The Investigation of Problems and Translation Strategies from Thai into English of Sakon Nakhon Rajabhat University Students

The main objectives of this study were to explore the difficulties that SNRU students encountered when translating sentences and to examine the translation strategies they used when translating from Thai into English. Using the purposive sampling method, 74 SNRU students were chosen to participate in this study. These students were divided into three major disciplines of study: 32 B.E. students, 21 B.A. students, and 21 B.Ed. students. Semi-structured interview questions and a questionnaire were used to collect data. The questionnaire was used to examine quantitative data, which was then presented as percentages. Content analysis was used to analyze qualitative data which are collected from semi-structured interview. Three inter-raters were asked to verify data from the semi-structured interview. The findings showed that five types of translation issues were identified. Word choice problems were the most common, accounting for 30%, followed by grammatical issues at 24.75%. Rhetorical and cultural translation challenges were also frequently encountered, making up 17.36%. Pragmatic problems were the least frequent, representing 10.60% of the issues. In addition, the study identified several strategies used by participants to overcome translation challenges, some of which were innovative while others were familiar. In comparison to the other newly revealed strategies, the most common strategy was translating using internet resources.