COMMON ERRORS IN VIETNAMESE ENGLISH TRANSLATION MADE BY FOURTH YEAR STUDENTS AT ENGLISH FACULTY, THUONG MAI UNIVERSITY

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude and
appreciation to my supervisor Ms Vu Thi Thu Trang, for her guidance, helpful
suggestions and encouragement in the preparation as well as during the time I tried
to complete my study. I am grateful for being her student, I have learned many
valuable lessons in study, work and in the life during this study. Without her
valuable advices and generous help, I could not have completed this graduation
paper.
Secondly, I would like to express my sincerely thank to all the teachers at
English faculty of Thuong Mai University for teaching and providing me with a
good environment to study, collect data and complete this thesis. I also thank all
students at the same faculty participating the study by completing the conveying
questions as well as answering interview questions.
Additionally, I would like to express my thankfulness to my dear friends who
always help, support and encourage throughout my hard time carrying out the study.
Finally, I am very grateful my family, the strongest support for me to study
and complete graduation thesis.

ABSTRACT
For students majoring in English, translation is an important subject and basic
foundation for student’s learning and work in the future. However, success in
translating is not easy, especially for Vietnamese-English translation. During the
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Vietnamese English translation process, the students encountered a lot of difficulties
and made errors led to the translation is not completed or the translation was not
accurate, …This study aims to identify and analyze the common errors of English

students in Vietnamese-English translation and the causes of these errors, then
making suggestions to overcome these errors in the translation process. After
studying, we can see that the common errors are mainly due to lack of vocabulary,
grammar, differences between Vietnamese and English… In addition, the study also
aims to provide suggestions as a useful reference to adjust the learning and teaching
methods to obtain the better results in the learning and teaching process.

TABLE OF CONTENT

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LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES
No.

Name

Content

1

Chart 3.1.1

2

Chart 3.1.2

3

Chart 3.1.3

The common errors in Vietnamese-English translation

4

Chart 3.1.4

5

Chart 3.1.5

The possible cause of student’s errors in VietnameseEnglish translation
The student’s ways to improve their Vietnamese-English
translation

6

Chart 3.1.6

The amount time spend on studying Vietnamese-English
translation

7

Chart 3.1.2.1

The common grammatical errors in Vietnamese-English
translation

8

Chart 3.1.2.2

The common lexical errors in Vietnamese-English
translation

9

Table 3.1.1

Suggestion when encountering new word or phrase

10

Table 3.1.2

Common errors in Vietnamese-English translation

The student’s attitude towards Vietnamese-English
translation
The student’s opinion about the usefulness of studying
Vietnamese-English translation

LIST OF ABBREVIATION
TL: Target Language
SL: Source Language
TMU: Thuong Mai University

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CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
1.1 Rationale for the study

Today, we cannot deny the importance of English in people’s life and social
development. English has become a popular language in countries all over the
world, including Vietnam. We use English as a second language in communication,
information exchange and trade. English is the most effective international
communicative language. In context of globalization and internationalization,
English become common language which help people understand each other more
in the process diplomatic relation, cultural exchange, economic cooperation and
many other fields.
With the development of English, translation has become increasingly
important and necessary. We can see that translation appears in almost fields such as
economy, culture, education, mass communication…It is an important key that can
help Vietnam get many advantaged opportunities to develop in strongly competitive
economy when we integrate into the global economy. Besides, translation also plays
an irreplaceable role in the process of cultural exchange among countries. Many
specialized books, magazines, newspapers, ect also translated into English in order
to help people in the world access easily. Therefore, Vietnamese-English translation
is very necessary and need to be translated more exactly in order to avoid
regrettable misunderstanding. Recognizing the important of Vietnamese-English
translation, translation becomes a compulsory subject for English-majored students
in the universities. However, Vietnamese-English translation is not an easy task and
almost all students can’t avoid the mistakes. As an English-majored student, in the
learning process, I know almost all of English-majored students in Thuong Mai
University make many errors when studying translation in general and VietnameseEnglish in particular. I decided to conduct this study: “COMMON ERRORS IN
VIETNAMESE-ENGLISH TRANSLATION

