ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First and foremost, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor,
Mrs. Nguyen Thi Lan Phuong, for her guidance and encouragement during my study.
I am very grateful for being accepted as her student. This study could be completed on
schedule thank to her value advices and support.
Beside, I would also like to express my sincere thanks to all teachers in English
faculty of Thuongmai University, especially Mrs. Nguyen Thi Xuan Phuong and Mrs.
Phan Tu Lan spent their time answering my interview questions to help me in my data
collection.
Additionally, I would like to express my thanks to my friends for their helps
and encouragements to help me complete my study.
Especially, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my family,
especially my parents and my brother for their continuous support. They are always
my motivation that help me overcome all difficulties and challenges in life.
Student
Hao
Nguyen Thi Thanh Hao

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ABSTRACT
This study aims to find out students’ common Vietnamese-English translation
errors and point out the possible causes leading to those errors. The result showed that
there were three common errors made by students: grammatical errors, lexical errors
and errors relating to expression. The causes of those errors were also indicated. After
that, some suggestions were given to help teachers and students improve teaching and
learning translation at Thuongmai University.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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LIST OF DIAGRAM
Diagram 1: Dynamics of translation (Peter Newmark)
Table 1: Common errors in Vietnamese-English translation.
Chart 1: Common grammatical errors in Vietnamese-English translation.
Chart 2: Common lexical errors in Vietnamese-English translation.
LIST OF ABBREVIATION
EFL: English as a foreign language
DNTU: Dong Nai Technology University
FELTE: Faculty of English Language Teacher Education
ULIS: University of Language and International Studies
VNU: Vietnam National University
TMU: Thuongmai University
SL: Source language
TL: Target language

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CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
1.1. Rationale for study.
In 4.0 technology era, everything is changing quickly that requires all of
companies to timely and accurately update advanced technologies and information
from countries who take the lead in information and technologies. It is an important
key that can help Vietnam get advantageous opportunities to develop in strongly
competitive economy. From that we can see the importance of translation that can help
break the language barrier, update new information and technologies and integrate into
global economy.
Besides the importance to the economy, translation also plays an irreplaceable
role in the process of cultural exchange among countries. Translation plays a major
role when it comes to understanding the culture. It is also considered as a factor that
links distinct cultures and a way of expressing thoughts and feelings. In other words, it
helps to communicate the beliefs and ideas in a proper way which could be understood
by people from different literary and cultural backgrounds. Accordingly, translation is
one of the principal, ultimate and appropriate ways in transferring culture. In the
process of integration, Vietnam has many opportunities to meet and interact with
different cultures. However, not any cultural wave is also good. Therefore we need
research to understand, absorb the good and avoid the bad things in order to preserve
the cultural identity of nation with the motto “integration without assimilation”.
Now English is the most common language in the world. The role of English is
more and more asserted, especially in the booming age of information and technology.
English can be considered as the prevailing language by the way it dominates every
domain and maybe the only language that truly links the whole world together. It is the
second language in most of countries in the world. Nowadays, most of companies
require English proficiency when recruiting new staffs. Every trading contracts are
written in English along with their mother languages. Besides, the literatures and
specialized books of authors from different countries around the world are also

translated into English in order to help people in the world can access easily. It is
necessary to master translation to translate documents more exactly in order to avoid
regrettable misunderstanding. As a result, English is one of the most important factors
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that which set the path for success of an individual besides specialized knowledge, soft
skills and computer skills. Especially, to access latest information in the world,
translation plays an important role. Therefore, it is necessary for Vietnamese students
who will become the main human resource in society soon to have expert VietnameseEnglish translation skill in order to meet the demand of integration and globalization.
However, Vietnamese- English translation is not an easy task to do as it is not
simply the substitution of words in one language into another language but the transfer
of meanings and senses that the authors want to convey in the most natural way, so not
almost all learners can avoid mistakes . In reality, students including English- majored
students still make many errors in their translating process. There are many reasons
leading to mistakes in Vietnamese- English translation and the most effective method
that can help students avoid making such mistakes again is identifying and analyzing
the errors carefully because people will learn more from their own mistakes. As a
student of English faculty at Thuongmai University, I know almost all of Englishmajored students in Thuongmai University make many errors when studying
translation in general and Vietnamese-English translation in particular. Therefore, this
study is carried out with the hope that it will be a useful reference helping improve
Vietnamese- English translation skill to avoid regrettable mistakes. From that, it can
contribute to help students have a suitable plan to adjust learning method to get the
best effective result.
1.2. Previous studies.
Seeing the importance of translation and variety of errors in translation in
general and Vietnamese-English translation in particular made by EFL students, many
studies have been carried out to help them recognized their common errors and will be

