDENTS AT THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY A STUDY ON COMMON MISTAKES IN VIETNAMESEENGLISH TRANSLATION BY ENGLISHMAJORED STUDENTS AT THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY A STUDY ON COMMON MISTAKES IN VIETNAMESEENGLISH TRANSLATION BY ENGLISHMAJORED STUDENTS AT THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY A STUDY ON COMMON MISTAKES IN VIETNAMESEENGLISH TRANSLATION BY ENGLISHMAJORED STUDENTS AT THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY A STUDY ON COMMON MISTAKES IN VIETNAMESEENGLISH TRANSLATION BY ENGLISHMAJORED STUDENTS AT THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY A STUDY ON COMMON MISTAKES IN VIETNAMESEENGLISH TRANSLATION BY ENGLISHMAJORED STUDENTS AT THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY A STUDY ON COMMON MISTAKES IN VIETNAMESEENGLISH TRANSLATION BY ENGLISHMAJORED STUDENTS AT THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY A STUDY ON COMMON MISTAKES IN VIETNAMESEENGLISH TRANSLATION BY ENGLISHMAJORED STUDENTS AT THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY A STUDY ON COMMON MISTAKES IN VIETNAMESEENGLISH TRANSLATION BY ENGLISHMAJORED STUDENTS AT THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY A STUDY ON COMMON MISTAKES IN VIETNAMESEENGLISH TRANSLATION BY ENGLISHMAJORED STUDENTS AT THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY A STUDY ON COMMON MISTAKES IN VIETNAMESEENGLISH TRANSLATION BY ENGLISHMAJORED STUDENTS AT THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY A STUDY ON COMMON MISTAKES IN VIETNAMESEENGLISH TRANSLATION BY ENGLISHMAJORED STUDENTS AT THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY A STUDY ON COMMON MISTAKES IN VIETNAMESEENGLISH TRANSLATION BY ENGLISHMAJORED STUDENTS AT THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY

THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH FACULTY

Nowadays, in the context of globalization and international integration, the use

of English is playing an increasingly important role in communication amongcountries around the world The translation helps readers understand, reach andreceive useful knowledge from other countries about different fields such aseconomy, policy, health, culture and society, et cetera and then they will use pickedinformation to apply on work and life

Due to the high requirements of translation, fluent translators are not onlygood at English in grammar, vocabulary, structure, et cetera, but they are also good

at mother language, specialized knowledge and flexible transformation whentranslating from the language to another language Understanding the importance oftranslation, Thuongmai University has put translation subjects into operation forstudents as bachelor of English faculty

Notwithstanding, most of these students met several mistakes when theyconducted translation The problems that students encounter can come from manydifferent reasons such as poor vocabulary, knowledge or lack of understandingculture et cetera To identify certain mistakes when translating from Vietnamese toEnglish, the researcher has conducted a study on common mistakes in Vietnamese-English translation by English-majored students at Thuongmai University The aim

of the study is to find out errors of students in translating from Vietnamese toEnglish and suggest several solutions to improve students’ translation skills

Secondly, I would like to give big thanks to my teachers of English faculty atThuongmai University for their teaching They had imparted their intensiveknowledge and experience for me In my four-years of study at ThuongmaiUniversity, the collegue board, principal and teachers have given the best conditionand facilities to us to finish our college curriculum.

Besides, I also want to thank all the teachers and students for spending theirtime to answer my survey questions With their enthusiastic assistance, I havecollected valuable data to complete my survey Additionally, I also give myappreciation to all the authors of the books, reliable data sources and other materialslisted in the reference part which have given me helpful consultancy to develop mygraduation paper

Especially, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my parents and myfamily for nurturing and teaching me to be a good person as well as giving me goodconditions to study and develop They are always my motivation that help meovercome all difficulties and challenges in life With limited knowledge andimplementation time, it is inevitable shortcomings I look forward to receiving thecomments and suggestions of teachers, which will help me perfect my knowledgelater Sincerely thanks!

