ABSTRACT
From the very first days of their professions, translators have always been entrusted
with the role of a communication facilitator who bridges the gap of understanding
between people coming from various cultures and speaking different languages.
Coming along with this trend, University of Languages and International Studies, VNU
also strives to train high-qualified translators to meet the demand of the whole society.
With the deep concerns about the situation, the researcher would like to conduct a
study entitled “Common errors made by 2
nd
year students majoring in Translation
and Interpreting at FELTE, ULIS, VNU in Translation Practice compiled by
Nguyen Viet Ky and suggestions for improvement”
The study aims at identifying common errors made by 2
nd
year students majoring in
Translation and Interpreting in course-book “Translation Practice” compiled by
Nguyen Viet Ky. Based on reasons shared by students and experienced teacher,
suggestions are offered for the improvement of not only surveyed students but also the
next generations of 2
nd
year students.
The major methods and procedures adopted throughout the study include
questionnaires, class observations, document observations, diary reports and online
interview. A combination of both quantitative and qualitative methods enables the
researcher to triangulate the data in order to produce the rich and reliable findings.
With this approach, the researcher ensures the validity as well as the reliability of the
study. Hopefully, the study proves beneficial to fresh would-be translators at FELTE,
ULIS, VNU.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS ii

4.2.1 Linguis"c errors 30
4.2.2 Transla"on errors 33
4.2.3 Possible causes 37
4.2.4 Sugges"ons 39
4.3 Comparison between *ndings from *ve instruments 39
4.3.1 Research ques"on 1: Common errors encountered by 2nd year students 39
4.3.2 Possible causes 40
4.3.3 Sugges"ons 41
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 43
5.1 Major *ndings of the study 44
5.2 Limita"ons of the study and sugges"ons for further studies 45
REFERENCES 46
APPENDIX A 49
QUESTIONNAIRE 49
APPENDIX B 53
THƯ MỜI THAM GIA NGHIÊN CỨU 53
APPENDIX C 55
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DIARY EXTRACT FROM STUDENT CODED AS S1 55
APPENDIX D 58
DIARY EXTRACT FROM STUDENT CODED AS S2 58
APPENDIX E 60
DIARY EXTRACT FROM STUDENT CODED AS S3 60
APPENDIX F 62
INTERVIEW SCHEDULE 62
APPENDIX F 63
TEACHER INTERVIEW SUMMARY 63
LIST OF TABLES AND DIAGRAMS
LIST OF TABLES PAGE
Table 1 The model of common linguistic errors synthesized

28
Chart 2 Suggestions to overcome errors observed from
questionnaires
29
v
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
TT Target text
ST Source text
TQA Translation quality assessment
FELTE Faculty of English Language Teacher Education
ULIS University of Languages and International Studies
VNU Vietnam National University
vi

vii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Statement of problem and rationale for the study
The massive global integration has witnessed a proliferation of translating as
Munday (2001, p5) accentuates “Throughout history written and spoken translations
have played a crucial role in interhuman communication”. More notably, the 21
st
century fosters nations around the world to come together in tremendous vigor to
address global challenges and promote socio-economic development; hence,
translators have been entrusted with the role of bridging the gap between people
coming from various cultures and speaking disparate languages. As a result, the
constant and growing essence for translators is perfectly comprehensible, and myriad
of universities all over the world offer translation courses in their academic year.
According to Caminade and Pym (1995), as cited in Munday (2001) at least 250
university-level bodies in over sixty countries offering four-year undergraduate and
postgraduate courses in this art of science.

