Arab Educational Information Network

This research paper attempts to investigate problems in translating idiomatic expressions from English into Arabic and vice versa that affect EFL students' abilities to translate properly and effectively. Cultural differences constitute an area of potential difficulties in Arabic/English/Arabic translation of such fixed expressions. Such difficulties are caused by different connotations of idioms from one language into another. The study was concerned with EFL students at M'sila University. Whereby, the core aims beyond conducting this research are to shed light on the major problems encounter EFL learners in translating idiomatic expressions, as well as, to find out some effective strategies and procedures that could help students acquire the adequate comprehension of idiomatic expressions, which will enable them produce meaningful and acceptable translations. The data were gathered by means of research tools in the form of questionnaire for students and interview for teachers. Forty-five students were selected through the convenience sampling technique. On the other hand, four translation teachers were interviewed. The results obtained clearly demonstrate that students like translation, yet they still face some lexical and cultural problems, which may discourage them to translate. Also, the results show that students' solutions resort to some strategies like guessing the meaning form the context, provide literal translation, or using similar idiom to the one of their mother tongue. Accordingly, students are recommended to master their reading skills, through reading in both source and target language. Whereas, teachers are recommended to raise their students' awareness of the importance of idioms, and the impact of disparity between languages on the translation of such specific expressions. This can be as a starting point towards resolving students' problems in translating idioms and helping them foster their translation skills. (Author’s abstract)