Hanoi, April 16th 2021

StudentNguyen Thi Huong Quynh

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS vi

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Previous studies 2

1.3 Aims of the study 4

1.4 Research Subjects 4

1.5 Scope of the study 4

1.6 Research methodology 5

1.7 Organization of the study 5

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 Translation theory 7

2.1.1 Definition of translation 7

2.1.2 Translation methods 9

2.1.3 Criteria of a good translation 13

2.1.4 The factors influence the translation process 15

2.2 Mistakes/ Errors 17

2.2.1 Definitions of mistakes / errors 17

2.2.2 Common mistakes in Vietnamese-English translation 17

2.3 Causes of mistakes/ errors 20

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 21

3.1 Results collected from the questionnaire 21

3.2 Result collected from the test papers 26

3.2.1 Grammatical errors 26

3.2.2 Lexical errors 32

CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 38

4.1 Suggestions for teachers 38

4.2 Suggestions for students 38

CONCLUSION 41

APPENDIX: QUESTIONNAIRE 42

REFERENCES 44

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

Diagram 1: Translation method V-Diagram 9

Chart 1: The students’ attitude towards translation subject 21

Chart 2: The students’ attitude towards translation subject 22

Chart 3: Difficult type of translation texts 23

Chart 4: The student’s difficulty in translating Vietnamese-into-English 23

Chart 5: Common mistakes in translating Vietnamese-inti-English text 24

Chart 6: How the students improve their translating 25

Table 1: Common errors in Vietnamese-English translation 26

Table 2: Common grammatical errors in Vietnamese-English translation 27

Table 3: Common lexical errors in Vietnamese-English translation 33

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale

Due to the context of globalization, knowledge and language are keyconditions which allow people to take part in cultural, economic, political and socialactivities However, there is not a single language used in the world To makecommunication and transactions among countries around the world easy, Englishlanguage has become a common language used universally in many countriesaround the world In Vietnam, English is considered a second language after onlythe native language because it will help the country gain opportunities in culturalexchange, learning and cooperation Thus, the demand for translation is extremelygreat However, the translation sector is faced with increasingly stricterrequirements to convey the content and messages accurately and completely tocustomers, partners, staff and so on

In the context of advanced technology development, translating one languageinto another language may be easy People can use some tools in smartphone orcomputer and so on to translate into any language that is pre-installed in the system.Nevertheless, due to differences in language, culture and context, the translation ofthese tools sometimes makes mistakes For instance, the word “mother” or “mom”

in English can be translated into "mẹ, má, u, bầm, bu, mạ, me, mẫu, vú," inVietnamese If using the online translation tool, it only means “mẹ”, but if it istranslated by the translator, it depends on the context, regional culture and historicalperiod to use the correct words Before 1975, Hanoians used “mợ” to name “mẹ”;the Red River Delta provinces used the words “bầm, u, bu”; other people use thewords “mạ, chị cả” At this time, many people also called “me” (from the Frenchword “Mère”) or “măng” (from the French word “Maman”)

In recent years, studies of second language acquisition have tended to focus onlearner errors since they allow for prediction of difficulties involved in acquiring asecond language In this way, teachers can be aware of the errors areas to beencountered by their students and devote special care and emphasis to them.Although there have been many studies on error analysis in second language

learning and teaching, very few studies focus on types of analysis made byVietnamese university students in translation

Therefore, I have decided to choose the topic: “A study on Common Mistakes

in Vietnamese-English Translation by English-majored Students at ThuongmaiUniversity” for my graduation paper The present study aims to fill this gap in thefield of error analysis in Vietnamese-English translation It is hoped that the presentstudy will throw light on common types of errors made by English-majored students

in translating different Vietnamese structures What is more, the problems found inthis present study may help teachers and material designers choose an appropriatepedagogical method And I hope the study can help the students have a suitablelearning method to get the best result

