International Journal of English Linguistics; Vol. 6, No. 2; 2016 ISSN 1923-869X E-ISSN 1923-8703 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 118 English Translational Errors Encountered by Arab Natives Islam Ababneh 1 1 Department of Languages and Translation, Faculty of Education and Arts, University of Tabuk, Saudi Arabia Correspondence: Islam Ababneh, Department of Languages and Translation, Faculty of Education and Arts, University of Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. E-mail: iababneh@ut.edu.sa Received: November 19, 2015 Accepted: December 30, 2015 Online Published: March 28, 2016 doi:10.5539/ijel.v6n2p118 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ijel.v6n2p118 Abstract This study aims to highlight errors in translating Arabic phrases and expressions into English. It is part of a research that attempts to establish some cultural connections between those translational mistakes and the embedded Arabic and Saudi religious and cultural factors that influence making such errors. To achieve the set goal, the researcher observed many written English signs around the city of Tabuk in a period of two years and then archived and analyzed the various translation mistakes collected from universities’ announcements, religious flyers, hospital signs, bill board signs, shops and malls signs, personal signs...etc. The errors were classified into four categories: Singular/Plural, Sentence Structure and Syntax, Word Choice, and Spelling errors. Then a quiz was given to selected female English major students at the University of Tabuk; the quiz contained the same observed mistakes collected earlier. Therefore, the sample of the study was very diverse in its nature of Saudi Arabs and Arabs from other Arab countries that came to live and work in the city of Tabuk; while the students who took the quiz were all of Saudi nationality. It was concluded that the reasons Arab people who publish English translations fail to transfer the Arabic equivalence of English phrases and expressions are mainly due to literal translation and influencing cultural factors that make those people unfamiliar with the use of the right English words in their proper context. Keywords: translation, cultural, expressions, Arabic/English, Saudi 1. Introduction Transferring a message into another language is not an easy task since it needs more than just knowing vocabulary and language grammar to form sentences but depends on knowing the appropriate use of words within their correct cultural context. The content, style, idioms, and context is to be transferred from the source language into the target language; and the translator preferably should be an expert in a particular field to know the terms and vocabularies related to the specific field. Therefore, translation is more about transferring the meaning of sentences from one language into another language since word for word translation does not take into account the context, grammar, conventions, and idioms Newmark (1988) explained that cultural expressions can be found in proverbs, collocations, phrasal verbs and figures of speech including metaphors. He explained that foreign cultural expressions include ecological, material, and social cultures, social organizations expressions, political, religious, artistic, gestures and habits. Gaber (2005) explained that culture-bound words can be translated using five different techniques: • Cultural equivalence: words or phrases translated to their Arabic equivalence. • Functional equivalence: words/phrases translated to the target language using the same function in the source language. • Paraphrasing: word/phrase meaning is translated from the source language. • Glossing: additional information is given in a footnote or within the text to explain the cultural word or expression. • Borrowing: a word or phrase is borrowed from the source language and Arabize it. The translation of Arabic words and expressions to English should account for the Arabic cultural context. However, not all researchers consider cultural aspects in translation. For example, Catford (1965) defined translation as simply the replacement of textual material in one language by equivalent textual material in another language. Newmark (1981) stated that translation is a craft consisting of the attempt to replace a written