Difficulties and in vietnamese into english movie translation and some suggested solutions

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ENGLISH GRADUATION THESIS B.A DEGREE IN ENGLISH STUDIES Difficulties and in Vietnamese into English movie translation and some suggested solutions Sup

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ENGLISH

GRADUATION THESIS B.A DEGREE IN ENGLISH STUDIES

Difficulties and in Vietnamese into English movie

translation and some suggested solutions

Supervisor : Nguyễn T.Kim Chi, M.A

Date of birth : 06/04/1994

GRADUATION PAPER

DECLARATION

Title: Difficulties and in Vietnamese into English movie

translation and some suggested solutions

I certify that no part of the above report has been copied or reproduced

be me from any other’s world without acknowledgement and that the report is originally written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor

GRADUATION PAPER

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I have received great assistance from many people in the preparation of this paper Without their assistance and support, this paper might not have been finished

First of all, I would like to hereby to extend my profound gratitude to

my supervisor, Mrs Nguyễn Thị Kim Chi for her advice, comments, correction and for her kindly encouragement during the development of this paper

Also, I am deeply grateful to my teachers at Hanoi Open University for their lectures

My special thanks to all my friends for the time, energy they spend on reading my paper and providing me with extremely detailed comments on parts and on the whole as well

Last, but not least, I owe my deepest gratitude and thank all my family for their love, great encouragement and support to me to fulfill this paper

GRADUATION PAPER

TABLE OF CONTENT

DECLARATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 2

4 Method of the study 2

5 Design of the study 2

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 3

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 3

1.1 Translation theory 3

1.1.1 Definition 3

1.1.2 Types of translation 4

1.2 About movie translation 7

1.2.1.History of movie translation 7

1.2.2 Characteristics of movie translation 8

1.2.3 Power of film translation 11

CHAPTER 2: DIFFICULTIES IN VIETNAMESE TO ENGLISH MOVIE TRANSLATION

2.1 Linguistics problems 13

2.1.1 Grammatical problems 13

2.1.2 Syntactic problems 14

GRADUATION PAPER

2.1.2.2 Clause structure 16

2.1.2.3 Sentence structure: 18

2.1.3 Morphological problems 20

2.1.3.1 Nouns 20

2.1.3.2 Verbs 21

2.1.4 Linguistic untranslatability 23

2.2 Cultural problems 26

2.2.1 Cultural untranslatability 26

2.2.2 Translation of implications and cultural references 28

2.3 Other problems 30

2.3.1 Translation style problems 30

2.3.2 Movie’s characters 31

CHAPTER 3: CAUSES OF DIFFICULTIES IN VIETNAMESE TO ENGLISH MOVIE TRANSLATION 32

3.1 Subjective causes 32

3.1.1 Inadequate language competence 32

3.1.1.1 Incompetence in the source language (Vietnamese) 32

3.1.1.2 Incompetence in the target language (English) 33

3.1.2 Insufficient cultural background 35

3.2 Objective causes 35

3.2.1 Linguistic differences between Vietnamese and English 35

3.2.1.1 Syntax 35

3.2.1.2 Morphology 37

3.2.2 Cultural differences 38

CHAPTER 4: SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS FOR MOVIE TRANSLATION 40

4.1 Overcoming Linguistic Problems 40

GRADUATION PAPER

4.1.1 Dealing with Linguistic Problems 40

4.1.2 Dealing with linguistic untranslatability 41

4.1.3 Avoidance of word-for-word translation 41

4.1.4 Dealing with collocation 42

4.1.5 Dealing with idioms translation 42

4.2 Overcoming lexical and structure problems 43

4.2.1 Lexical Transformation 43

4.2.1.1 Transforming a general meaning word into a specific meaning one 44

4.2.1.2 Using synonyms 45

4.2.1.3 Using antonyms 46

4.2.1.4 To change, add, cut or rearrange words order 47

4.2.1.5 Turning idiolects into normal word in the target language 47

4.2.2 Structural Transformation 47

4.3 Overcoming cultural problems 48

4.3.1 Cultural substitutions 48

4.3.2 Dealing with cultural untranslatability 49 PART C: CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Translation is an activity of enormous importance in our modern world Nowadays, translation has become a profession It consists of staff translators, freelancers, contract translators, terminologists and pre- and post-editors in machine translation