1.2 Previous studies

Seeing that translation plays a vital role in meeting the demand of integrationinto the world economy and exchanging of culture with other countries but in fact,there are many students who make some common errors in translation process.Therefore, many studies have been carried out to help them recognize their commonerrors and give them some useful solutions to find out effective ways in leaning inorder to improve their translation skill These studies also are made by experiencedstudents with the detailed number and data Thus, I would like to depend on thesestudies as references materials for my graduation paper

The first study was made by Bui Thi Kim Phung at Duy Tan University Her

title was “Common structural errors in Vietnamese – English translation made by

English majored students at Duy Tan University.” The aim of this study was to find

out common errors that Vietnamese students often make in the process oftranslating Vietnamese sentence structures into English The analysis of thetranslations showed six frequent types of errors: omission of subject, inappropriatechoice of negative form, inappropriate choice of predicate, inappropriate choice ofsubject, inappropriate usage of passive form, and lack of main clause From thestudy, she showed some main reasons for errors vary from student to student:

- Firstly, the main possible cause of students’ errors is the inability toovercome the negative influence of the mother tongue in language learning

- Secondly, it is necessary to be aware that in Vietnamese sentences thesubject is often dropped, but not in English.

- Thirdly, because of “poor language competence”, sometimes students feel

“extremely embarrassed” if they cannot find out any equivalent structure in English

to match to the source language which is Vietnamese

From the reasons above, some suggestions were made to improve students’translation skills and to reduce translation errors

The second one is from Nguyen Thi Thu Hang and Trieu Thu Hang with title

“Vietnamese – English Translation Errors Made by Second Year Translation-MajorStudents: An Initial Step towards Enhancing Translation Standards” This study was

to identify common Vietnamese – English translation errors made by 2nd yearstudents majoring in Translation and Interpreting and proposing suggestions for theimprovement of the current practice The major instruments utilized in the studyincluded document observations, questionnaires and interviews The combination ofboth quantitative and qualitative methods enabled the researchers to triangulate thedata in order to attain the most reliable findings 81 Vietnamese-English translations

by 2nd-year translation and interpreting major students were collected for analysis

of errors According to the results of the study, the most common errors studentsmade was lexical choice, accounting for 24.85% of all errors identified Theresearcher pointed out that the largest number of students, 87.5% made errors due tothe lack of accessibility to translation theories and above 50% of students regardedpoor command of vocabulary and a lack of translation skills Some suggestionswere presented to overcome common errors for both teachers and students

Another one is about “An Analysis of Translation Errors: A Case Study ofVietnamese EFL Students” made by Pham Thi Thu Cuc The study aimed toanalyze the translation errors committed by Vietnamese EFL students, and identifythe source of errors, then inform some implications of pedagogy to improve thetranslation ability of the students The investigation was collected the data from 36Vietnamese students, who at the time of the study were studying English as theirmajor, were subjected to a Vietnamese-English translation test Translation errorswere analyzed using a threefold perspective proposed by Popescu (2012) including

linguistic errors, comprehension errors, and translation errors Findings showed thattranslation errors and linguistic errors are the most common errors, of which errorsrelated to lexical choice, syntax and collocations are the most frequently committed

by the students Results were discussed and implications for the improvements oftranslation ability and recommendations for future research were presented

In summary, through these studies above, we sometimes make some commonerrors in the translation process such as wrong word choice, poor vocabulary,structural errors, and so on Hopefully, after this study, students can find out thesuitable ways to improve translation skills

1.3 Aims of the study

The primary main aim of the thesis is to figure out the special mistakes intranslation from Vietnamese into English and then to have a good manner ofstudying The study also classifies the mistakes and explains the causes which lead

to the difficulties in translation processes And then, the study offers some solutionsfor students and teachers to overcome the mistakes above and to improve learningand teaching translation and help them gain best learning methods It is hoped tomeet the students’ expectation in looking for a method to learn translationeffectively