MADE

BY FOURTH YEAR

STUDENTS AT ENGLISH FACULTY, THUONG MAI UNIVERSITY” with hope
that this research is a useful reference helping to overcome these obstacles and
improve Vietnamese-English translation ability.
1.2 Previous study
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Translation from one language into another language is a complex process. In
the translation processing, translators can make errors so many studies have been
carried out to help them recognized their common errors and make some
suggestions in order to overcome these errors. These studies have been written by
written by experienced translators who clearly understand the issues related to
translation. Thus, I would like to rely on these studies as references materials for my
graduation paper.
The first research is “English major students’ difficulties and expectation in
learning written translation at Dong Thap University” which was conducted by
Nguyen Thi Hong Tham and Bui Thi Huyen Tran. This study identifies common
errors that students often make in the process of translation. The result of research
shows that the factors influencing translation process are influence of the mother
tongue, words and choice of word meanings, grammatical structure, context and
characteristic of language. The researchers found that our mother tongue has a big
influence on our way of thinking, word order, pronunciation or meaning of word,
sentences…, the difference between the two language makes it difficult to learn.
Besides, the research also shows the commons errors in written translation such as:
word order, syntax/grammatical errors, vocabulary errors, spelling/punctuation
errors, culture errors.
The second research is “Common mistakes in learning translation subject by

the second-year English major at Dong Thap University” was conducted by Duong
Thi Thuy Hang and Nguyen Thi Cam Xuyen. The research found out that the
students have errors on grammar, word choice and so on in translating Vietnamese
texts into English. The study also reveals that lack of vocabulary causes many
problems in translation process, frequently, students could not choose the right word
in the context or use the right term. The researchers suggested some solutions that
the students must enlarge vocabulary, usually read newspapers, magazine, article or
news, referent document or translation in the internet, these supply much
knowledge about vocabulary, grammar and way of translation.
The third research was conducted by Le Thuc Hien, RMIt University, entitled:
“Difficulties in studying translation of International Relation majored students”.

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The researchers identified and analyzed the difficulties encountered by International
Relation majored students, they are linguistic error, comprehensive error and
translation error. The difficulties in translation committed by the students such as
specialized terms make up 40%, difference in linguistic structure makes up 30%,
long sentences make up 20% and cultural factors make up 10%. Then the
researchers gave the reasons why students have such difficulties and suggested
some solutions to help students overcome these problems.
All three studies above have studied on translation and errors translation.
However, they only focused on finding out the errors in translation in general, not
particular in Vietnamese- English translation.
1.3 Aims of the study

The aim of study is to investigate common errors in Vietnamese-English
translation made by the four-year English majored students at TMU. The study also
aims at finding out the causes of these problems and then making suggestions to

overcome the problems.
In this thesis, I would like to focus on answering three main question:
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What are the common errors in Vietnamese-English translation of the four-year
English majored students?

• What are the possible causes of these errors?
• What are the suggestions to rectify these errors?
1.4 Research subject

In this study, the research focuses on researching common errors in translation
Vietnamese texts into English made by four-year students at English faculty, TMU.
1.5 Scope of the study

Translation is an indispensable subject for English-majored students. They
have to study both English-Vietnamese translation and Vietnamese-English
translation. However, because of the limitation of time and space, this thesis just
focuses on analyzing the common errors in Vietnamese-English translation of the
fourth year students at English faculty, TMU and making some suggestions to help
overcome these errors.
1.6 Research methodology

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For the purpose of making an investigation to analyze the common errors in
Vietnamese-English translation. The study will be a useful reference with solutions
suggested which help students overcome these errors and find out their own
effective way in learning in order to improve the translation skill. While doing this

thesis, I used both qualitative and quantitative research methodology.
First is questionnaire, it is considered as a common instrument to collect data
in research. It aims at finding attitude and problems of students toward writing
subject, which help provides necessary information and is the basic for analyzing
the study. In this study, there are total 10 questions written in English. 100 copies
were delivered to the four-year student English majored students and all of them
were collected. Most of the comments, recommendations and conclusion used in the
study were based on the data analysis of the study.
Second is translation test which was used to find out the student’s translation
errors common in translating from Vietnamese into English. 50 copies of translation
tests which have three different passages are delivered to the four-year English
majored student.
1.7 Organization of the study

The study consists of four main chapter as follow:
Chapter 1: Overview of the study
The first chapter will present overview of the study with rationale, previous
study, aims of the study, research subject, scope of the study, research methodology
and organization of the study.
Chapter 2: Literature review
It provides a review of theoretical background related to literature, in which
the definitions of translation, the strategy of translation, methods of translation,
translation errors were presented.

Chapter 3: Research finding
This chapter will conclude summary, data analysis and discussion of major
finding.

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Chapter4: Recommendation and suggestion
This chapter will give a summary of the study and make suggestion help
students overcome these problems.
Conclusion summarizes the main points which have been explored in the
study and discuss the limitations of the study and make some suggestions for the
future research.