Translation has been the subject of interest not only to linguistic, professional and amateur translators, and language teachers but also to electronic engineers and mathematicians

Translation in any of the mentioned fields - for instance, film industry - becomes particularly important, for it erases linguistic borders, once physical borders are erased; and, hence, truly unifies nations

Movie translation can be a difficult job that requires a lot of experience and effort If done well and with care it can convey the same message as the original conversation but if not done properly it can be a total failure and thus the movie is unsuccessful Although as in any kind of translation field we face different challenges, in movie translation there are some challenges and difficulties that make this kind of translation even more difficult A movie translator who has a long experience knows these difficulties and surely has encountered some of them There are two main ways for translating a movie subtitling and dubbing, both these ways affect the original conversation in one way or another On one hand we have dubbing which modifies the original conversation and makes it more convenient and familiar to the target audience This method of translation adapts language according to the movements of the mouth of the actor enabling him to appear as speaking exactly the language of the target audience On the other hand there is the subtitled movie translation which implies the subtitles synchronized to the language spoken and usually positioned at the end of the screen, which between the two methods is considered as the method that changes less the

original conversation thus enabling the audience to experience language and cultural differences

2 Aims and objectives of the study

The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the importance and difficulties of film translation, with the causes and some suggested solutions for improvement in movie translation progress

This aim is to show some difficulties while translating Vietnamese movies, causes to the difficulties and some solutions to improve the translation skills

3 Scope of the study

This study will focus on difficulties in translating movies, causes of the difficulties and some suggested solutions to have a better translation

4 Method of the study

This paper is carried out by the following steps:

Have the instruction from my supervisor and other teachers Collect materials from books, documents and the internet

Analyzing some conversation in a Vietnamese drama in order to find difficulties, causes and give some strategies for translating movies

5 Design of the study

This paper has three main parts

Part A is the introduction about the rationale, aim and objectives of the study, scope of the study, methods and the design of the study

Part B mentions the development for this paper and consists of three chapters Chapter 1 talks about literature reviews, chapter 2 states the difficulties, chapter 3 shows the causes and chapter 4 shows the techniques to improve the translation quality

Translation is the expression in another language (target language) of what has been expressed in one language (source language), preserving semantic and stylistic equivalences (Bell.R , 1991)

Translation is the replacement of a presentation of a text in one language by a representation of an equivalent text in a second language (Bell.R ,1991)

For example, the Vietnamese sentence “Chỉ khi nào thầy giáo cho phép thì sinh viên mới được vào phòng.” can be translated into English as “Only if the teacher has given permission are students allowed to enter the room.”

The author continues and makes the problems of equivalence very plain Text in different languages can be equivalent in different degrees (full

or partly different), in respect of different levels of presentation (in respect of context, of semantics, of grammar, of lexis, etc.) and at different ranks (word-for-word, phrase-for-phrase, sentence-for-sentence)

In Vietnamese-into-English translation, the Vietnamese is the source language and the English is the target language as in the following example:

The source language: “Người bắt đầu học ngoại ngữ luôn luôn gặp khó khăn ngay từ bước đầu.” The target language: “Beginners of foreign language always meet difficulties from the outset.” In contrast, in English-into-Vietnamese translation, the English is the source language and the Vietnamese is the target language as in the following example: The source language: “Due to ill management and protection, forest resources have, in recent years, been seriously destroyed.” The target language: “Trong những năm gần đây, do quản lí và bảo vệ kém, tài nguyên rừng bị tàn phá rất nghiêm trọng.” Translation is rendering a written text into another language in a way that the author intended the text (Bui Tien Bao and Dang Xuan Thu, 1997)

“Translators are concerned with the written texts They render written texts from one language into another language Translators are required to undertake assignments, which range from simple items, such as birth certificates and driving licenses, to more complex written materials, such as articles in specialized professional journals, business contracts and legal documents” (Bui Tien Bao and Dang Xuan Thu, 1997)

Translation, ultimately, by dictionary definition, consists of changing from one state or form to another, to turn into one’s own or another’s language (The Merrian – Webster dictionary, 1974)

Translation is a change of form When we speak of the form of a language, we are referring to the actual words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, etc The forms are referred to as the surface structure of a language It is a structural part of a language, which is actually seen in print or heard speech