the useful reference with the solutions suggested which help the students be able to
selfcorrect their common mistakes and find out their own effective ways in leaning in
order to improve their translation skill. Furthermore, it helps the students not only
improve their language learning in general but also have a great advantage for their
future ideal job. These studies have been written by experienced translators or teachers
who clearly understand the issues related to translation. Thus, I would like to rely on
these studies as references materials for my graduation paper.
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The first study was researched and written by Pham Phu Quynh Na. The title of
her study is “Errors in the translation of topic-comment structures of Vietnamese into
English”. The aim of the study is to investigate the extent of the typological
differences between Vietnamese and English influences the process of translating
authentic Vietnamese sentences into English. This investigation uses preliminary
findings drawn from an error analysis of the Vietnamese-English translations by EFL
students. The analysis focuses on the errors made when translating the dropped subject
and empty elements of Vietnamese. This is important given the fact that the
grammatical subject is always required in English but not in Vietnamese sentences.
The translators for this study were 95 students from English translation classes in their
first, second, third, and fourth years of the Department of English Language and
Literature at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam. The data was collected from the translation texts of these students using the
same source text. This study should help to point out the potential problematic errors
to which students are prone when translating the topic-comment structure of
Vietnamese, and provide some practical guidelines to teachers so that they can prevent
these errors from the learners in the teaching of Vietnamese-English translations.
The analysis of the translations made by 95 students shows the five types of

errors in the specific task of locating and translating the sentence’s subject. These are
omission of subject, repetition of subject, inappropriate choice of subject, no logical
connection between subject and predicate, inappropriate connection between subject
and passive verbs.
According to the result of this study, omitting the subject is the most frequent
type of error among all types of errors relating to the sentence subject. Although most
Vietnamese can understand the empty pronoun or dropped subject when they read a
text, they do not always correctly identify the referent of the missing subject when
they need to transfer these sentences into English. Besides, students also make
inappropriate choice of subjects, repeat the subject, or write sentences in which the
subjects do not semantically match the predicate of the sentences, nor the passive
verbs.

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The researcher shows that the omission of the subjects may be traced to two
reasons: firstly, the students may not be able to identify the referent of the missing
subject or, secondly, they do not know that it is necessary to find the missing subject
for it to be rendered into a correct English sentence. Specially, the influence of the
Vietnamese topic-comment structures of mother tongue is the biggest cause leading to
the common errors relating to the translation of subjects that are mentioned above.
After pinpointing the common errors and the causes leading to these errors, the
researcher gives some strategies for translating topic-comment structures of
Vietnamese that can be applied to prevent the possible problems arising when
translating topic- comment structures of Vietnamese into English.
Another study which is also about common structural errors was written by Bui
Thi Kim Phung. The tittle of her study is “Common structural errors in VietnameseEnglish translation made by English- majored students at Duy Tan University” . The

