Problems In Translating Indonesian News Article Into English For English Language Education Students

Abstract

Translation involves language and linguistic systems that are quite complex between source language and target language. This makes beginner translators such as university students, face some problems when translating a text. In translating news article there were students who have problems in translating some words and terms. This research aimed to investigate the students’ problems in translating Indonesian news article into English. The problems were limited to lexical problems. This research used descriptive method and qualitative research. The subject of this research was a class of translation class. The class consisted of 18 students of English Language Education Study Program Batch 2017. The techniques of data collection used were document analysis and interview. The result showed the students had three lexical problems in translating Indonesian news article into English. The problems were literal translation, inappropriate translation of word/term, and meaning distortion. These problems were caused by the usage of literal translation and word for word without paying attention to the context and the author’s intention, the students’ poor knowledge of terms and lack of vocabulary, and the students’ wrong perception in translating word/sentence. Based on the result, it was suggested to the students to read more English news article in order to enrich their knowledge of terms and vocabularies. The students also need to translate in context and read again only the target text to check for how natural it sounds.