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A Preliminary Study of Vocational College Students’ English Idioms’ Learning Through Translation
LU Qun-hua
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DOI:10.17265/1539-8072/2016.11.006
Jiaxing Vocational Technical College, Jiaxing, China
To learn English idioms well is not easy for native speakers, let alone ESL/EFL learners, which is because the meanings of idiomatic expressions cannot be determined through an analysis of their individual word meanings. However, the frequency of figurative languages is very common in English world. So, it is necessary for us to have such knowledge of English idioms in English study. Based on literature review, few studies focused their attention on examining vocational colleges EFL problems in English idioms. Moreover, fewer studies provided quantitative data to demonstrate the problems. Understanding the original texts in one language is the key to accurate translation of another language. Translation may be a good way to examine whether students understand English idioms. Thus, the aim of the present study was to investigate vocational college students’ understanding level of English idioms through their translation in order to find how difficult English idioms are for them. Participants were 36 sophomore students who study at Jiaxing Vocational and Technical College. Student’s total errors of Chinese translations could be found through the coding as well as the total accurate number of Chinese translations. The findings suggest these students’ understanding level of English idioms is not high. It is further supported by the fact that English idioms are difficult and not translated easily from one language to another language.
English idioms, translation, teachers college students
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