aim of this study is to point out common types of errors made by English-majored
students in translating different Vietnamese structures as well as the problems found in
this study that can help teachers and material designers choose an appropriate
pedagogical method.
This study investigates common errors that Vietnamese students often make in
the process of translating Vietnamese sentence structures into English. The analysis
focuses on the types and frequency of errors in translating Vietnamese structures into
the English language. The subjects of the investigation were 150 English -majored
students in four Translation 1 classes of the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Duy Tan
University. In the test, students were asked to translate 30 Vietnamese sentences with
different structures into English in 60 minutes.
The analysis shows the six frequent types of errors: omission of subject,
inappropriate choice of negative form, inappropriate choice of predicate, inappropriate
choice of subject, inappropriate usage of passive form, and lack of main clause .
According to the result of this study, omitting the subject is the most frequent
type of error with 63 errors (accounting for 42%) among all types of errors relating to
the sentence subject followed by five other errors: Inappropriate choice of subject,
Inappropriate usage of passive form, Inappropriate choice of predicate, Lack of main
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clause and Inappropriate choice of negative form This result is the same to the result of
Pham Phu Quynh Na’s study.
The study point out three main reasons leading to the errors. Firstly, the main
possible cause of students’ errorsis the inability to overcome the negative influence of
the mother tongue in language learning. Secondly, it is necessary to be aware that in
Vietnamese sentences the subject is often dropped, but not in English. Consequently,
students should carefully analyze and comprehend the source text to find the missing

subjects, direct or indirect objects and so forth. Thirdly, because of “poor language
competence”, sometimes students feel “extremely embarrassed” if they cannot find out
any equivalent structure in English to match to the source language which is
Vietnamese. Frankly speaking, English grammar is extremely complicated for most of
Vietnamese learners. The limitation of grammar knowledge leads Vietnamese students
to translate word by word. As a result, this may lead to content misunderstanding and
then wrong translation.
After pinpointing the common errors and the causes leading to these errors, the
researcher gives some suggestion for students to improve their translation skill as well
as some teaching strategies for teacher to apply to EFL classroom teaching and
learning.
The third study is written by Tran Thi Hoai Nam, entitled “Common translation
errors (Vietnamese- English) committed by the third- year English majors: A case at
Dong Nai Technology University”.
The study gain an advantage of providing some of the most popular types of
errors occurring in Vietnamese-English translation as well as the reasons which causes
these errors to help students and teachers of English faculty at DNTU clearly
understand the situation of their teaching and learning translation then they can
improve their performance.
The participants of the study are third-year English-majored students at Dong
Nai Technology University. This study is different from other studies mentioned above
in terms of data collection instruments. It includes both translation test and interview
while most of studies only use translation test.

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The results of this study showed that overwhelming majority of translation

errors committed by third-year English-majored students at DNTU are micro-level
errors related to vocabulary and grammar, accounting for 91%. There are too many
errors related to grammar such as tenses, sentence structure, word order, passive voice,
…Along with grammar, the diversity of vocabulary including technical terms,
compounds, collocations, word choice,…make them confuse. In terms of 9% of errors
at macro level, the highest proportion belongs to cohesion errors, accounting for 42%.
According to the study, the causes leading to these errors are both subjective
and objective. Subjective causes concern the lack of knowledge of vocabulary,
grammar, culture, the ability to overcome the negative influence of the mother tongue
in language learning, the concentration and motivation. Objective causes concern the
difference between Vietnamese and English and inappropriate teaching documents and
methods.
The study also suggests some recommendations that are drawn after analyzing
the errors and the causes for improving the current teaching and learning translation at
DNTU.
The forth study is researched and written by Nguyen Thi Thu
Hang and Trieu Thu Hang who are teachers at English faculty, VNU
University of Languages and International studies. The title of this
study is “Vietnamese- English translation errors made by second
year translation- major students: An initial step towards enhancing
translation standards”.
The researchers carried out this study with the aim of identifying common
Vietnamese-English translation errors made by students and thereby, proposing
suggestions to improve the current practice. 81 Vietnamese-English translations made
by second - year translation major students were collected for analysis of errors.
The study showed two main common translation errors groups: Linguistic
errors and translational errors. As for linguistic errors, lexical choice was the most
common error with 171 errors (accounting for 24,28%) along with punctuation, the use
of article, prepositions, singular and plural forms. As for translational errors, the