English-1.5 Scope of the study

At Thuongmai University, translation course is one of obligatory subjects thatjuniors in Faculty of English are required to study In this course, all of the studentshave to study both English-Vietnamese translation and Vietnamese- Englishtranslation This thesis, however, just focuses on studying on common mistakes inVietnamese-English translation

Because of the limited time and the scope of subjects, my survey had 30participants and answered my questionnaire based on their experiences during the

learning Vietnamese-English translation Questions in the survey almost relate tocommon mistakes in Vietnamese-English translation the students have to face up aswell as their suggestions to improve these problems After that, I selected aqualified questionnaire to analyze data and concluded my thesis.

1.6 Research methodology

In the course of scientific research, research methodology is one of the vitalfactors determining the success of a research paper In today's era of informationtechnology, many sources of materials such as books, newspapers, and especiallythe Internet are made use of To study students’ errors in translation of Vietnameseinto English, this study was used two research methods: quantitative and qualitative

To have the most accurate results of the research, I conducted a surveyquestionnaire for 30 English-majored students randomly to compile data in rapidperiod of time Besides, test papers were collected in order to identify commonerrors

Then, the quantitative method would be used to gather the data to analyze thefrequent errors through showing rates and numbers This aims to find the commonmistakes in Vietnamese-English translation process of student and give suggestionsfor Vietnamese-English translation teaching and learning at TMU

All the comments, remarks, recommendations and conclusion provided in thestudy were based on the data analysis of the study

1.7 Organization of the study

This study focuses on four primary following chapters, including:

The first chapter is an overview of the study In this chapter, a briefdescription of the study provides general information about the research Thechapter consists of seven parts such as rationale, previous studies, aims of the study,research subjects, scope of the study, research methodology and organization ofstudy The chapter helps readers understand generally about the study

The second chapter is literature review It is divided into three parts In thefirst part, it provides concepts related to the term of translation, theories concerningVietnamese-English translation In the second part, it adds the rationale about error

In this part, we can answer what is the concept of error? What are common mistakes

in Vietnamese-English translation And the third part, it shows us the cause of theerror in the Vietnamese-English translation process

The third chapter is results and discussion It is divided into three main parts.The first part shows results from the survey which was collected from thequestionnaire The next part, it shows the results from the Vietnamese-Englishtranslations provided by the teacher The final part is discussion which showscommon mistakes in Vietnamese-English translation

The last chapter is recommendations and suggestions After finding out thecommon mistakes in Vietnamese-English translation and showing demonstrationsthrough the results of the survey questionnaire, the research offers several solutionsfor both students and teachers to get the most effective learning and teachingmethods in the translation subject It summarizes the whole study and presents somelimitations of study before ending with some recommendations for further study

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Translation theory

2.1.1 Definition of translation

There are many ways to define translation which depends on how scholarsview language and translation There are so many concepts of translation and theseveral following definitions are typical concepts of translation

According to Wikipedia, translation is the communication of the meaning of asource language text by means of an equivalent target language text The text to betranslated is called the "source text," and the language that it is to be translated into

is called the "target language"; the final product is sometimes called the "targettext."

In Translation: Applications and Research, Brislin (1976: 1) defines

translation as: "the general term referring to the transfer of thoughts and ideas fromone language (source) to another (target), whether the languages are in written ororal form; whether the languages have established orthographies or do not havesuch standardization or whether one or both languages is based on signs, as withsign languages of the deaf."

