Translation Difficulties Encounteted by Translation Students at University Level

Abstract

This paper seeks to identify various difficulties that translation students face during the translation process. The data for this descriptive qualitative and quantitative study came from students’ verbalizing their translation loudly. The participants in the study were five fourth-year students from the Department of Translation, University of Duhok who voluntarily participated to translate two texts (literary and non-literary) from English into Kurdish. Any use of resources was permitted, and think-aloud protocols, as a research tool was used to collect the data. The experiment recordings, and verbal reports produced by the participants were used to analyze the data. According to the study's findings, translation students had several difficulties within the process, including translating words with no equivalents, comprehending the figurative language (simile), translating cultural-specific items, struggling with the style of the given text, putting ideas together, relating background knowledge to the text at hand, choosing the right equivalent, and confusing between the two Kurdish dialects (Sorani and Kurmanji). The findings recommend additional research to look at potential solutions to such difficulties. The study's findings led to conclusions that have ramifications for theory and practice. The summary of the major translation difficulties demonstrates the theoretical value of the study. It was also found out that the difficulty of translation is not always anticipated and is not always conceptually explicable.