A STUDY OF ERROR MADE BY FIFTH SEMESTER STUDENTS IN TRANSLATING INDONESIAN INTO ENGLISH TEXT: A CASE STUDY AT ENGLISH DEPARTMENT OF MUHAMMADIYAH UNIVERSITY OF PURWOREJO IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR 2011/2012

Abstract

While learning a foreign language, the students can’t be avoided from translation process for understanding the meaning of the foreign language. Many experts have been stated the theory and definition of translation, and the main idea of all translation theories is about transferring messages from source language to target language.

Translation is one of the subject which is learned by English department students. The writer is interested in studying about error made by the students in translating Indonesian into English text, and intends to know about: (1) What type of error made by the fifth semester students in translating Indonesian into English? (2) What is the method used by the students for translating Indonesian into English? (3) How far is the students’ ability in translating Indonesian into English? In this case, qualitative research is needed to answer this problems.

The writer analyzes the student’s error in translating Indonesian into English. The sample of the population is 56. It represents 22.2% of the population. The writer uses documentation of the student’s translation assignment for getting the data, and then analyzes them. The result of the analysis is categorized excellent based on the lecturer’s assessment with the average of score is 85.57, although the writer finds some kinds of error, such as, ommision, addition, misformation, misordering, mistyping, and other error. The error which is usually found by the writer is misformation error. The percentage of this error is 35.52%. It is included grammatically error. The writer analyzes that the students are still confused while they write complex sentence and substitute the tenses (present tense to past tense). However, the students should have a good motivation in learning and improving their English skill. Also,  the lecturers should give clear explanation about translation, grammar, and writing skill for having a good translation mastery.