In translation, the form of the receptor or target language replaces the form of the source language

Here the source language (SL) word is translated into another language

by their most common meanings, which can also be out of context at times, especially in idioms and proverbs

- The following are the characteristics of this approach:

+ SL word order is preserved

+ Words are translated by their most common meanings, and out of context

B, Literal translation

Here the SL grammatical constructions are translated to their nearest language (TL) A literal translation sounds like nonsense and has little communicative values

- The following are the characteristics of this approach:

+ Lexical words are translated singly, and out of context

C, Faithful translation

Here the translation interprets the exact contextual meaning of the original within the constraints of the grammatical structures of the TL

- The following are characteristics of this approach:

+ Words are translated in context but uncompromising to TL

+ Transfer cultural words

+ Does not naturalize

+ Often read like a translation

D, Semantic translation:

Semantic translation refers to that type of translation, which takes into account the aesthetic value 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 to achieve aesthetic effect), for instance, it may translate cultural words with neutral or functional items

+ Great focus on aesthetic features of source text (at expense of meaning if necessary)

+ Close rendering of metaphors, collocations, technical terms, slang, colloquialisms, unusual syntactic structures and collocations, peculiarly used words, neologism, badly written or inaccurate passages

G, Idiomatic translation:

It translates the message of the original text but tends to distort the original meaning at times by referring colloquialisms and idioms (Su, 2003) Idiomatic translation makes use of idioms and colloquialisms that are not present in the source text It is asserted that the original meaning of a fixed combination is not equal to the sum of the meaning of separate words

This method displays the exact contextual meaning of the original text

in a manner where both content and language are easily acceptable and comprehensible to the readers

- The following are the characteristics of this approach:

+ Bee freer than semantic translation

+ Give priority to the effectiveness of the message to be communicated + Focus on factors such as readability and naturalness

+ Both the content and the language are readily acceptable and comprehensible to the reader

- This kind of translation used for informative texts

I, Gist translation

Gist translation is characterized by keeping the main idea/gist of the text

- Most free type of translation

- Used in language learning situation to summarize

1.2 About movie translation

1.2.1.History of movie translation

It is known from the films translation history that in the times of silent movies, translation was relatively easy to conduct: the so-called titles interrupted the course of a film every couple of minutes, so the target language titles could easily be translated and inserted in place of the original ones The problem arose with the appearance of “talkies” in the late 1920s At first, American film companies tried to solve it by producing the same film (using the same set and scenario, but different directors and actors) in various language versions However, this soon turned out to be unprofitable, as the films produced were of poor artistic quality and they did not win the public The studios that had been built in France for this purpose began to produce

dubbed versions of films instead The new invention “enabled Hollywood to avoid any interruption in its dominance of the international film market” Talkies guaranteed that the audience was very much aware of the source culture and its nature, and thus they helped cement Hollywood’s leading position

The introduction of talkies exerted a far-reaching influence on both larger and smaller countries As film production costs rose, it became increasingly difficult for smaller countries to export their productions and- limited by their small domestic markets- their home production decreased, which led to a rise in film imports As for larger European countries, they

“were better equipped to continue producing their own films, but were also faced with powerful American competition” This situation, i.e the wide gap between larger and smaller countries, was to be reflected later in the choice of the film translation mode: larger countries tended to dub imported foreign productions, while smaller ones settled on subtitling From the early 1930s until 1950s American film companies reigned over the entire movie industry

as they monopolized the recording equipment During World War II the American film industry flourished

1.2.2 Characteristics of movie translation

A Multimedia

Film, is a kind of multimedia, both a visual medium and an aural one

In general translation, the readers see it with their eyes, but read it in mind They get messages only by a visual channel The audience of film watch what characters are doing and hear what they are talking about, messages reach the audience through visual and acoustic channels Obviously, fascination of

channels, which demands the target language should cope with the original images in the film as naturally as possible

