The Difficulties of Translating English Phrasal Verbs into Arabic,”The Case of Libyan EFL Graduate Translation Students at the Libyan Academy”

Abstract

           Translating English phrasal verbs into Arabic represents a challenging task for Arabic EFL graduate translation students as it triggers a large number of difficulties. Consequently, this study seeks to explore the difficulties encountering Libyan EFL graduate translation students at the Libyan Academy while translating such verbs into Arabic. As research tools for collecting data, the researchers used a questionnaire, a translation test and multiple-choice questions in order to investigate  students' background knowledge of English phrasal verbs, the reasons behind the difficulties of translating these phrasal verbs into Arabic, the difficulties that they face while translating these verbs into Arabic and their possible solutions. The results revealed that the majority of the participants had no difficulties in translating English phrasal verbs into Arabic, particularly the idiomatic ones since the context mostly provided hints about their meanings. However, some students were not familiar with the two of the four used semi-idiomatic phrasal verbs and dealt with them idiomatically. Therefore, they provided irrelevant translations to the source phrasal verbs. In addition, most students committed a large number of grammatical errors in their Arabic translations. Consequently, it is recommended to include Arabic as a compulsory course for MA translation students at the Libyan Academy for Postgraduate Studies. Moreover, since these grammatical errors were committed by most of the participants, it is recommended for Arabic MA translation students who are going to write their dissertations to discuss Arabic grammatical errors and their effects in Translation.