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Translation concepts
2.1.1 Translation

There are many concepts of translation from many scholars with different
viewpoints for many historical periods.
Firstly, Catford (1965) presented the definition refer to translation as the
“Replacement of textual material in one language (SL) by equivalent textual
material in another language (TL)”. Translation is a process in the sense that is an
activity, was performed by people from one language into another language.
Hartman and Stork (Newmark, 1995) also define that “Translation involves
replacing a text in one language by an equivalent text in a second language”. With
the same point, Bell.R defines that “Translation is the replacement of a presentation
of a text in one language by a representation of an equivalent text in a second
language”.
Next, Wilss (1982) says that “Translation is a transfer process, which aims at
the transformation of written source language text into an optimally equivalent
target language text, and which requires the syntactic, the sematic and the
pragmatic understanding and analytical processing of the source language”.
Besides, Koller (1995) shows the equivalence relation among languages when
saying that “Translation can be understood as the result of a text-processing
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activity, by means of which a SL text is transposed into a TL text. Between the
resulting text in the TL text and SL text, there exists a relationship which can be
designated as translational, or equivalence relation.” Although there are many
different perspectives, all most of them indicate the significance of “equivalence” in
both languages.
According to Peter Newmark (1982), “Translation is a craft consisting in the
attempt to replace a written message and/or statement in one language by the same
message of textual material in one language into another language in the way that
the author intended the text.”, this definition based on his theories named Culture
and Context, focus on culture and context during the translation process.
In brief, it can be understood that “Translation is the process of changing
something that is written or spoken into another language” (Advanced Oxford
Dictionary). All above definitions of translation show the same idea that translation
is a process of replacement or transformation a written text, message or an utterance
from one language into another language, which remains equivalence in content, the
purpose of communication or pragmatic.
2.1.2 Strategy of translation
2.1.2.1 Strategy 1: How to deal with non-equivalence at word level
• Translating by a specific word

In some cases, it will be appropriate or necessary to use a more specific word
to translate an English word into Vietnamese. This usually involves choosing among
several different words, as there are many Vietnamese words that can be correspond
to the general category or meaning expresses by the English terms. For example, the
English word for “take” can be translated by many different Vietnamese words such
as: lấy, cầm, mang đi, chịu đựng, depending on the context. In this cases, an English
word alone is not enough to determine for the appreciate translation, and it is
necessary to examine the English context and decide which Vietnamese word is to

be used.
•

Translating by a more general word
In other cases, it is appropriate to use a more general word to translate English
with no specific Vietnamese equivalent. Similarly, the English words “niece” and
“grand daughter”, “nephew” and “grand son” may all be translated by the
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Vietnamese word “cháu gái”, “cháu trai” which create problems of comprehension
in Vietnamese, as it should be clear from the context which of these words is meant.
•

Translating by cultural substation
This strategy involves replacing a cultural-specific item or expression with one
of different meaning but similar impact in the translated text. Translators should be
encouraged to question the appropriateness of the documents they are translating
and suggest changes to make them more culturally appropriate.

•

Translating using a loan word plus explanation
This strategy is very useful when the translator deal with concepts or ideas that
are new to Vietnamese audience, culture specific items and proper names of disease
or medicines that are widely known in English names. For example, TV and radio
are two loan words that are frequently used in Vietnamese, as they are referred to by
their English names in almost every part of the world. Because these words have
been in common used in Vietnam for a long time, they are often used without any
accompanying explanation. Whenever a loan word is used, it is better to give an

explanation. Another example is the acronym for oral rehydration, or ORS (muối bù
mất nước).

•

Translating by paraphrase
This strategy can be used when translating an English word or concept that
does not exist in Vietnamese, or when the Vietnamese term does not include all the
meanings conveyed by the English term for the same concept. For example, in the
sentence: “pregnant women should avoid alcohol”, in English “alcohol” includes all
alcoholic beverages in its meaning. The Vietnamese word for “alcohol”, “rượu”,
does not include “beer” in its definition, so the Vietnamese translation should add
the word “beer” to reflect the full meaning of the source language sentence “Phụ nữ
mang thai nên tránh uống rượu, bia”.

•

Translation by omission
This strategy sometimes appropriate to omit words or phrases that are not
essential to the meaning or impact of the text. For example, the sentence “Much can
be done even without being physical present in the meeting” is the best translated

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into Vietnamese by “Nhiều việc có thể làm ngay khi cả khi khơng có mặt tại cuộc
họp…” which omits the word “physically” in the translation.
2.1.2.2 Strategy 2: How to deal with idioms and fixed expressions
• Using an idiom or fixed expression of similar meaning and form.