study entitled “Common errors in Vietnamese-English translations made by 2
nd
-year
students majoring in Translation and Interpreting at FELTE, ULIS in Translation
Practice compiled by Nguyen Viet Ky and suggestions for improvement.”
1.2 Aims of the study
The research aims at identifying the common errors that 2
nd
year students majoring
in Translation and Interpreting from FELTE, ULIS, VNU might confront when
translating Vietnamese-English texts in “Translation Practice” compiled by Nguyen
Viet Ky. Once having brought these errors to light, the research investigates the
possible causes and puts forward some recommendations suggested by both students
and teachers. The research is expected to assist 2
nd
year QH2011 students in particular
and the next generations of 2
nd
year students at ULIS in general in addressing their
errors and improving the quality of their translation as well as their translation skills.
2
In order to achieve this goal, the current research is aimed at addressing the
following questions:
1. What are the common errors in the Vietnamese - English translations in “Translation
Practice” made by 2
nd
year students?
2. What are the possible causes of these common errors?
3. What are the suggestions in order to overcome these errors?
1.3 Significance of the study

rd
and 4
th
year at university.
1.5 Structure of the study
The rest of the study consists of the following chapters:
Chapter 2 - Literature review – introduces the most relevant published information on
translation, translation quality assessment and translation errors.
Chapter 3 - Methodology – provides a detailed description of the method adopted in
data collection and analysis.
Chapter 4 - Findings and discussion – presents the analysis and synthesis of the most
common errors made by 2
nd
year students, their possible causes and suggestions for
improvement.
Chapter 5 – Conclusion – summarizes major findings, limitations of the study and
suggestions for further research.
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
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This chapter sheds light on fundamental concepts of translation, the role as well
as the criteria for translation quality assessment, translation errors and the
classification of translation errors by analyzing, synthesizing related-topic previous
works and indicating their strengths as well as weaknesses. Besides, the gaps of
previous works and the theoretical model which the researcher utilizes to investigate
the common errors 2
nd
year students frequently confront is also fully illustrated in this
chapter.
2.1 Translation
2.1.1 The concepts of translation

(2006) who defines translation as a reproduction of the meaning from one language to
another language in written form.
All in all, it can be witnessed that the above-cited definitions, though differed in
wording, all agreed on the nature of translation, denoting it as the accuracy of the
written transference of messages from one language into another.
2.1.2 Translation quality assessment
2.1.2.1 The role of translation quality assessment
Although various researchers have dissimilar ways of defining translation, all of
them share the same point of view that TQA is of great importance and benefit all the
time. Newmark (1995) emphasizes the great significance of TQA between the theory
and practice of translation. Furthermore, he states that TQA plays a vital role in
translational discipline as it enhances competence, entails the huge improvement in
language proficiency, background knowledge, comprehensive understanding about
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topics or themes relating to the translations and supports translators to sort out the ideas
about translation.
Besides, Schiaffino (2005) shares the same opinion that without means of
translation assessment it is impossible to enhance the translation quality, nor is it
possible to know if the translation quality is good; and, if it is good, how to keep it that
way. Translation evaluation provides a method to objectively quantify a process,
reduce poor quality, increase customer satisfaction and create benchmarking as well as
competitive advantages.
The significance of translation criticism is continuously stressed by various
scholars. Tien and Bac (2008) also agree that the translation evaluation from teachers,
professional translators, translating companies and clients could figure out drawbacks
in your translation which enhances your translation and your translating competence;
therefore, it becomes an essential part in translating process.
From above mentioned studies, it can be summarized that TQA plays a pivotal role
for not only professional translators, their clients, translational researchers but also
trainee translators. TQA further enhances translating competence, language proficiency