What's more, films and TV plays are supposed to act directly on the sense of sight of the audience, not on the sense of hearing As Martin points out, "Picture is the basic element of the language of film." "However it is normal and unquestionable that in the film utterance forms a constituent element of the reality and play a fundamental role in achieving realism In fact, utterance is a component of the visual picture and therefore, it is subject

to the movement of the pictures."(Martin, 1977, p 149) We can notice that the translation of utterance should be synchronized with the settings of the scenes, the identity of the characters, their movements, gestures, facial expressions, pauses and lip movements; in that pictures transfer the major part

of the messages and pictures play the much more important role

B Spoken Language & Easy Understandability

English feature films are an entertainment more than a holy art Once they indulge in self-admiration, they come to a dead end As a mass art, feature films are due to win the audience An excellent film should be a dignified compromise between market and art so as to offend neither the mass nor the critics

Film translation primarily deals with spoken language, rather than written language English films are means of entertainment, so it is the translator's duty to enable the audience to get entertained in the easiest way The audience may be experts of English culture or merely laymen; they may

be Doctors or just beginners They have different ages, genders, levels of education and backgrounds, etc They consequently have varied understanding abilities and appreciation values To cater so many different

tastes, popular films assure well-chosen themes, closely-knit plots, attractive frames and most importantly, easily understood subtitle

With conversation being the major component of the script, colloquialism is the top priorities for a translator of film translation

In addition, extra-linguistic features such as facial expressions, gestures, stance and paralinguistic features such as pitch of the voice, rapidity

of speech, pauses and hesitations should also be taken into account in film translation

C Transience

In film, utterances are spoken which are difficult to trace In general translation, to be more specific, fiction readers may turn over pages to ransack any useful clues with ease and in no hurry when failing to grasp the intended meaning However, if the audience miss what they are hearing, especially important sentences or words, they will be lost in the dark, because they has nowhere to turn to, and no time to think with new messages surging over them The "shots" of films last only seconds and usually cannot be replayed, which makes it impossible for the audience to refer back to the previous parts

of the story to recollect or reflect upon the information as a reader does with a book The transience of pictures demands the translator convey as much message as the duration of each "shot" allows, and at the same time as intelligible enough for the audience to absorb immediately as possible What's more, no notes can be allowed on the screen as other translators do in a book

to explain potential linguistic obscurities and cultural specifics The translator

is forced to lighten the burden on the audience, which keeping the original message intact

1.2.3 Power of film translation

While watching a foreign movie with dubbing or subtitles, do you ever

wonder why the film is so successful, even though it wasn’t made in your native language? The answer may be quite simple – it is translated, and translation has certain advantages and disadvantages which can influence an

audience’s reaction This is what we are going to talk about today – film

translation

Film has always been a powerful tool and a ubiquitous source of ideas

in every culture Entertainment and business are inseparably bound in this industry Movies are not just a national property; on the contrary, they go far beyond national borders and attract global attention and recognition, resulting

in a huge economic impact for the film industry on the international market The international market, in turn, cannot be imagined without a team of translators whose primary goal is to establish communication between cultures

It is important to find a happy medium and try to make the translation comprehensible for the target audience and, nevertheless, keep its original message One of the best examples of how translators can affect a first impression is movie title translation For example, viewers may think they are going to watch a teenage comedy, but what they see instead is a serious psychological drama This happened in Russia where the movie title ‘Leaves

of Grass’, an allusion to a poetry collection of Walt Whitman, was translated

as ‘Weed’ This is just one out of hundreds of examples of how crucial it is to properly translate a movie, starting with its title

Film translation is a very powerful and sometimes hazardous tool For a film that is released nationally in a particular country to be a success abroad,

it must overcome major linguistic and cultural obstacles to unite people and

eliminate misunderstanding There is no universal way of translating films because all the methods described above depend on various factors, including history and translation traditions of different countries What translators have

to do is to transfer ideas and values of one culture to another and make it appear authentic

CHAPTER 2: DIFFICULTIES IN VIETNAMESE TO ENGLISH

MOVIE TRANSLATION

There are many problems that translator may meet when translate a Vietnamese movie into English In this thesis I would like to divide them as linguistics problems and cultural problems

All the examples were taken in the Vietnamese drama ‘Winter lullaby’ 2.1 Linguistics problems

Linguistic problems are the first things that viewers can see if they read the translated conversation First translators must have the ability to provide the translated conversation with correct grammar, brief and easy to understand The conversation is very important for the viewers to understand the content and messages of the movie If the viewers find the conversation good and easy to follow, they will have more interest in the movies Moreover, a movie or drama is a way of promoting culture of a country to the world Thus, providing correct translation of conversation in movies not only express the meaning of the movies, but also help the viewers know more about the country making those movies

Nord (1992) defined linguistic problems as:

“The structural differences between two languages in lexis, grammatical feature and sentence structures can lead to a certain translation problems classified as linguistics problems, no matter which of the two serves

as source and which serves as target language.”