It is sometimes possible to find a Vietnamese idiom or expression with a
similar meaning to an English idiom or expression, and which is expressed in the
same way. For example, the idiom “to fight like cats and dogs”. Which is expressed
using the same words in VietNamese “Cãi nhau như chó với mèo”, another is “Like
father, like son”, which is translated as “cha nào con nấy”. It is ideal if such a match
can be found, but this kind of correspondence is not common, and it is also
necessary to use other strategies in dealing with idioms and fixed expression.
•

Using an idiom or fixed expression of similar meaning but dissimilar form
It is also possible, and usually easier to find a Vietnamese idiom with a similar
meaning with an English idiom or set of expression expressed differently. For
example, the translation for “Chở củi về rừng”, which is translated as “to carry
firewood to the forest”. However, in English “to carry firewood the forest” is not an
idiom and does not have meaning “chở củi về rừng”. The correct English equivalent
of the Vietnamese idiom is “to carry coals to Newcastle. By substituting a similar
Vietnam idiom, the flow and the impact of the original text are retained in the
translation.

•

Translating by paraphrase
When Vietnamese equivalents cannot be found, paraphrasing maybe consider
as the best way to deal with an idiom or fixed expression.

•

Translating by omission
As with single words, whole phrase may be omitted if they are not essential to
the meaning or impact of the text. This may be done with phrase that would require

lengthy explanations, awkward paraphrase, or literal and unnatural translations.

2.1.2.3 Strategy 3: How to deal with voice, number and person
• Voice

The passive voice is used very frequently in English, and poses some
problems for translation into Vietnamese. Passive voice can be translated from
English into Vietnamese and vice versa in the following ways:
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(a) – Vietnamese: (i) A được + động từ + (bởi B) (positive meaning)

A được/do + (B) + động từ
(ii) A bị + động từ + (bởi B) (negative meaning)
A bị + (B) + động từ
English: A to be done (by B) = A be V3/ed (by B)
For example: (1) Mary được Peter tặng một bó hoa.
= Mary is given a bunch of flowers by Peter.
(2) Ngôi nhà này do ông Tonny xây năm 1960
= This house was built by Mr.Tonny in 1960
(3) Tom bị một kẻ say rượu đâm xe vào tối hôm qua.
= Tom was hit by a drunker last night
(a) - Vietnamese: (i) A được + động từ (positive meaning)

(ii) A bị + động từ (negative meaning)
(iii) Người ta/ai đó + động từ + A
English: A to be done = A be + V3/ed or A has/been + V3/ed
For example: (1) Mary mới được thăng chức gần đây.
Mary has been promoted recently.

(2) Cái gương đã bị vỡ rồi
= Ai đó đã làm vỡ chiếc gương
= The mirror has been broken.
•

Number
Though both language have similar notions of number and countability, each
language express this in very different ways. In Vietnamese, number is often not
expressed at all. In English, number is expressed as a grammatical category, that is,
there are different grammatical forms for the singular and plural nouns. In
Vietnamese, however, no such distinction is made grammatically. For example,
“phụ huynh” can mean either parent or parents. In Vietnamese, some plural makes
such á “các”, “những”, “tất cả”, “mọi”, “mỗi” … can be used in addition to the
noun.

•

Person
Participants roles and forms of address are expressed in Vietnamese through a
very complicated system of personal pronouns based largely on kinship terms.
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Unlike their distinction, depending on relationship within the family, familiarity,
social status, and even one’s particular mood or attitude in a given situation.

2.1.2.4 Strategy 4: How to deal with proper names
• Geographical terms

Geographical term can be either translated into another language in English or

translated phonologically (“s” becomes “x”) or remained unchanged.
For example:
Vương Quốc = Kingdom
Bắc Kinh = Beijing
Braxin = Brazil
Singapore or Xingapo = Singapore
•

Names of Organizations
Translation from Vietnamese into English: often using the reverse order or
adjective + noun or noun + preposition + noun.
“Bộ”, “Sở” = Ministry of…, Department of…
“Ngân hàng”, = Bank for…, Adjective + bank
“Tổng công ty” = Cooperation
For example:
Ngân hàng công thương Việt Nam = Vietnam Industrial and Commercial Bank
Bộ kế hoạch và đầu tư = Ministry of Planning and Investment

2.1.2.5 Strategy 5: How to deal with non-subject sentences

In Vietnamese-written passages, some non-subject sentences often come
across. In this case, the following techniques of translation can be used:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Passive voice
It to be + adjective + to do something

There is/ are…
(s) + V + O
Put in the real subject that is often found in previous sentence(s)

