These finding were the base for some solutions to improve the students’ translation quality

This study aims to discover the difficulties that the third year Englishmajored students at Tay Nguyen University face in their process of learningEnglish-Vietnamese translation and then

I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to themany people who have supported me in this assignment

First of all, I would like to show my deepest gratitude to my supervisor,

Ms Nguyen Thi Kim Phuong, M.A, lecturer of the Faculty of ForeignLanguage Studies, Tay Nguyen University for her sincerity, enthusiasticguidance, and encouragement on every stage of this research

Secondly, I want to give my sincere thanks to all teachers of theEnglish Department at Tay Nguyen University for their constructive opinions

Finally, I would like to thank the students of English Bachelor classK12 for their help in my survey of this paper

Nowadays, because of the globalization and international cooperation,language difference is an unavoidable problem Translation, therefore, is moreand more popular and necessary in the process of conveying information.This subject is now taught in many universities in Vietnam and Tay NguyenUniversity is one of those In Tay Nguyen University, the students mustpractice to translate from English to Vietnamese and vice versa With theEnglish majored students in Vietnam in general and the students in TayNguyen University in particular, English-Vietnamese translation is considered

to be most difficult mode

This study aims to discover the difficulties that the third year Englishmajored students at Tay Nguyen University face in their process of learningEnglish-Vietnamese translation and then giving some solutions to help them

to improve the quality of their translation

The method used in the study is using the questionnaire and contentanalysis The questionnaires were delivered to 40 third year English majoredstudents

The result of the study showed that most of the third English majorshad difficulty in translation from English into Vietnamese It was hard forthem to avoid regrettable misunderstanding from a foreign language into theirmother tongue These finding were the base for some solutions to improve thestudents’ translation quality

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

ABSTRACT ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

LIST OF TABLES v

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Statement of the problem 1

1.2 Objectives of the study 1

1.3 Significance of the study 1

1.4 Outline of the study 2

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 3

2.1 The definitions of translation 3

2.2 The functions of translation 4

2.3 The difficulties in English-Vietnamese translation 4

2.3.1 The difficulties from difference of language 4

2.3.2 The difficulties from difference of culture 5

2.3.3 The difficulties from difference of mode of thinking 5

CHAPTER 3: CONTENTS AND RESEARCH METHOD 7

3.1 Subjects of the study 7

3.3 Contents of the study 7

3.4 Research methods 7

CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSTION 8

4.1 The importance of translation subject 8

4.2 The students’ difficulties in translating English – Vietnamese 9

4.3 How the students improve their translating 12

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 14

5.1 Conclusions 14

5.2 Recommendations 15 REFERENCES

APPENDIX

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: The perception about learning translation

Table 2: The students’ difficulties in grammar and lexical meaningTable 3: The students’ difficulties in culture

Table 4: The students’ difficulties in synonym

Table 5: The students’ difficulties in connotation of meaningTable 6: The students’ difficulties in method of thinking

Table 7: The ways to improve students’ translating

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, the background of the study, the objectives, thesignificance, the scope of the study and the outline of the study will bepresented

1.1 Statement of the problem

As globalization has increased, so no one can deny the importance oflanguage in the process of conveying information and the importance oftranslation Nowadays, more and more contracts, emails, news, etc are inEnglish, so it is necessary to master translation to translate documents moreexactly in order to avoid regrettable misunderstanding However, to mastertranslation is not easy, so not almost all learners can avoid mistakes

Practically, the English learners at Tay Nguyen University have somedifficulties in learning English-Vietnamese translation, such as in culturaldifferences, in language differences, in modes of thinking Thus, this studywould like to find out the difficulties that the third year English majors at TayNguyen University meet in learning English-Vietnamese translation and thengiving some solutions to help them to improve the quality of their translation

1.2 Objectives of the study

This study aims:

 To find out what difficulties that the third year English majorsmeet in learning translation

 To help the third year English majors overcome the difficulties intheir translation by some suggested solutions

1.3 Significance of the study

This study relies on the difficulties that the third year English majorsface when learning translation at Tay Nguyen University to point out somesolutions which are helpful for students Hopefully, this study also helpteachers to recognize that difficulties and have more suitable teaching to helptheir students learn translation better

1.4 Outline of the study

The study is divided into four chapters:

Chapter I - Introduction, includes 4 sections: statement of theproblem, objectives of the study, significance of the study, outline of thestudy

Chapter II - Literature review, consists of 3 sections: the definitions

of translation, the functions of translation, the difficulties in Vietnamese translation

Chapter III - Contents and research methods, includes 4 sections:subjects of the study, scope of the study, contents of the study, researchmethods

Chapter IV - Findings and discussion, presents the results of the study;

in this chapter, the researcher introduces the results collected by questionnaireand analyzes them

Chapter V - Conclusions and recommendations, presents somerecommendations and conclusions of the study

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents the basic concepts of translation, the functions oftranslation and the rest of the chapter completely zoom in difficulties ofstudents in learning English-Vietnamese translation that have been identified

by some researchers

2.1 The definitions of translation

The term translation can be understood in many ways In broader term,translation is an operation performed on languages, a process of substituting atext in one language for a text in another (Catford, 1965) And The NationalTranslation BureauTM gave the definition of translation as: “ the process ofconverting words from one language to another.”

A more detailed picture of translation can be seen clearly with thedefinition given by Edmond Cary (1985): “Translation is a process whichattempts to establish equivalents between two texts expressed in two differentlanguages These equivalents are, by definition, always dependent on thenature of the two texts, on their objectives, on the relationship between thetwo cultures involved and their moral, intellectual and emotional conditions.”