Wills (1982: 3) defines translation as a transfer process which aims at thetransformation of a written SL text into an optimally equivalent TL text, and whichrequires the syntactic, the semantic and the pragmatic understanding and analyticalprocessing of the SL Part of the difficulty in translation arises due to the lexical gapand syntactical, semantic and pragmatic differences between the source languageand the target language, especially between two languages belonging to differentlanguage families Therefore, Wills focuses on not only the process of transferringthe written text but also the optimal equivalence about the syntactic, semantic andpragmatic understanding and analytical processing between source language andtarget language

Roger Thomas Bell (1991) says that translation is the expression in anotherlanguage (target language) of what has been expressed in one language (sourcelanguage), preserving semantic and stylistic equivalences Translation is thereplacement of a presentation of a text in one language by a representation of an

equivalent text in a second language He focuses on the expression that has beenexpressed in the written text such as thoughts or feelings of the author thattranslators have to take responsibility to preserve semantic and stylisticequivalencies.

In the four above definitions, we can see that the definition of wikipedia is themost basic definition The above concepts are aimed at conveying the meaning ofthe source text to the target text to help the listener fully and completely grasp themain content of the source text However, compared with the basic concept ofwikipedia, the other three concepts of scholars have different elements In Mr.Brislin's translation concept, this concept not only refers to the community of thesource text, but it is also related to the process and method to convey the source textinto the target text The important factor when doing the translation process is focus

on signs, as with sign languages of the deaf In the definition of Mr Will, thetranslation expresses the exact contextual meaning of the original with grammaticalstructures, syntactic, the semantic and pragmatic understanding and analyticalprocessing This translation will help readers to deeply understand the aestheticvalue of the source language text and also make the target translation moreelaborate In Mr Roger's concept, the Translation should reveal honestly thethoughts and feelings of the author The translation not only makes the reader graspthe main idea of the original text, but also must capture the expressed thoughts andfeelings This translation is mainly used in novels that help listeners to fully stepinto the real space that the author has drawn

In short, these definitions of translation mentioned above have three mainsimilar ideas First of all, translation is a process of rendering meaning, ideas ormessages of a text from one language to other language (from source language totarget language) The aim of translation is to find the equivalent meaning of thesource language expression in the target language Thus, the meaning of translation

is very important and it must be held constant Secondly, the meaning of the writtentext that the author intended the text has to be remained The last one is thattranslators have to preserve the equivalencies between two languages Thesedefinitions of translation can help us understand the concept of translation to obtain

an overall picture of the translation process Translation consists of studying thelexis, grammatical structure, communication situation and cultural context of thesource language.

2.1.2 Translation methods

In “A textbook of translation” of Peter Newmark, he has presented specifictranslation methods According to the theory, we can consult it for our translationmethods

emphasis

Word-for-word translation Adaptation Literal translation Free translation Faithful translation Idiomatic translation

Semantic translation Communicative translation

Diagram 1: Translation method V-Diagram

2.1.2.1 Word-for-word translation

Word-for-word translation is often demonstrated as interlinear translation,with the target language immediately the source language words The sourcelanguage word order is preserved and the words translated singly by their mostcommon meanings, out of context Cultural words are translated literally The mainuse of word-for-word translation is either to understand the mechanics of the sourcelanguage or to construe a difficult text as pre – translation process

E.g:

- Tôi biết chơi bóng chuyền

- I know play volleyball

Or:

- Fuel, however, is not alone, electricity is also an important input

- Nhiên liệu tuy nhiên không cô đơn, điện là cũng một đầu vào quan trọng.The above instance uses the word for word translation method In the firstsentence, the translator has translated word for word, regardless of whether thegrammar structure is correct or not It used two verbs “know” and “play” which arenext to each other The grammatical structure is wrong To accurately convey the

source text correctly, it can be translated as “I know how to play volleyball” or “Ican play volleyball” And in the second example, it is meaningless Translatingword for word makes the listener not only unable to understand the meaning of thesentence but also the wrong context of the word We can translate it as “Tuy nhiênkhông chỉ có nhiên liệu mà điện cũng mà một đầu vào quan trọng” In brief, wordfor word translation make the source text mess and incorrect grammar.