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Ex: Cần đẩy mạnh cơng nghiệp hóa, hiện đại hóa. = Industrialization and
mordernization should be promoted.
Or: It is necessary to promote industrialization and modernization.
Vẫn chưa có cách chữa trị bệnh AIDS. = There has been no cure for AIDS.
2.1.2.6 Strategy 6: How to deal with newspaper headlines

Some main characteristic of newspaper headlines:
-

Present tense = past tense
Present participle = event in progress
To + infinitive = future events
Past participle = passive voice
Nouns
Verbs + Noun
Ex: See you in court = Hẹn gặp tại tòa

2.1.3

Equivalence in translation
House (1997) states the notion of equivalence is the conceptual basis of
translation. Catford defined that “Translation equivalence occurs when an SL and
TL texts or items are related to (at least some of) the same relevant features of

situation substance.” Halverson (1997) says that “Equivalence is the relationship
existing between two entities, and the relationship is described as one of similarity
in terms of any of a number of potential qualities”. Although there are many
concepts of equivalence translation, theorist share the same ideas in finding the
effective equivalence between SL and TL.
Koller (1979) divides into five types of equivalence:

•

Denotative equivalence: The SL and the TL words refer to the same thing in the real

•

word. It is an equivalence of the extra linguistic content of a text.
Connotative equivalence: This type of equivalence provides additional value and is

achieved by the translator’s choice of synonymous words or expression
• Text-normative equivalence: The SL and the TL words are used in the same or
•

similar context in their respective languages.
Pragmatic equivalence: With readership orientation, the SL and the TL words have

the same effect on their respective readers
• Formal equivalence: It produces an analogy of form in the translation by either
exploiting formal possibilities of TL, or creating new forms in TL.
2.1.4

Methods of translation
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Newmark mentions the difference between translation methods and translation
procedures. He writes that “while translation methods relate to whole texts,
translation procedures are used for sentences and the smaller units of language”.
He goes on to refer to the following methods of translation:
-

Word-for-word translation: In which the SL word order is preserved and the words

-

translated singly by their most common meanings, out of context.
Ex: He is a big liar
->Anh ấy là một lớn nói dối
Literal translation: In which the SL grammatical constructions are converted to their
nearest Tl equivalents, but the lexical words are again translated singly, out of

-

context.
Ex: He is a big liar
-> Anh ấy là một kẻ nói dối lớn.
Faithful translation: It attempts to produce the precise contextual meaning of the

-

original within the constraints of the TL grammatical structures.
Ex: He is as fast as a kangaroo
->Anh ấy nhanh như một con kangaroo

Semantic translation: which differs from “faithful translation” only in as far as it
must take more account of the aesthetic value of the SL text.
Ex: Right in the heart of Hanoi, Hoan Kiem Lake is an enchanting body of
water, a peaceful oasis away from all the hustle of the city.
->Nằm ngay giữ trái tim hà Nội, hồ Hoàn Kiếm là một hồ nước đẹp mê hồn,

-

một ốc đảo yên bình tách biệt với sự hối hả bận rộn của thành phố.
Adaption: which is the freest form of translation, and is used mainly for plays, poem
or stories translation. In adaption, the themes, characters, plots are preserved, and

-

the SL culture is converted to the TL culture and text is rewritten
Free translation: Is when the translator gets out of the limitations of the SL terms of
forms and expression to produce a new translation. This method is often used for

-

song translations.
Idiomatic translation: it reproduces the ‘message’ of the original but tends to distort
nuances of meaning by preferring colloquialisms and idioms where these do not

-

exist in the original. This method is highly effective for the translation of idiom.
Ex: No guide, no realization -> Không thầy đố mày làm nên
Communicative translation: It attempts to render the exact contextual meaning of
the original in such a way that both content and language are readily acceptable and

comprehensive to the readership.
2.2 Translation errors
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2.2.1

Error
According to Lennon (1991, p.182), “A linguistic form or combination of
forms which, in the same context and under similar conditions of production,
would, in all likehood, not be produced by the speaker’s native speaker
counterparts”.
“Error” and “mistake” are two terms which may easily cause confusion,
should be differentiated. Although many people use both terms interchangeable,
there is a distinction between them. Goff-Kfouri (2004) distinguishes two terms
when claiming that: “Scientifically speaking, a mistake is generally considered as a
fault in performance, it does not occur systematically. An error reflects a gap in
student’s knowledge and systematic”

2.2.2

Translation errors
In the translation field, Neubert & Shreve (1995) describe a translation error
as something that is very complicated and difficult to define and identify. According
to Koller (1979, p.216, cited in Dewi, 2015), “translation error can be considered
as non-equivalence between source text and target text, or non-adequacy of the
target text”. Pym (1992, p.281) defined errors in translation as a manifestation of
defect in any factors entering into the skills in translation. Hatim & Mason (1997,
p.203) consider “translation errors as (1) significant (unmotivated) mismatches of

denotational meaning between source and target text (subdivided into omissions,
additions and substitutions), and (2) breaches of the target-language system”.