Basing on that definition, linguistics problems are divided into the following subclasses: grammatical problems, syntactic problems and morphological problems

2.1.1 Grammatical problems

Grammar is a basic aspect of any language It is the first thing translators have to pay attention when translating movies There is variety of

grammatical problems usually found in translation, occurring in many words classes such as adjective, adverb, article, conjunction, determiner, indefinite determiner, indefinite pronoun, negative determiner, preposition, pronoun, reflexive pronoun, relative pronoun, verb, present participle

- Article

Có một bức thư gửi cho chị

There is an letter for you

- Relative pronoun

Em là em ghét nhất loại người không công bằng

I hate most those people who work unfair

- Adjective

Mấy món ăn này thơm quá

Those dishes smell so good

2.1.2.1 Phrase structure

Phrase: a word or group of words forming a syntactic constituent with a

In the first type “addition of unnecessary phrase”, translators add an extra word without which he phrase sounds better, as can be seen in the following example:

Anh ấy đã bị tên trộm bắn chết

He was killed dead by the thief

In this example, the word “dead” is not considered as a wrong insertion, it is a redundant word, therefore, it is listed as “unnecessary word”

If the Vietnamese movies are translated into English with so many unnecessary words, the viewers may think that the translator did not do the translation carefully, and this may affect the quality of the movies

B, Inappropriate noun phrase construction

The second type is an “inappropriate noun phrase construction”, which

is used to refer to instances where translators are confused about the word order in a phrase This can make the movie’s meaning unclear Example:

Việc làm còn thiếu hiện nay là cụ thể hóa việc định hướng và quy hoạch tổng thể phát triển đô thị Việt Nam đến năm 2020

What we lack is specifying orientation and overall programming

of developing Vietnam urban until 2020

Suggestion: What need to be done soon is to put the orientation and master plan of Vietnam’s urban development with a vision

to 2020 into practical and viable terms

C, Inappropriate use of possessive case

These two types of problems include all those involving possessive cases The problems called “inappropriate use of possessive case” concern instances in which the possessive case is used when it should not have been, while “omission of possessive maker” cases are the opposite These two types

of problems are evaluate as synaptic, rather than morphological (which also

relates to the omission of the possessive), because the effects of the problems are significant, extending to the phrase structure

Example 1: Không phải dao của phòng em đâu chị ạ

It’s not our room’s knife

In this example, instead of saying “the knife of our room”, some translators used the possessive case for this noun phrase However, the possessive cannot be used in this case, when the possessor is an abstract noun They were wrong in applying the rule, but their decision to use the possessive case was inappropriate

Example 2:

Trâm lúc nào cũng dọn sạch chuồng của mấy con chó

Tram always keeps the dogs’s cage clean

Suggestion: The cage of the dogs

In this example, translators incorrectly used the possessive case in situations where the noun function as a possessor is not an animate The problems lie not in the way the translators applied the rule to the actual words (by adding an apostrophe and ‘s’), but in their choice of possessive case when

it could not be applied In this example, the possessor is ‘dogs’ and the possessed is the ‘cage’ while the relationship between them is container-content Although we can say ‘the table’s leg’ in English, the case of ‘dogs’ case’ is not semantically justified

the conversation in a long, messy way and the conversation will become hard

to understand

A, Addition of unnecessary phrase

This problem occurs when the translators add one extraneous word to the phrase In the following example, the translators repeat the word ‘this’, when it is already implied in the relative pronoun ‘which’, replacing whole previous clause

Example: Mẹ của anh đang cần sự quây quần, quan tâm của con cháu, anh là con trưởng anh phải quan tâm mẹ hơn

Your mom needs more attention from family, which you should care more about this

B, Addition of verb

This is the case in which one more verb is added to the clause (not the sentence)