2.1.2.2 Literal translation

The SL grammatical constructions are translated to their nearest language(TL) A literal translation sounds like nonsense and has little communicative values.The lexical words are again translated singly, out of context The literal translationused for pre-translation process to identify problems and basis of poetry translationfor poet who does not understand SL

Because the literal translation focuses on forms of language, it sometimesmisses some of the meaning of those forms of individual words, but also inrelationships among words, phrases, idiomatic uses of words, and influences ofspeakers – heater, cultural, and historical contexts

E.g:

- Blood is thicker than water

- Máu đặc hơn nước

In this example, we can see that the translation is completely grammaticallycorrect The sentence uses a more comparable structure of water and blood which istranslated as “máu đặc hơn nước” It is difficult to understand the accurate meaning

of the sentence though readers may have gotten the context or not When onlyreading this translation, the readers completely do not understand its meaning.Therefore, this is called a literal translation

2.1.2.3 Faithful translation

A faithful translation tries to reproduce the precise contextual meaning of theoriginal within the constraints of the target language grammatical structures Ittransfers cultural words and preserves the degree of grammatical and lexical

“abnormality” (deviation from the source language norms) in the translation Itattempts to be completely faithful to the intentions and the text realization of the

source language writer This kind of translation is used for literary translation,authoritative texts, draft.

E.g:

- Although Ms Gomez was eager to sell her home, she considered the latestoffer from the buyer to be insufficient

- Mặc dù cô Gomez rất háo hức để bán nhà của mình, nhưng cô cho rằng lời

đề nghị mới nhất từ người mua là không đủ

In this example, the translation mentioned the main content of the originaltext, so that the listener can grasp the content of the original However, thetranslation is very rough, making the reader feel very awkward The translation tried

to translate all the words from the original and combine it to give the propermeaning, but the tone is not good Thus, it is called as faithful translation

2.1.2.4 Semantic translation

Semantic translation must take more account of the aesthetic value (thebeautiful and natural sound) of the SL text

The following are the characteristics of this approach:

 More flexible than faithful translation

 Naturalize a bit while faithful translation is uncompromising (but in order toachieve aesthetic effect), for instance, it may translate cultural words with neutral orfunctional items

 Great focus on aesthetic features of source text (at expense of meaning ifnecessary)

This kind of translation used for texts that have high status (religion texts,legal texts, politicians’ speeches), expressive texts (literature)

E.g:

- “May what come, you will always be in my mind.”

- “Cho dù điều gì xảy ra, em vẫn mãi ở trong tim anh.”

This translation is similar to the original in both content and grammar Thetranslation helps readers to deeply understand the content of the source text withoutlosing the naturalness of the target text If some words are translated into literalterms, they will make the target text coarse, but with this translation it chooses the

right words to do the natural translation Thus, with this translation not only helpsthe reader to fully understand the meaning of the original translation and has thegrammar equivalent to the original translation, but it also brings the mostnaturalness possible to the target translation.

2.1.2.5 Adaptation

Adaptation is used mainly for plays (comedies) and poetry; the themes,characters and plots are usually preserved, the source language culture converted tothe target language culture and the text is rewritten The deplorable practice ofhaving a play or a poem literally translated and then rewritten by an establisheddramatist or poet has produced many poor adaptations, but other adaptations have'rescued' period plays

2.1.2.6 Free translation

Free translation produces the matter without the manner, or the contentwithout the form of the original Usually it is a paraphrase much longer than theoriginal Free translation focuses on the content of the target text rather than theform, which means that the same content is expressed in the target text but withvery different grammatical structures if need be

E.g:

- Business is business

- Công việc và tình cảm không thể lẫn lộn được

This translation does not accurately and completely translate all words andmeanings of the original, it is a free translation with the implied content of theoriginal The translation is completely flexible and its purpose is to convey thecontent and implications of the source text The translator has provided a target textwith the similar content, but word choice is not literal and grammar is notequivalent Therefore, free translation is to convey the content of source withoutcaring about the form of the source text

