I.

A PRACTICAL PROBLEM

I have been a teacher of English for several years. I have taught a lot of
grades of students, from secondary students to college ones. When learning
English, my students have a lot of difficulties in vocabulary, grammar, speaking,
listening, etc. Among of those, I recognize that translation is the most difficulty. It
seems very difficult for them to translate naturally even a phrase. It is not the
reason that they do not know new words but they do not know which words to use
or how to put the words in right order. Therefore, they often translate very
mechanically.

For example, when they have to translate the phrase “tắm rửa” into
English, some of them use the phrase “take a bath and wash” instead of simply
saying “take a bath” as English people often say.

Another example, when they translate the word “die” into Vietnamese they
do not know which of these words: “chết, hi sinh, băng hà, mất, qua đời, etc” to
chose or when they have to translation the word “hi sinh” into English, they do
not know which English word to use.

Students also have difficulty in translating some words as there are not the
same things in England such as: “Áo dài”, “bánh chưng”, “Tết”, etc.

There are a lot of problems in translation like those that my students always
encounter. From my experience, I think that is the problem of loss and gain in
translation. Let have a look at loss and gain in translation from the points of view
of linguistics.
II. A THEORETICAL POINT OF VIEW: LOSS AND GAIN

When translating a text, especially a literary work, a translator requires

broader background knowledge. He can not depend on the text and the dictionary
only. The cultural background that contributes to the creation of the text must be
studied before working on the translation itself. A careless decision in choosing
equivalent expressions to be used in the translated text may cause various
problems, such as the loss and gain of meaning.

During the process of transferring the message from the SL to the TL, a
translator must be able to find equivalent expressions. This task is doubled when a
translator is translating a literary work since the term “ equivalence” includes the
equivalence of cultural background such as cultural bound expressions,
symbolism, metaphors, and also authorial background such as thematic choices,
language style, life background. Translating, then, sounds like an almost
impossible task to do because every society develops its own culture, which is
unique, and not every aspect in their cultural life can be found in different
societies.

Due to the fact that the cultural background plays a very important role in
translating fiction, a translator, then, must decide whether his / her translation
would be SL oriented or TL oriented. This decision has been to make to avoid a
nonsensical translation in which a translator simply transfers all the words into TL
without considering the cultural aspects.

However, loosing and gaining meaning in the TL text results from language
differences. Language differences usually result in untranslatability and this
untranslatability is actually the source of loss and gain of meaning in translation.
 For example, the expression “to take a bath”, which is commonly
translated into Vietnamese as “tắm rửa”, provides a good example of loss and
gain of meaning. “To take a bath” could be described as the activity of cleaning
one’s body with water that is done by soaking oneself in a bathtub filled with
water and soap. This description would be completely different from the idea of
“tắm rửa” in Vietnamese context. “Tắm rửa” means cleaning one’s body using
water a scoop or a water dipper. There is no bathtub needed here because the water
is placed in a container or bucket. This example shows the loss of meaning due to
the absence of the bathtub in the TL and the procedure of cleaning the body, while
at the same time it gains a different idea of the procedure and equipment used.

III. SOLUTIONS

After considering the problem, I suggest some solutions as below:

First of all, we should teach the students the culture of target language’s
country. The culture and language are very important and affect each other.
Through the language we can know much about the culture and vice versus.
Therefore, if we know much about the culture, we can translate more naturally.
For example, Vietnamese people prefer active sentences than passive sentences.
Hence, when we have to translation an English passive sentence into Vietnamese,
we tend to translate it into an active sentence. For example, the sentence “Grass is
being eaten by cows on the meadow.” should be translated “Những con bò đang
ăn cỏ trên đồng cỏ.”

Secondly, we should teach students communicative translation not semantic

translation. Semantic translation tends to be dependent on the source language,
keep semantic and syntactic structures as closely as possible and to be author-
centered, so it usually sounds unnatural. It includes literal and faithful translation
methods. Communicative translation attempts to reproduce on its readers an effect
as close as possible to that obtained on the readers of the original text. It includes
free and idiomatic translation and tends to be dependent on the TL. Therefore, it is
better to apply communication translation.

For example, the sentence “Không có gì quý hơn độc lập tự do.” should be
translated “Independence and freedom or death.” not “Nothing is more precious
than independence and freedom.” Because the first translation is natural and it is
what English people often use.

Thirdly, we should teach students that there are some words we should not
translate into English because they cannot keep the original meanings as I have
mention in the first part of this essay. For example, we should not translate these
words into English: “Áo dài”, “bánh chưng”, “Tết”. We should keep the
Vietnamese origin and put them in quotation marks.

Finally, we should advise students to read more bilingual newspapers,

magazines, books and watch a lot of English films and programs. That is a good
way for students to both entertain and learn. They themselves can also enhance
their translation ability.