The other sees translation as an act of transferring messages from asource language into a target language, be it oral or written, for the sake ofestablishing equivalence to get the appropriate meaning (Yowell & Lataiwish,2000)

Hatim and Munday (2004) define translation from two differentperspectives First as a process, translation is an act of taking a text from onelanguage and transforming it into another In this sense, Hatim and Mundayfocus on the part of the translator Second as a product, translation focuses onthe results achieved by translator, the concrete product of translation

2.2 The functions of translation

The translating functions, as depicted by D.Cordero (1984) are asfollow:

“The need for translation is especially acute in our modern world Not only do nations depend on it to bridge what would otherwise be an impossible communication gap, but it also affords access to a wealth of scientific and technical information, as well as to the ideas that help shape our society Supersonic jets and communication have “shrunk” our world Yet, ancient language barrier are still in force and make translation more necessary now than ever before In fact, our age has been called the age of translation.”

2.3 The difficulties in English-Vietnamese translation

The difficulties in translation have been drawing the attention of manyresearchers Vu Ngoc Can (2007) says that “based on the origin, causes, wedivide difficulties into 3 categories: the difficulty comes from differences oflanguage, culture and modes of thinking"

2.3.1 The difficulties from difference of language

The study “Common mistakes in learning translation subject by thesecond year English majors at Dong Thap University” (Duong Thi Thu Hangand Nguyen Thi Cam Xuyen, 2010) found the followings:

“The translation, beside rich vocabulary, we should have a thorough understanding of linguistic problems of both languages, understanding the similarities and differences between the two languages not only in grammar but also in term lexical meaning If anything is missed, there is generally no opportunity to become a successful translator.

Grammatical constructions vary between the source language and the receptor language The order of the words in the sentence may be completely reserved The following English simple sentence is given with a literal Vietnamese translation: new house – ngôi nhà mới.

Lexical meaning is also the most seen difficulty and the most direct impact to the process of translation Each language has its own idiomatic way of expressing meaning lexical items Languages abound in idioms, secondary meanings, metaphors and other figurative meanings All languages have idioms – the string

of words whose meaning is different than the meaning conveyed by the individual words.”

Culture in this discussion should be seen in a broad sense, as inanthropological studies Culture is not only understood as the advancedintellectual development of mankind as reflected in the arts, but it refers to allsocially conditioned aspects of human life (cf Snell-Hornby, 1988: Hymes,1964) In practical wordings, Goodenough (1964) puts:

“As I see it, a society's culture consists of whatever it is one has to know or believe

in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its members, and do so in any role that they accept for any one of themselves Culture, being what people have to learn as distinct from their biological heritage, must consist of the end product of learning: knowledge, in a most general, if relative, sense of the term By definition,

we should note that culture is not material phenomenon; it does not consist of things, people, behavior, or emotions It is rather an organization of these things.

It is the forms of things that people have in mind, their models of perceiving and dealing with their circumstances To one who knows their culture, these things and events are also signs signifying the cultural forms or models of which they are material representation."

Moreover, Nguyen Van Tuan (2006) found the followings:

“Culture could be understood as the total set of beliefs, attitude, customs, behavior, social habits, etc of the member of a particular society In the broad sense, it includes mode of production, production activities, community organization, spiritual life, knowledge of nature and society, emotions, and moral conceptions Language is regarded as both a component of a culture and network through which other elements of culture operate Language therefore uses almost all other cultural elements so as to perfect its universal and self-sufficient nature.

It could be said that we will not translate from this to that language perfectly unless we know its relation to its culture.”

2.3.3 The difficulties from difference of mode of thinking

The study “The difficulties and some solutions to English Vietnamesetranslation” (Nguyen Van Sinh, 2011) found the followings:

“Some translators depend largely on the meaning in dictionary picking out the synonyms without paying much to the context In fact, the pairs of synonyms share at least one sense in common but do not share all their senses To some extent, they can hardly substitute for each other The misuse of synonyms makes the meaning of one of the following sentences unacceptable “You have my deep/ profound sympathy” (acceptable) “The river is deep” (acceptable)

“The river is very profound.” (unacceptable).

Another example shows that some translators do not realize the connotation meaning, which leads to the distorting of the meaning of the sentence Take

“famous” (nổi tiếng) as an example While “famous” means “well-known/ celebrated”, and therefore contains some features of positive meaning,

“notorious” means “well-known” especially for unfavorable reason and negative meaning.”

CHAPTER 3: CONTENTS AND RESEARCH METHOD

In this chapter, an empirical report is presented base on the findings from asurvey The chapter starts with a brief description of the survey subjects, scope,contents and method

3.1 Subjects of the study

In this study, the subjects are difficulties when learning Vietnamese translation and the way to learn this subject effectively

English-3.2 Scope of the study

The study focuses on the difficulties in learning English-Vietnamesetranslation of the third year English majors only

3.3 Contents of the study

- Review literature related to the study

- Design data collection instrument such as questionnaires for students

- Collect and analyze data

- Discuss some suggested solutions

3.4 Research methods

Questionnaire was chosen as a mean in this study In order to find out theanswers to the research questions, and collect general data from students, aquestionnaire was delivered to 40 students of class English Bachelor 2012 duringbreak time and collected right after they finish it

The questionnaire includes 8 questions:

Question 1 and 2 aim to find out the importance of translation subject.

Question 3 aims to investigate the difficulties from difference of language.Question 4 is designed to find out the difficulties from difference of culture.Question 5-7 are used to find out the difficulties from difference of mode ofthinking

Question 8 is designed to find out the ways students improve their translation