2.1.2.7 Idiomatic translation

Idiomatic translation reproduces the “message” of the original but tends todistort nuances of meaning by preferring colloquialisms and idioms Idiomatictranslation makes use of idioms and colloquialisms that do not exist in the source

text It is where the meaning of the original is translated into forms which accuratelyand naturally preserve the meaning of the original forms Idiomatic refers to being

in the common language of average speakers, using the natural phrasings andidioms of the language

E.g:

- Every day is not Sunday

- Cuộc sống của chúng ta đều có những thăng trầm Hôm nay là một ngày tồi

tệ nhưng ngày mai có thể sẽ là một ngày may mắn

In this example, the source text is wordy, but its main meaning is that is veryshort and concise That is why the translator used idioms to talk about the content ofthe source text Thus, the idiomatic translation method helps the translation havemore expressive nuances to make the text more interesting

2.1.2.8 Communicative translation

Communicative translation tries to render the exact contextual meaning of theoriginal in such a way that both content and language are readily acceptable andcomprehensible to the readership It focuses on factors such as readability andnaturalness This kind of translation used for informative texts

E.g:

- Safe stopping distance

- Giữ khoảng cách an toàn

The source text is an adjective structured noun phrase (adjective + gerund +noun) which is intended to remind drivers and riders to keep a safe distance fromvehicles on the road to ensure safety Although the translation has a differentgrammar from the original, the content wants to convey to the readers the same.Signboards are used in Vietnam mainly as imperative and in source languagemainly noun phrases

2.1.3 Criteria of a good translation

Translation is an intricate and often subjective process that goes far beyond asimplistic word-for-word exchange A good translation needs to carry the meaningand the tone of the original text, while still remaining culturally sensitive and

appropriate to the target audience So, what are the qualities that go into making agood translation?

A good translation must convey all the ideas as well as the structural andcultural characteristics of the original text Massoud (1988) put forward thefollowing criteria to determine a good translation:

 A good translation is easily comprehensible

 A good translation is concise and coherent

 A good translation uses common expressions or idioms

 A good translation conveys, to a certain extent, the subtlety of the original

 A good translation is able to distinguish between metaphorical expressionsand literary language

 A good translation renders the cultural/historical context of the original

 A good translation clearly translates acronyms, indefinite words andphrases, songs, and rhymes

 A good translation communicates as much as possible the meaning of theoriginal text

El Shafey, another linguist, suggested a different set of criteria for a goodtranslation, including 3 key principles:

 The knowledge of the source language grammar, vocabulary knowledge,and a good understanding of the original text

 The ability of the translator to render the text required translation (thesource language text) into the target language

 The translation should capture the style or manner of the original text, anddeliver the message of such text

According to David Colmer, a good translation goes further and achieves theself-evidence and urgency of the original It sings, whispers, hums in the ear andswears like the original text and leaves the reader thrilled, disturbed and amused inthe same way as the original text A good translation does not have to beimpeccably starched and ironed, but dares to be ragged and frantic whenappropriate The voice of a good translation is as distinctive in English as theauthor’s voice in the original language

2.1.4 The factors influence the translation process

In fact, there are many factors affecting directly in translation process, and thefollowing elements are universal

2.1.4.1 Influence of the mother tongue

In the process of learning a foreign language, our mother tongue has a bigeffect on the way of thinking as well as our use of the target language (word order,word choice) Thanks to the translation, we can understand the interference with themother language when learning a foreign language We will be able to discover thepotential of both languages - their advantages and disadvantages - by using contrastanalysis

We will analysis the below example to recognize the differences betweenword orders in Vietnamese and English:

“Cô gái ấy là một giáo viên tốt Tên của cô ấy là Thanh Trúc.”

In the first underline phrase, “giáo viên” is a noun, “tốt” is an adjective In thelater, “Tên” is a noun, and “của cô ấy” is possessive adjective

From the instance above, we see that in Vietnamese, an adjective or possessiveadjective follows a noun So, what about in English? The phrases above will betranslated into English to have more detailed proof:

“She is a good teacher Her name is Thanh Truc.”