author and the readership, comparing the translated version with the source text,
evaluating the quality and finally evaluating how the translation exerts impact on
readership. It can be seen that while House (1986) merely mentions criteria during the
process of evaluating, Newmark (1995) suggests vital steps to figure out the
importance of readership in TQA, a critical post-evaluation activity.
Building on previous studies from House (1986) and Newmark (1995), Tien and
Bac (2008) synthesizes and illustrates a comprehensive and specific method of seven
phases to evaluate the quality of a translation. Tien and Bac shares the same view with
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House (1986) that equivalence plays an important role in the accuracy as well as the
quality of other translations. Besides, they support Newmark’s ideas and also propose
pre-evaluation and post-evaluation step. The comparison between source text and
translational product is the initial step in TQA so as to measure meaning equivalence
and examine the accuracy of the translation. Secondly, back translation can be applied
to identify the changes in meaning between the source text and the translation. Thirdly,
measuring comprehension from readership, clients or professional translations is
implemented. The first three steps are carried out in order to check the accuracy and
measure meaning equivalence to make sure that there are no omissions, no additions
and no changes of meaning, no over translation as well as no under translation. Last
but not least, it is vital to measure naturalness, readability and consistency. The
purpose of measuring naturalness is to examine whether the product achieves a natural
form in targeted language. The measurement of readability also supports the step of
checking naturalness. A good translation should be advantageous to read because it is
natural, accurate and appropriate in style and format. Finally, the translator should
check the consistency concerning terminologies, names, places, capitalism,
abbreviation and so forth. These seven basic steps of translation evaluation can be
applied for the translation of trainees.
Nevertheless, from a new approach, more recently, Williams (2009) claims that it
is better to see TQA from a broader sense in which TQA can be the combination of
both quantitative and qualitative method. TQA can be based on statistical

what constitutes quality in the abstract, and that an important factor in quality is the
absence of errors.
Mossop (1989) describes translation errors as “a given rendering will be deemed
to be non-translation if it fails to conform to the concept of translation predominant in
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the target culture”. He identifies translation errors in terms of cultural norm and formal
equivalence. It means that the definition of translation error by Mossop (1989) includes
the achievement of formal equivalence but excludes other critical factors such as
smoothness, readability and consistency in translational product. Besides, formal
equivalence as Nida and Taber (1982) defines as a method of translating literally and
protecting rhythm, special stylistic forms, expression in syntax and lexis, metaphor,
word play and so on; therefore, formal equivalence is mainly used in translating poems
and songs, not all kinds of texts.
A more thorough notion of error is proposed by Pym in 1992. Compared with
the definition by Mossop (1989), Pym suggests a large number of translation errors.
However, these errors are not systematically classified.
Ten years later, Aveling (2002) illustrates a more comprehensive and systematic
notion of translation errors. In his opinion, translation errors occur when translator fails
to gain equivalence, adequacy and accuracy. This definition is more comprehensive as
it stresses that equivalence covers many different types. Besides, it is more systematic
because Aveling emphasizes that translation errors can be divided into two
categorization including “dumb mistakes” and “deliberate mistakes”. The former is due
to the lack of translator’s competence, and the latter occurs when translator poses a
purpose to recreate the text.
2.2.2 Classification of translation errors
Not only the definition but also the classification of interpreting errors has
attracted a myriad of efforts from scholars and researchers. Nevertheless, due to the
complexity of this practice, it remains intricate to establish a single comprehensive list
of all the translation errors observed. This part, therefore, just attempts to review some
of the most noticeable study intro translation errors, and building on those studies, the