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lengthy and awkward expressions were the most common errors made by students
with 197 errors (accounting for 28,63%).
According to the researchers, there are for main causes that were pointed out by
both teachers and students. Firstly, 87.5% of second year students made errors due to
the lack of accessibility to translation theories. Secondly, above 50% of students regard
poor command of vocabulary. Another one is lack of translation skills and the last is
the inability to overcome the negative influence of mother tongue in language
learning.
Some of the techniques were also suggested in the study proposed by both
teacher and students in Translation and Interpreting Division at FELTE, ULIS, VNU in
order to help students ocercome these common errors to be good at translation.
Four studies mentioned above showed some common errors in translation such
as structural errors, vocabulary, grammar, lexical choice,… Translation error, however,
is a wide and complicated topic, therefore, these studies could not cover all aspects of
this topic and many aspects need to be studied.
1.3. Aim of the study.
The primary of the thesis is to point out some Vietnamese- English translation
errors made by English- majored students in TMU. From that, the researcher will
suggest some strategies and possible solutions to help them overcome the problems
and improve their own translation skills.
1.4. Research subject.
In this study, the research focuses on researching common errors in translating
Vietnamese texts into English made by English-majored students in TMU.
1.5. Scope of the study.
Translation course is one of compulsory subjects that all English-majored

students in TMU are required to study. They have to study both English-Vietnamese
translation and Vietnamese-English translation. This thesis, however, just focus on
studying the errors in the Vietnamese-English translation made by English-majored
students in TMU.
1.6. Research methodology.

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For the purpose of studying students’ errors in translation of Vietnamese texts
into English, this study was designed with a combination of quantitative and
qualitative research methods.
Firstly, interview would identify common Vietnamese-English translation errors
made by English-majored students in TMU. Three teachers of English faculty who
directly teach translation course in TMU were interviewed. Besides, test papers were
collected in order to identify common errors.
Then, the quantitative method would be used to gather the data to clearly
identify the frequent errors through showing rates and numbers. This aims to see if
there is any appropriateness between them and then to give suggestions for
Vietnamese-English translation teaching and learning at TMU.
1.7. Organization of the study.
This study is divided into four main following chapters.
The first chapter is Overview of the study. This chapter is a short description of
the study that provides general information about the study, but no details with seven
parts: rationale, previous studies, aims of the study, research subjects, and scope of the
study, research methodology and organization of the study.
The second chapter is Literature review, which consists of the concepts related
to the term “translation”. It includes some different definitions of different authors,

theories related to the theoretical background. Besides, concepts related to
Vietnamese-English translation errors are also given and analyzed.
The third one is called “Research findings and Discussion”. This chapter
concludes data analysis, results and discussion.
The last one is called “Recommendations and suggestion”. In this chapter, some
suggestions were given to help teachers and students have suitable methods in teaching
and learning to improve the quality of Vietnamese-English translation skills.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
Literature review was written to give a theoretical base for the research. In this
part, theory relating to two terms “translation” and “errors” were given. Therefore, it
was divided into two main parts. The first part was written about translation and some
aspects relating to translation such as dynamics of translation and criterions of a good
translation. The second part was written about errors and the classification of
translation errors.
2.1. Translation.
2.1.1. Definition.
Translation has been variously defined. The following definitions are selected
because they are typical in some senses.
Peter Newmark (1987) indicates that “Translation is rendering a written text
into another language in the way that the author intended the text.” According to this
definition, the notion of equivalence is problematic in the study of translation.
Although it is not easy to achieve exact textual equivalence, equivalence could be
achieved when a translation contains the meaning that is similar, or as close as possible
to that the author intended the source text.

Munday (2004) defines translation as “the process of transferring a written text
from source language (SL) to target language (TL).” In translation, source language
(SL) is the language being translated from and target language (TL) is the language
being translated to. In most of the professional settings, the TL is the first language and
SL is the second language of the translators. According to Munday, the most important
key of translation is to focus on the process of transferring the written text.
Wilss (1982) defines “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 semantic and the pragmatic
understanding and analytical processing of the source language.” Part of the difficulty
in translation arises due to the lexical gap and syntactical, semantic and pragmatic
differences between the source language and the target language, especially between
two languages belonging to different language families. Therefore, Wilss focuses on
not only the process of transferring the written text but also the optimal equivalence
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about the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic understanding and analytical processing
between source language and target language.
Roger Thomas Bell (1991) states that “Translation is the expression in another
language (target language) of what has been expressed in one language (source
language), preserving semantic and stylistic equivalencies”. In short, Bell views
translations as the replacement of a text in one language by an equivalent text in
another language. He focuses on the expression what has been expressed in the written
text such as thoughts or feelings of the author that translators have to take
responsibility to preserve semantic and stylistic equivalencies.
Generally, these definitions of translation mentioned above have three main
similar ideas. Firstly, translation is a process of rendering meaning, ideas or messages