2.2.3

Classification of translation errors
Until now, there are still no universal translation error categories. The
classification of translation errors seems hard to obtain because there are different
translation theories, then different definitions of translation errors leading o no
universally accepted translation error classification.
Melis & Albir (2001, p.208) suggest that main question that need to be
considered are the following:

17


(1) The difference between errors relating to the source text (opposite sense, wrong

sense, nonsense, addition and suppression) and errors relating to the target text
(spelling, vocabulary, syntax, coherence and cohesion).
(2) The difference between functional errors and absolute errors.
(3) The difference in individual translators between systematic errors (recurrent) and
random errors (isolated).
(4) The difference between errors in the product and errors in the process.

Krzysztof (1992) divides translation errors into four main types: errors of
syntagmatic surface translation, errors of mistaken interpretation, realization errors
and meta-translation errors. The first type includes equivalents, false friends,
calques and unjustified borrowings. The second type covers misreading syntax and
wrong interpretation of verb frame, misinterpret scenes and scripts and misreading

the text modality. The third type covers TL errors, wrong evaluation of recipients’
knowledge and insufficient of knowledge of subject-matter. The final type
comprises translation technique, additions, omissions, two versions, too many or
two few footnote, a wrong translation strategy, corrections and changing the text’s
intertextuality.
According to Nord (1997), translation errors can be classified into four
categories: pragmatic, cultural, linguistic, and text-specific. Pragmatic translation
errors are the ones that come from the problems of how to deal with pragmatic
ambiguities hidden in the source text. Cultural translation errors occur when there is
“an inadequate decision” in adapting source text to the target one in terms of culture
(Nord, 1997, p.75). Linguistic translation errors are the failure in using target
language structures to transfer the meaning and sense of source text. And finally,
text-specific translation errors can be traced from the suitability of the translation to
the target readers.
The classification of translation error remains diverse; however, most scholars
agree with Wang BaoRong. Baorong arrives at a mutual conclusion that translation
errors should be classified into three main types including pragmatic translation
errors, cultural translation errors and linguistic translations errors.
-

Pragmatic translation errors are caused by practical issues such as a lack of receiver
orientation and background knowledge.

18


-

Cultural translation errors are related to equivalent problems and methods to deal

-

with cultural words.
Linguistic errors occur due to the lack in the proficiency of the translator. As
Newmark points out, linguistic errors involve grammatical mistakes, punctuations,

2.2.4

collocations, idioms.
Common errors in translation
According to Phu Quynh Nga (2015), translation can be comprehensive
errors, linguistic errors and translating errors. On the other hand, Alseksandra
(2009) believes that translation errors include grammatical errors, terminological
errors, phraseological errors and stylistic errors. Ynhon & Baoling (2011), Batoul
(2012) and Dian & Mihaela (2013) share the same idea that translation errors can
include grammatical errors and lexical errors. In this study, translation errors are
described with two types including grammatical errors and lexical errors.

2.2.4.1 Grammatical errors

Grammar is defined as a system of rules governing the conventional
arrangement and relationship of words in a sentence and plays an important role to
learn as it tells us how to construct a sentence which covers word order, verb and
noun system, modifies, phrase and clauses, ect (Brown, 1994). Any deviation in
grammar in producing a word, phrase or sentence will create a grammatical error
which reduces the quality of translated text. Grammatical errors include lack of
agreement between subject and verb, incorrect verb tense, incorrect verb form,
incorrect relative pronouns, misuse of preposition.
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Lack of agreement between subject and verb: the verb does not agree with the
subject
Ex: Floating house still exist and become one of Palembang traditional houses.
Correction: Floating still exists and becomes one of Palembang traditional
houses.

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Incorrect verb tenses: the incorrect verb tense is used
Ex: I have graduated from university 2 years ago.
Correction: I graduated from university 2 years ago.

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Incorrect relative pronouns: a pronoun such as which, who or that used to begin a
relative clause
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Ex: The first source from the potential investors which are considering to
invest into Vietnam or China
Correction: The first source from the potential investors who are considering
to invest into Vietnam or China
-

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Incorrect verb form: an incorrect verb form has been used
Ex: He plays basketball when he was a child.
Correction: He played basketball when he was a child.

