International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation (IJLLT) ISSN: 2617-0299 www.ijllt.org 1 Translation Problems Analysis of Students’ Academic Essay Novriyanto Napu 1 * Rifal Hasan 2 12 Department of English Education, Universitas Negeri Gorontalo, Indonesia Corresponding Author: Novriyanto Napu E-mail: n.napu@ung.ac.id ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Received: May 24, 2019 Accepted: June 27, 2019 Published: September 30, 2019 Volume: 2 Issue: 5 DOI: 10.32996/ijllt.2019.2.5.1 Translators should be able to deliver the intended meaning written in the source language to the target language without changing the purpose of the source text at all (Waldorf: 2013). The initial observation in this study found that most of the beginning translator students in translation class tend to translate without reading the whole text first and often render the text word for word. As a result, problems in the translation are often inevitable in students’ writing due to the inadequate strategies of translation. This study aims to investigate the translation problems on students’ academic essay. The data of this study was obtained by the qualitative method. Mathieu (2003) translation issues’ theory is used to analyze the linguistics and non-linguistics problems found in students’ essay translation. The findings show that the translation problems involved several linguistic aspects, such as grammatical problems, lexical- choice, rhetorical, and pragmatic problems. KEYWORDS Translation Problems, Students, Academic Essays 1. INTRODUCTION Translation is one of the language skills, which is very crucial to be learned by translators and students in the relevant field of study who are eager to be a professional translator in the future. According to Malkjaer (2011), translation is a sort of activity which is done by a translator at conveying meaning in a text from one language to another language. Both researchers stated that the result of translated-work is not supposed to be like what has been written in the source language (SL) text; however, the purpose of the source language should be conveyed when it comes to the target text (TL). Waldorf (2013) states that translation is a process of mobilizing the meaning of a particular text from one language to the close equivalent of the target language (TL). Hence, based on the explanations that have been revealed by Malkjaer and Waldorf, translation can be concluded as the process of transferring ideas from one language to another language. Therefore, the translators are only transferring the ideas without changing the purposes of a source text (SL). The purpose of the text in the translation work means the precise meaning of the source text should be conveyed in the target text. In addition, the translators Published by International Society of English Language Studies. Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) have to realize that they are only stating the same ideas as written 1 in source language text from one language to another language without changing the ideas that have been written in the source text. Hence, the translators are expected to have a better understanding of the source text before they translate a text from the source language to the target language. According to the study that has been conducted by Risku (2016) stated that most translators’ clients are not satisfied with the quality of their translators’ work because sometimes the purpose or the intention of the source language text is not conveyed when it comes to the target language text. As a result, the credibility of translators is underestimated because their works do not suit the clients’ needs. Further, Risku (2016) stated it is important for translators to have further discussion with their clients in terms of how the translation result is expected. Therefore, there will be no misunderstanding in the translation result after it is being translated by translators, and the result can be accepted by the clients. There is a number of studies about translation that have been conducted, primarily the studies about translation problems. 1n 2014, a study entitled “Theory and problems in translation” has been conducted Bharathi. His study attempted to investigate