of a text from one language to other language (from source language to target
language). Secondly, the meaning of the written text that the author intended the text
has to be remained. The last one is that translators have to preserve the equivalencies
between two languages. These definitions of translation can help us understand the
concept of translation to obtain an overall picture of the translation process.
Translation consists of studying the lexis, grammatical structure, communication
situation and cultural context of the source language.

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2.1.2. Dynamics of translation (Peter Newmark)
A text is pulled in ten different directions, as follows:
1. SL writer

9. The truth (the facts
of the matter)

5. TL relationship

6. TL norms

2. SL norms

Text
7. TL culture

3. SL culture


4. SL setting and
tradition

10. Translator

8. TL setting and
translation

Diagram 1: Dynamics of translation (Peter Newmark)
2.1.2.1. SL writer.
SL writer is the individual style or idiolect of the SL author. When should it be
(a) preserved, (b) normalised? Each author has their own style or idiolect. Idiolect is an
individual's distinctive and unique use of language, including speech. This unique
usage encompasses vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. That is the reason why
readers can realize the author when reading their writings.
2.1.2.2. SL norms and TL norms.
Norms are the conventional grammatical and lexical usage for this type of text,
depending on the topic and the situation. Norms affect the whole process of translation
from the selection of the text to be translated to the choice of words by the translators.
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Translators need to research carefully in order to understand clearly about the topic
and the situation of both SL and TL then depend on them to choose the best usage for
this type of text. Norms are equivalent with grammatical rules. Translators are required
to know about grammatical rules of both SL and TL in order to make sure that they
understand about the source text then translate into target language accurately.

2.1.2.3. SL culture and TL culture.
SL culture is content items referring specifically to the SL and TL culture
content items referring specifically to the TL, or third language (i.e, not SL or TL)
cultures. Each country has its own culture. The cultural specific expressions are
somehow difficult to translate, even professional translators find it difficult to deal
with them. That is because the cultural context is too vague, it represents the world
view of a society. Culture is a complex collection of experiences. It includes history,
social structure, religion, traditional customs and everyday usage. This is difficult to
comprehend completely. Especially in relation to a target language, one important
question is whether the translation will have any readership at all, as the specific
reality being portrayed is not quite familiar to the reader.
2.1.2.4. SL setting and tradition and TL setting and tradition.
The typical format of a text in a book, periodical, newspaper,..., as influenced
by tradition at the time. Translations made at different times tend to be made under
different settings. Therefore, the format of the text is influenced by tradition at the
time. Translators have to decide on the likely setting: Where would the text is
published in the TL? What is the TL equivalent of the SL periodical, newspaper, book,
…? Who is the clients they are translating for? And what are their requirements?
Translators have to make several assumptions about the SL readership. From the
setting of the SL text, as well as the text itself, translators should assess whether the
readership is likely to be motivated, familiar with the topic and the culture. Then they
consider whether translation should be translated for the same or a different types of
TL readership, perhaps with less knowledge of the topic or the culture, or a lower
standard of linguistic education.
2.1.2.5. TL readership.
The expectations of the putative readership, bearing in mind their estimated
knowledge of the topic and the style of language they use, expressed in terms of the
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largest common factor, since one should not translate down (or up) to the readership.
The readership is a group of readers that the text is aimed at and this group is marked
with level of education, the class, age and sex. The readership of SL text should be
characteried, then the readership of the translation to decide how much attention to
pay to the TL readers.
2.1.2.6. The truth (the facts of the matter).
What is being described or reported, ascertained or verified (the referential
truth), where possible independently of the SL text and the expectations of the
readership. Translators have to respect the truth of SL text then they have to take
responsibility to translate into TL accurately. It can lead to a serious consequence if the
truth is not remained.
2.1.2.7. Translator.
The views and prejudices of the translator, which may be personal and
subjective, or may be social and cultural, involving the translator's “group loyalty
factor”, which may reflect the national, political, ethnic, religious, social class, sex,
etc. assumptions of the translator. A translation is whether good or not that almost
depends on translators. Many people tend to think that a person who knows foreign
languages is a good translator. However, only being good at foreign language is not
enough. There are some qualities that characterize a good translator such as pasion,
translation skills, rich vocabulary, accuracy, honesty,…
2.1.3. Criteria of a good translation.
It is often said that translation is an art. It is an intricate and often subjective
process that goes far beyond a simplistic word-for-word exchange. A good translation
needs to carry the meaning and the tone of the original text, while still remaining
culturally sensitive and appropriate to the target audience. What are the qualities that
go into making a good translation? It must meet several criteria in order to be
considered as a good translation.
According to House (1977), the equivalence sought should be an equivalence of

