The problems that facing students in idioms translation from English into Arabic

Abstract

An idiom is a form of speech or an expression that is peculiar to itself. Grammatically, it cannot be understood from the individual meaning of its elements. Culture plays an important role in the course of the idiom interpretation. Only by having a solid foundation of the culture of the target language, the translator can catch the implied meaning. It, therefore, requires enhancing cross-cultural awareness and needs open-mind understanding of the culture of the second language from different aspects. Moreover, the difference between the source language and the target language as well as variations in their cultures makes the process of translating a real challenge. The present paper tries to investigate and identify firstly some existing obstacles in the process of translating idiomatic pairs, and then suggests some theoretical strategies to overcome such difficulties.