Misuse of preposition: the wrong preposition has been used
Ex: Thanks to agriculture’s adaption with free market, Vietnam was the second
biggest rice producer in the world behind Thailand.
Correction: Thanks to agriculture’s adaption to free market, Vietnam was the
second biggest rice producer in the world behind Thailand.

2.2.4.2 Lexical errors

According to Richard, Platt (1992), lexis is “a set of lexemes, including single
words, compound words and idioms.” (p.40). Whereas, according to the Advanced
Learner’s Dictionary (1995:1331) showed another definition about that “lexis is
simply considered as the total number of words in a language.”
a. Words and choice of meaning word

A word has many meanings, so need to choose a suitable and appropriate
meaning words for the target text.
Ex: The Vietnamese word “đàn” can be collocated with many different nouns
such as “cá” (fish), “chim” (bird), “sư tử” (lion), “gia súc” (cattle). On the contrary,
in English there are many words meaning “đàn” as follow: “flock”, “pack”,
“school”, “pride”, ect. In these cases, a Vietnamese word alone is not enough to
determine for the appropriate English translation and it is necessary to put it in the
phrase and specific context.
A flock of birds/sheep: đàn chim/cừu
A herd of cattle/buffaloes: đàn gia súc/trâu
A pack of dogs/calves: đàn chó/bê
A school of fish/chicken: đàn cá/gà
A pride of lions: đàn sư tử
b. Word collocation:

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Word collocation is defined as a sequence of words or term which co-occur
more often than would be expected by chance
Ex: The word “uống” in Vietnamese can go with many different kinds of
liquid including water, beer, alcohol, medicine and even poison (uống nước, uống
bia, uống thuốc, uống thuốc độc). yet, it is incorrect to say “drink medicine” or
“drink posoin” in English. There are clear distinctions as follow: drink
beer/water/wine/coffee. However, it should be “take medicine/poison”.
c. Misuse of synonyms
It can be seen that a word can have many meanings, and vice versa, one
meaning can be expressed by many other words.
Ex: the sentence “Con sông này sâu lắm” was translated into English “This
river is very profound”. In this case, “profound” is not suitable, it means “showing
great knowledge or understanding”, so it cannot be used to describe the depth of the
river. The sentence should be translated into “This river is very deep”.

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS
This chapter deals with the collected data, analyzed the statistic in order to
find out the common errors in Vietnamese-English translation made by fourth year
student at English faculty, TMU ND the possible causes of those errors.
3.1 Data analysis
3.1.1 Result from survey questionnaire
3.1.1.1 The student’s attitude towards Vietnamese-English translation

The question (1) shows the student’s attitude towards Vietnamese-English
translation.
Chart 3.1.1: The student’s attitude towards Vietnamese-English translation

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From chart (1), we can see that more than half of students 62% of students like
studying V-E translation. They feel V-E translation is difficult but it is very
interesting. Besides, 29% of the students feel that learning V-E translation is not
only interesting but it is also very helpful, they can learn many things from
translation texts. In contrast, 9% of students don’t like V-E translation, they think
that V-E translation is either difficult or boring. They feel can’t find a suitable way
to learning and don’t realize the progress in this subject. This makes them feel
boring and don’t like learning it. None of them think that V-E translation is easy and
helpless. We can’t deny that although V-E translation is difficult to learn, most
student find out their interesting in studying and thus they tried their best to learn
and improve their translation skill.
Chart 3.1.2: The student’s opinion about the usefulness of studying V-E translation
The study investigates the student’s awareness about the advantages of
learning translation. There are fourteen students (14%) think that V-E translation
help them enlarge vocabulary. Practicing translation contains various words about
different areas such as economy, policy, culture, social…. There are also 14% of
students said that practicing V-E translation obviously plays a crucial role in using
grammar structure more flexible, they have opportunity to access numerous good
structure in certain contexts which are closely relate to topic translation. There are
small number students (14%) said that they can improve language skills through
studying translation, especially writing. Each topic translation consists of several
academic words which is useful source in writing. Most of students (72%) believe
that learning translation brings many advantages concluding four options above.
Through the result of question, it is obviously that most students have a sense of
awareness about the role of learning V-E translation.
3.1.1.2 The common errors in Vietnamese-English translation

The statistical data showed the student’s evaluation of what kind of translation

is difficult for them to translate. It can be clearly that the greatest proportion of
students who have difficulties in translating Vietnamese into English, constitutes
81% of students. While the rest of students (19%) have trouble in translating