function that is both source and translated texts must present the same function and the
text's function can only be made explicit through a detailed analysis of the text itself.

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In attempt to perform the translation quality assessment, the following questions are
presented:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

Does the text read fluently?
Is the translation grammatically correct?
Is the spelling correct?
Are there unjustified inferences?
Is vocabulary adequate?
Is the overall result satisfying? In addition
Is the translation performed according to assignment?
According to Abdellah (2002) in his Translation Journal defined that a good
translation is one that carries all the ideas of original as well as its structures and
cultural features. Massoud (as cited in Abdellah’s Translation Journal) sets criteria for
a good translation as follow:


•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

A good translation is easy to understand.
A good translation is fluent and smooth.
A good translation is idiomatic.
A good translation conveys to some extent, the literary subtleties of original texts.
A good translation distinguishes between the metaphorical and the literal.
A good translation reconstructs the cultural and historical context of the original.
A good translation makes explicit what is implicit in abbreviation and implications.
A good translation conveys as much as possible the meaning of the original.
According to Larson (1984) suggest the ways in assessing translation quality
are as follows:

•
•

Accuracy: The meaning of target text is similar with the source text.
Readability: Readability intended to ensure whether the meaning of translated text can

be understood.
• Naturalness: The aim of naturalness is to confirm whether the form of translated text is
natural and equivalent with the target language.
In conclusion, a translation must meet several criteria in order to be considered

as a good translation.
2.1.3.1. Accuracy.
Accuracy can be considered as the most important criterion of a good
translation. There is nothing more important than the accuracy of the translator’s work.
An accurate translation is one that conveys exactly the same meaning as the original,
or at least it tries to get as close as possible to the intended meaning while being
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effective and appropriate in the target language. Whenever someone hires a translator,
they do with full confidence that the end result will be an accurate. The client depends
on these translation in order to go to court, close a business deal, or launch a new
business abroad, therefore, any mistake could have catastrophic consequences. If a
translation is fraught with bad grammar or spelling errors, the reader tends to lose
confidence in not only the document, but also the company that produced it.
2.1.3.2. Clarity.
Clarity is another important factor. A translation has to be easily
comprehensible and well written, regardless of how poor the original document may
be. A translation should strive to present all the information of the source text in a clear
way because the last goal of a translation is to help readers understand clearly the text
that have been translated. The clearer the translation will be and the clearer the
audience will understand your message. Some common elements that can confuse
translators and the final audience stem from sentences being too long. Translators
should be use simple and direct words and phrases that the readers will understand.
2.1.3.3. Naturalness.
One of the main requirements in any translation work is that the translation
must sound natural. Naturalness is the highest level of translation. It is necessary to
ensure that translation makes sense and that it reads naturally, that it is written in

ordinary language, the common grammar, idioms and words that meet that kind of
situation. There is no universal naturalness. Naturalness depends on the relationship
between the writer and the readership and the topic or situation. What is natural in one
situation may be unnatural in another, but everyone has a natural, 'neutral' language
where spoken and informal written language, more or less, coincide. The naturalness
in target language should be achieved in order to make the readers of the translated
version do not realize that they are reading a translation product. The writer can
conclude that translation should be natural in the forms of meaning and structure.
Naturalness of a translation makes sure that it reads smoothly and sounds as if it were
originally written in the target language.
2.1.3.4. Rendering the cultural and historical context of original text.