As we can see, in this sentence, “good” is an adjective, “teacher” is a noun,

“her” is possessive adjective, and “name” is a noun From Vietnamese and Englishexample, we realize the specific word orders:

 Vietnamese: N + Adjective/ N + possessive Adjective

 English: Adjective + N/ possessive Adjective + N

2.1.4.2 Grammatical structure

Translation requires not only vocabulary but also grammatical structure tomake sentences meaningful If you do not have enough knowledge on either of thetwo areas, your translation will be led to poor quality Compared to other language,English is a very flexible language In English, there are many tenses being usedwith a particular structure In case, an untrue tense is used, readers cannotunderstand or misunderstand its meaning

For example:

In Vietnamese:

- “Tôi đã sống ở đây được 20 năm rồi”

In English:

- “I have lived here for 20 years”

In the English sentence above, the tense of the verb is the present perfecttense, it shows an action which happened in the past and up to now or in the future.However, in Vietnamese, there are no rules of the using of the different verb forms

to express the time when an action happens

In general, grammatical structure in English is rather complicated, it requires

us have to find the suitable way of learning as well as practice every single day sothat we can master it

is very important: one word may mean a different thing depending the context inwhich it is used

For example:

The uses of the word “book” in the following sentences:

 I put a book on the table

 I want to book a table for three at this restaurant

The “book” in the first example is a noun, it is a written text that can bepublished in printed or electronic form In the second one, “book” is a normal verb,

it means the arrangement to have a seat, room, performer, etc at a particular time inthe future

In short, depending on the aim of translator and on context, the meaning ofword will be different If we misunderstand the context, it leads to choosing ofinappropriate meanings of words Therefore, the readers cannot understand what wewant to convey Context partly contributes to create a true translated output that isconsidered the most important requirement of translation.

2.2 Mistakes/ Errors

2.2.1 Definitions of mistakes / errors

According to Neubert (1995) describes a translation error as: "What rightlyappears to be linguistically equivalent may very frequently qualify as

‘translationally’ nonequivalent And this is so because the complex demands onadequacy in translation involve subject factors and transfer conventions thattypically run counter to considerations about ‘surface’ linguistic equivalence."(1995:415)

This statement partially describes the complication and difficulty in definingand identifying translation errors In the case of second language learners,identifying translation errors is harder, as translation errors may be mixed up withlinguistic errors

Sager (1983) agrees that the most serious errors are those resulting from theincompetence in a second language He also claims that in the field of writtentranslation, errors resulting from misinterpretation of the text are one of the twomajor concerns of quality assessment

Thus we can see that errors in translation influence the quality of the finalproduct and the degree of miscomprehension from the reader Accordingly,translation errors are often judged based on their importance and frequency

2.2.2 Common mistakes in Vietnamese-English translation

principle in word collocation For example, the word “pretty” often goes with girlsand women, while the word “handsome” often goes with boys or men Sometranslators do not realize this, which leads to wrong and funny collocation Forinstance, in Vietnamese the word “uống” (drink) can go with many different kinds

of liquid including water, beer, alcohol, medicine and even poison It is incorrect tosay “drink medicine” in English there are clear distinctions as follows:

- Drink beer/ water/ wine/ coffee

In this example, “home” and “house” are places where one lives, meaning

“nhà” in Vietnamese However, in terms of the connotation meaning they are quitedifferent “House” refers to the building or structure while “home” refers to theatmosphere feeling found in the house

Example:

- “There is no place like home.”

- “Home is where the heart is.”

Most of the synonyms have the same meaning in certain context If a translatoruses synonyms without referring to the context, translators can make wrong &funny for his readers In order to avoid the misuse, the translator should carefullytake the synonyms into consideration before using them In addition, it would bebetter for the translator to consider the differences of the pairs of synonyms whentranslating

Spelling errors:

Spelling errors in translation are also the common errors like spelling errors inwriting When people have to translate a Vietnamese text into English in a short