Problems in Arabic-English translation of articles encountered by Saudi Students

Abstract

The present study aimed at investigating the problems of translating articles from Arabic into English encountered by a sample of Saudi students. The study employed one data collection tool which was a translation test. The test was administered to 25 fresh students at the Community College of King Saud University in the first semester of the academic year 2019. The examination of the data showed that 57.2% of the students could not translate articles into English correctly. There were four main findings with regard to the type of error made by the students in the translation of articles into English. These were the overuse of ‘the’, the wrong use of ‘a or an’, the omission of ‘the’ and the omission of ‘a or an’. Based on these types of errors, the researcher offered some logical explanations. As this difficulty proved to be serious, the researcher suggested carrying out some large-scale studies to either confirm the findings of this study or add other insights into the topic of the present study.