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There is always a context in which translation takes place, always a history
from which a text emerges and into which a text is transposed. Culture refers to all
socially conditioned aspects of human life. Translation can and should be recognized
as a social phenomenon, a cultural practice.
2.1.3.5. Being culturally appropriate for the target readers.
Coming along with rendering the cultural and historical context of original, a
good translation is also culturally appropriate for the target readers because cultural
norms, beliefs, values and expectations are not the same for different countries. That is
one of the most important factors that can help the translation get the last goal that is
help the target readers understand what the author intended the original text. In
Vietnamese-English translation, there are many Vietnamese words, phrases or idioms
that do not have the equivalent one in English. Therefore, in this case, translators need
to make a translation being culturally appropriate for the target readers.

For example:
“Chở củi về rừng” can be translated as “to carry coals to Newcastle”
“Mèo khen mèo dài đuôi” can be translated as “Each bird loves to hear himself
sing”
“Mưa như trút nước” can be translated as “Rain cats and dogs”
2.2. Error.
2.2.1. Definition.
Errors have long been the obsession of teaching and learning language. That is
why there has been many studies about errors in translation. Therefore, there are many
different definitions of error.
The term “error” usually means that something is wrong. Lennon (1991, p. 182)
considers an error as “a linguistic form or combination of forms which, in the same
context and under similar conditions of production, would, in all likelihood, not be
produced by the speakers’ native speaker counterparts”.
As for translation error, Mossop describes translation errors as “a given
rendering will be deemed to be nontranslation if it fails to conform to the concept of
translation predominant in the target culture”. He identifies translation errors in terms
of cultural norm and formal equivalence. It means that the definition of translation
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error by Mossop includes the achievement of formal equivalence but excludes other
critical factors such as smoothness, readability and consistency in translational
product.
A more thorough notion of error is proposed by Pym . This scholar supposes
that translation errors may be attributed to lack of comprehension, misuse of time,
inappropriateness to readership, language, pragmatics, culture, over-translation,
undertranslation, discursive or semantic inadequacy. Compared to the definition by

Mossop , Pym suggests a large number of translationerrors. However, these errors are
not systematically classified.
2.2.2. 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 to no
universally accepted translation error classifications. In translation error classification,
however, Melis & Albir (2001, p. 208) suggest that the main questions that need to be
considered are the following:
(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.
Benhaddou (1991) distinguishes two types of errors: Covertly erroneous errors
(dimensional errors): those errors which result from a mismatch along the situational
dimensions; and Overtly erroneous errors (non-dimensional errors): those occur at the
level of denotative meaning or a breach of the target language system.
Pym (1992) distinguishes between binary errors and non-binary errors. “A binary
error opposes a wrong answer to the right answer”, so the question of “right” or “wrong”
is the main focus for this type of errors (1992, p. 282). By binary errors, Pym means
language errors. “Non-binary errors” means the translation errors, which “requires that the
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target text actually selected be opposed to at least one further target text, which could also

have been selected and then to possible wrong answer” (1992, p. 282).
Translation errors, according to Nord (1997), 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 the 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 the source text. And finally,
text-specific translation errors can be traced from the suitability of the translation to
the target readers (Nord, 1997).
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 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 lack in the proficiency of the translator. As
Newmark points out, linguistic errors involve grammatical mistakes, punctuations,
collocations, idioms.
CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
This chapter deals with the collected data, implemented and analyzed statistics
implemented on the responses to the interview questionnaires as well as the test papers
in order to categorize kinds of errors in Vietnamese-English translation by the students
of English faculty of TMU. Then, the possible causes of those errors are pointed out to
help teachers and students realize the common errors from that they can find the best
methods for teaching and learning to improve students’ translation skills.
3.1. Results of the study.