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English-to-Vietnamese. In fact, Vietnamese-to-English translation is really big
obstacle for students. Because of many reasons, they feel a Vietnamese text is more
difficult to express by English.
Chart 3.1.3: The common errors in Vietnamese-English translation
The chart shows the commons errors in Vietnamese-English translation of
students. There are 50 students (50%) feel that choosing appropriate vocabulary in
the English language is very difficult and can easily make errors. When translating
Vietnamese into English, the students need to have a rich vocabulary in different
areas and know how to use them appropriately and accurately. Followed by
choosing appropriate vocabulary in the English language, 49% of students made
errors in finding suitable grammar structures. The grammar structure in English has
a lot of difference compared to Vietnamese about tense, verb form, preposition,
word order…. Moreover, understanding special phrase in the source texts is the
trouble for 18% of students while analyzing word others in Vietnamese texts makes
11% of students confuse. It means that these student’s knowledge about their
mother language, Vietnamese is quite limited.
3.1.1.3 The possible causes of student’s errors in Vietnamese-English translation

In order to get information about the possible causes for the errors in V-E
translation process that students committed, the question 6 was designed to answer
to this issue.
Chart 3.1.4: The possible cause of student’s errors in Vietnamese-English
translation

From the result of question 6, obviously, there are many factors cause the
common errors in Vietnamese-English translation. More half of students (54%)
admitted that “poor of background knowledge” is an important cause in their
Vietnamese-English translation. “Lack of vocabulary” is considered an important
factor by 40% of them. There are 21% of the students chose “poor grammar” and
24% of them chose “limited of translation skill”.
3.1.1.4 Suggestion to improve translation subject

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In order to know what the students do to overcome the translation’s errors, the
researcher designed question 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 and analyzed them.

A.
B.
C.
D.

Question 5: What do you do when you encounter new
Percentage
word or phrase?
Look up dictionary
34.3%
Asks friends or teachers
10.1%
Google search
40.4%
Skip it and translate the other words
15.2%

Table 3.1.1: Suggestions when encountering new word or phrase
When students translate a text from Vietnamese to English, they will
encounter some new words and each student will have different ways to deal with
these new words. There are 40.4% of students admitted that they often search
google to translate when encountering a new word in order to know its meaning and
using ways. 15.2% of students choose to skip it and translate the other words which
can cut down the flow of smooth in the translate text. Looking up Vietnamese
dictionary is the way of 34.3% of students apply when encountering a new word.
Nowadays internet is very developed, we can search any word we want fast and
accurately, so the dictionary is not popular. Only 10.1% of students ask friends or
teachers when encountering a new word or phrase.
In order to find out the ways which student apply to overcome the errors in
Vietnamese-English translation, question 9 was analyzed.
Chart 3.1.5: The student’s ways to improve their Vietnamese-English translation
skill
The chart shows the different ways to improve their translation skill. As it can
be seen from the chart, 26% of students improve their translation skill by learning
vocabulary, reading grammar books and doing grammar exercises is choice of 16%
of students. Besides, it accounted for 20% of student review teacher’s feedback to
learn vocabulary, grammar and way of using vocabulary. While most of students
(84%) improve V-E translation skill by reading practicing translation from articles,
magazines or newspapers.
The question 8 shows the different ways to do after the students finish their
translation. The result indicates that 20% of students often read the translation again
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to correct some mistakes if there are. This can help students revise vocabulary,
grammar and correct the errors. Following it, 37% of students think that reading it
again and try to translate it in another way is the best way. There are same number

of students (37%) show that they often wait for teacher’s feedback after finishing
the translation to learn the vocabulary, grammar structure and the way using them.
There are only 6% of students said that they share with your friend the translation
after finishing lessons.
Chart 3.1.6: The amount time spend on studying Vietnamese-English translation
The chart describes the amount of time which the students usually spend on
studying Vietnamese-English translation. From the chart, the number of the
respondents spends about 2 hours per week constitutes approximately 51%. Most of
students still spend less time to cultivate the translation skill. 36% of students spend
about 3 or 4 hours per week practicing Vietnamese-English translation. The students
who spend about 5 hours per week for this subject occupied 7%. While spending
more than 5 hours per week to practicing translation only occupied 6% of students.
To sum up, majority students spend very little time on studying translation.
Apparently, the amount of time is not enough for the students to improve
Vietnamese-English translation ability. It can’t be denied that this is one of the main
causes which leads to the errors when translating. Thus, the students should spend a
plenty of time on learning translation.
3.1.2

Results from paper test
From the teacher’s response and data collected from translation test, there are
two common Vietnamese-English translation errors that students often make:
grammatical errors and lexical errors. The result was showed by the table below.
Kind of error

Number of cases

Percentages

Grammatical error

42/50

84%

Lexical errors

38/50

76%

Table 3.1.2: Common errors in Vietnamese-English translation
3.1.2.1 Grammatical errors

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