Example 2: Nếu họ phát bài hát đó thì nghe hay và phù hợp hơn

If they played that song, I would find it sound (redundant) more

elegent and suibtable

Example 3: Nếu chúng ta đặt tên em bé là Trâm thì nghe hay hơn

If we name the baby is (redundant) Tram, it would sound more

beautiful

C, Inappropriate clause construction

This is a term used to refer to cases in which the translators opt for a construction that does not fit the standard syntax of the English clause This kind of problem has two varieties:

(a)The translators may choose a structure which does not match the intended original message (although the word order of the structure is

correct), or (b) the translators decide to use the correct structure, but apply the wrong word order within the sentence Let’s examine the following sentences:

- I write to you only, means: “I write to you only, and nobody else”

- I write to only you This sounds a bit clumsy and stilted, nobody would say this

- I write only to you

- I only write to you

This can be interpreted in two different ways, depending on where you emphasis If you say it like “I only write to you” (emphasis on ‘write’) then it would mean that you just write to that person, and nothing else (like phone) But if you say it like “I only write to you” then it would mean the same as in next sentence:

Only I write to you (if emphasis is on ‘I’) – I am the only person that writes to you and nobody else does You could, however, say something like:

“Only I write to you, and you don’t even reply” (emphasis on write, which is something slightly different.)

2.1.2.3 Sentence structure:

Sentence: a word, clause, or phrase or a group of clauses or phrases forming a syntactic unit which express an assertion, a question, a command, a wish, an exclamation, or the performance of an action, that in writing usually begins with a capital letter and concludes with appropriate end punctuation

If the movie translator using wrong sentence structure of English when they are translating Vietnamese movies, the foreign viewers may confused about the meaning of the conversation, or worse they can misunderstand

In the translation of the following sentences, the subjects are omitted Clearly, due to the influence of the source language, together with insufficient knowledge of the English syntax, the translators seemed to ignore the need to locate and translate the subjects in these three sentences

Example: Tớ tưởng hôm nay là ngày mất bố bà ấy? Vẫn ở đây à?

I thought today is the 49th day from her father’s death? Still here?

Suggestion: Is she still here?

In this example, the subject is completely omitted, but thanks to the context, the translators could deduce that it is the author, who had her father died 49 days ago by the content of the sentence However, either because the translators purposefully stuck to the original, or because they forgot that the subject must not be dropped in English sentences, their sentence has no subject

B, Sentences with two subordinate clauses but no main clause

Those structures as: ‘Mặc dù… nhưng’ or ‘Vì … nên’ are widely used

by Vietnamese people However, English have another way of expressing these ideas Thus, a lot of Vietnamese novice translators encounter this problem when rendering such structures into English

Example 1: Mặc dù bọn cháu đều có ý thức trong chuyện này, nhưng chúng cháu bận quá vợ cháu thì có việc tai phiên tòa, còn cháu thì phải lo những chuyện quan trọng

Although we all aware of this, but we are too busy, my wife is

having a trial and I have to do many important things

Suggestion: Although we all aware of this, we are too busy, my

wife is having a trial and I have to do many important things

Ex 2: Vì bố mất, nên mẹ bị sốc

As our father has just died, so our mom is still in shock

Suggestion: As our father has just died, our mom is still in shock / Our father has just died, so our mom is still in shock

2.1.3 Morphological problems

Morphological problems are divided into two subcategories: nouns and verbs

2.1.3.1 Nouns

A, Addition of plural marker

The first type of morphological problem happens when translators add the plural marker ‘s’ to a singular noun or a collective noun which is considered to be singular This type or problem happens mostly with words which are countable in Vietnamese but uncountable in English

Example: Ngày nào nó cũng ăn 2 cái bánh mì

The word ‘bánh mì’ is obviously countable in Vietnamese, thus many translators take ‘bread’ as countable noun for granted when translating into English

He eats two breads (loaves of bread) every day

In English, the word ‘bread’ (bánh mì) actually belongs to uncountable group

Ex2: Lúc nào cũng thấy mồ hôi

The word ‘mo hoi’ (sweat) in the original conversation has no numerals, quantifiers or plural markers preceding it Accordingly, some translators thought that ‘mo hoi’ could be translated as a plural noun and added the plural morpheme – s after the noun

She always has sweats (sweat)

The second type of morphological problem is the incorrect use of the possessive case It is when the translators make the correct decision to use the possessive case for the noun, but fail to use the correct rules, the problem is counted as a morphological problem