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The study investigated 20 English-majored students from Faculty of Foreign
Languages, Thuongmai University. 20 test papers the students in translation classes
borrowed from their teacher were collected to analysis to find out some common
errors in Vietnamese-English translation. In the test, students were asked to translate
an Vietnamese article which contains 359 words into English in 50 minutes. No
dictionaries or translation tools were permitted.
Besides, in order to make the study more reliable, the interviews were carried
out. Three teachers who are responsible for teaching translation subject to the students
in English faculty of TMU were interviewed. According to teachers, they have not
focused on English-Vietnamese translation or Vietnamese-English one because the
goal of translation course is to help students improve their translation skills in both
English-Vietnamese translation and Vietnamese-English one. Therefore, two types of
translation were taught together that could give students a more comprehensive view
of translation. The teachers also said that the students often have difficulties and make
mistakes in Vietnamese-English translation rather than English-Vietnamese one. The
teachers’ response to the question that whether they satisfy with their students’
performance during translation course or not, all of three teachers stated that they did
not satisfy with the quality of their students’ translation products. Most of the students’
translation products contain many errors including basic errors.
From the teachers’ response and data collected from test papers, there are three
common Vietnamese-English translation errors that students often make: grammatical
errors, lexical errors and errors relating to expression. The result was showed by the
table below.
Common errors


Grammatical errors

Lexical
errors

Errors relating expression

Having-errors test
papers/total test
papers

18/20
(90%)

16/20
(80%)

13/20
(65%)

Table 1: Common errors in Vietnamese-English translation.
3.1.1 Grammatical errors.

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Using a wrong grammar can lead to regrettable misunderstandings, so English
learners need to form habit of getting the words in the right order. A grammar error can

change the meaning of what the writers want to convey, and, sometimes, create a bad
impression for the readers. Which the above reasons, grammatical errors are
unacceptable in a translation text. As for grammatical errors, there was five common
errors made by students. The result was show by the chart below.

Chart 1: Common grammatical errors in Vietnamese-English translation.
3.1.1.1. Grammatical errors relating to tense.
Thirteen students made errors in using tenses which is not suitable and correct
with the context in translation texts. Common errors are specifically shown in the
following examples.
Example 1: The Vietnamese sentence “ Dòng vốn đầu tư trực tiếp nước ngoài
(FDI) từ Trung Quốc bất ngờ tăng rất mạnh tính từ đầu năm nay” was translated by the
students.
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a) “The inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) from China suddenly increased

significantly since the beginning of this year.”
b) “Foreign direct investment (FDI) from China suddenly rises up from early of this
year”
c) “China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows suddenly increase from early of this
year”
Because the Vietnamese sentence is about events that started in the past and
continue to the present. It has a relationship with the present. Therefore, it is not
correct to use simple present tense as the sentences (b), (c) or to use simple past tense
as (a). The correct tense using in translating this Vietnamese sentence is present perfect
tense.

Example 2: The Vietnamese sentence “Báo cáo kinh tế quý 1 cho thấy Trung
Quốc vươn lên trở thành nhà đầu tư lớn nhất với tổng số vốn FDI mới đăng kí 723,2
triệu đô la Mỹ.” was translated by the students.
a) “The first-quarter economic report shows that China rose to become the largest

investor with total newly registered FDI of 723,2 million USD.”
b) “Economic report shows that China becomes the largest investor with total FDI which
has been signed 723,2 million dollar.”
c) “According to the Q1 economic report, China rises to become the biggest investor
with total newly registered FDI of 723,2 million USD.”
d) “China has become the biggest investor in Vietnam with total newly registered FDI of

723,2 million USD, according to the first-quarter economic report.”
Because the sentence is about an event which occurred already in the past, it is
not correct to use simple present tense as the sentence (a),(b),(c). The correct tense
using in translating this Vietnamese sentence is simple past tense.
This is the most common error relating to grammatical aspect. One of the main
reasons leading to grammatical errors relating to tenses is that the concept about tenses
does not exist in Vietnamese, but in English there are strict rules of 12 tenses which
are given. Each tense has its own use and form of verb tense. Therefore, it is difficult
for students to feel confused when they have to choose the appropriate tense in
translation.
Coming along with objective cause, there is also subjective cause. Students do
not clearly and deeply understand about the use and form of verb of 12 tenses. When
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