no orientation when translating. Secondly, cultural translation errors occur with regard
to cultural-specific conventions or equivalence. A more detailed explanation can be
seen in part 2.1.2 of this chapter. In Venuti (2000, p126), Nida stresses that “Since no
two languages are identical, either in the meaning given to corresponding symbols or
in the ways in which such symbols are arranged in phrases and sentences, it stands to
reason that there can be no correspondence between languages”. Therefore, the failure
in translating cultural equivalences is unavoidable. The next type is linguistic
translation errors which Newmark (1995) also mentions. The final type is entitled text-
specific translation errors and it refers to the text-specific translation problem. The
translator has to deal with various problems in different texts.
On the other hand, Schiaffino (2005) classifies translation errors into three
principle categories. Firstly, errors of meaning occurs if the meaning of translation
becomes different from the meaning of SL. Secondly, errors of forms involves an error
of grammar, spelling, and other formal error that does not change the meaning of the
translation with respect to the SL. In this aspect, Schiaffino (2005) shared the same
viewpoint with Newmark (1995) and Nord (1997). The third categorization includes
errors of compliance. Although meaning and form are accurate, the translator fails to
convey the style guide, preferred terminology, and other customer requirement which
can cause unnaturalness, lack of readability and inconsistency in a translation.
The classification of translation error remains diverse; however, most scholars
agree with Wang Baorong (2009). 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 translation errors. Pragmatic
translation errors are caused by practical issues such as a lack of receiver orientation
and background knowledge. Cultural translation errors are related to equivalent
problems and methods to deal with cultural words. Linguistic errors occur due to the
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lack in the proficiency of the translator. As Newmark (1995) points out linguistic errors
involves grammatical mistakes, punctuations, collocations, idioms and so forth.
Based on the above reviewed studies, the researcher has come up with a

I congratulated her on her success.
Punctuation We all watched Titanic , it was
a great movie!
We all watched Titanic . It was a
great movie!
Spelling If you like your mother's new
wallpaper, you'll complement
her on her decorating skills.
If you like your mother's new
wallpaper, you'll compliment her
on her decorating skills.
Singular and
plural forms
He does his homeworks after
having dinner
He does his homework after having
dinner.
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Subject-verb
agreement
Everyone think her saying is
right.
Everyone thinks her saying is right.
Tense She had written to him last
week.
She wrote to him last week.
Lexical choice I ran into my formal teacher. I ran into my former teacher.
Table 1: The model of common linguistic errors synthesized by researcher
TRANSLATION ERRORS
Item Source text Poor translation Suggested

that. They need other
skills including
negotiation, action
planning and
networking.
Accuracy Muốn thúc đẩy ngành
du lịch và dịch vụ địa
phương, cần đẩy mạnh
công tác đào tạo nghề,
In order to promote
tourism, it is necessary
to stimulate job-related
matters.
In order to promote
local services and
tourism, it is
necessary to stimulate
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truyền nghề và phát
triển nghề.
 Omission of
ideas.
vocational training,
professional
transmission and
development.
Naturalness Giờ thì ai cũng biết chi
tiết của vụ xì căng đan
đó.
Everybody know the

abstract to us, but in
the Arctic it is having
dramatic effects. The
effects of CC
includes precipitation
and higher sea levels.
Term Có 5 tiêu chí để 1 biên
tập viên quyết định một
câu chuyện nào đó có
đáng được đưa tin hay
không. Đó là: Thời
gian của sự kiện, tầm
There are 5 criteria for
an editor to decide
whether an incident is
newsworthy or not: the
time, the importance, the
venue, the incident-
There are 5 criteria
for an editor to decide
whether an incident is
newsworthy or not:
timing, significance,
proximity,
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quan trọng của nó và
mức độ cảm xúc mà đó
có thể gây ra cho người
đọc.
related celebrities, and

quantitative and qualitative approach, the researcher can compare, contrast,
supplement and especially produce the most adequate outcomes. Five main data
collection instruments including questionnaires, classroom observations, document
observations, diary and only interview are fully employed in this research.
3.1 Sampling
Throughout the study, all the selected participants were mentioned neither in
real names or pseudonyms. They will be coded with letters and numbers to preserve
their rights of privacy. Furthermore, the participants were selected via strict sampling
procedures to ensure their representativeness of the whole population.
3.1.1 Teacher participant selection
Based on purposive sampling, an experienced senior lecturer coded as T in
charge of QH.2011.E18, QH.2011.E19, and QH.2011.E20 was selected to participate
in the study. Having worked in training field for fifteen years in Translation and
Interpreting Division, ULIS, VNU, T possessed considerable experiences and deep
insights of students’ competence. Hence, the recommendations from T were especially
priceless to not only students but also other lecturers.
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