Example: Kết quả thu thập ý kiến bạn đọc lần trước tớ gửi cậu rồi đấy

I just sent you the collection of readers’s opinions (readers’

opinions) last time

In this example, they do not drop ‘s’ morpheme after the apostrophe with a plural noun The translators have problems in both the addition of plural marker and the formation of the possessive case First, they incorrectly added the plural morpheme –s to the collective noun ‘reader’ Then they incorrectly used rule of adding a possessive case morpheme to the plural noun

A lot of translators are also unsuccessful in identifying where to put the possession in the following situation:

Linh and Thao’s friends or Linh’s and Thao’s friends

In this case, if Linh and Thao have same friends, only the person who is mentioned the last (in this sentence is Thao) has ‘s’ as possession

Linh and Thao’s friends = Friends of Linh and Thao ( Friends of both Linh and Thao )

If Linh and Thao have different friends, both of them have possession “

‘s” after their names

Linh’s and Thao’s friends = Friends of Linh and friends of Thao ( Friends of Linh are not friends of Thao and vice visa)

2.1.3.2 Verbs

A, Inappropriate verb construction

Problems of ‘inappropriate verb construction’ occur when translators are unable to provide the correct form for the word class they are using Ex: Con dao này hôm qua chị cầm của phòng em

I taked (took) this knife from your room yesterday

In this example, the correct form of the participle the translators should have used is ‘took’, but they used ‘taked’ instead Clearly, this problem was the result of the transfer of a rule from English to Vietnamese: the translators applied the rule of adding suffix-ed at the end of a regular verb in past tense

B, Subject/verb agreement

In this type of problem, the translators might use the singular form of the verb for the subject For example:

Ex: Hôm nào em cháu cùng với chồng nó cũng sang nhà mẹ cháu chơi

My sister with/together with/along with/as well as her husband come

(comes) to visit my mom everyday

Many people misinterpret that both ‘my sister’ and ‘her husband’ are the subject in this sentence while only ‘my sister’ is the subject Consequently, the verb 'come' should be put in the third singular form as 'comes' instead

In English, in term of subject-verb agreement, there are potential 'traps'

in which novice translators usually find themselves caught Regarding the following structures

- Một số học sinh có thành tích rất ấn tượng

of produces, seed and cover from ‘cây lúa’, however, English language only has 'rice' which is used for all the first four concepts

Similarly, in Vietnamese we have tre, trúc, nứa, mai, vầu, bương, luồng, hóp but only 1 word: ‘bamboo’ in English

become less natural

B, Difference in lexical aspects

- Personal pronouns

Unlike English, personal pronouns in Vietnamese are diversified and flexible in terms of style and function For example, there are various ways of

expressing the first singular person in Vietnamese such as: tao, tớ, tôi, bác,

chị, em, bà, anh, chị, mày depending on the nuance of the sentence However,

in english, there is no other ways round of saying all these above Vietnamese pronouns except the pronoun I

Example 1: Tại sao bố anh vừa mất mà các anh các chị rúc hết về nhà (

Uncle to nephew )

Why your dad has just died but you all stay at home?

Example 2: Mày nói thế mà nghe được à ( Mother to son )

-> It’s unacceptable for you to say that

In the above example, although translator can translate the sentence, but English only has pronoun I and You, which cannot express the feeling in each word like Vietnamese sentence Vietnamese has many pronouns and they can change their pronoun to show their feelings (in the above examples

is the expression for the angriness) In this case, the translated movies seem to

be less interesting than the original version

- Colloquial words

Colloquial words are those used in conversation, especially common and familiar conversation; hence, unstudied; informal; vivid and not long lasting Translators often meet this kind of words when rendering literature texts or films which have a lot of daily conversations For example:

+ Pizza bố mua hú họa ở ngay gần bệnh viện

I just bought the pizza randomly

+ Mẹ bỏ hết công viêc nháo nhào chạy vào đây

She left everything a side and showed up right away

The work of rendering these words: ‘hú họa’, ‘nháo nhào’ actually is not a 'piece of cake' If we try to look up these words in the dictionary, surely

we try in vain The only way is to understand the meaning of these words in the source conversation, then find a nearly equivalent expression in the target language Due to linguistic differences, the translation version still convey the