I.

Word choice
Vocabulary knowledge is the most important component of linguistic knowledge, because
without sufficient vocabulary, students cannot communicate with others; they can neither
understand others nor express their own ideas. Wilkins (1972, pp. 111–12) considers that
without grammar, very little can be conveyed, but without vocabulary, nothing can be
conveyed. And the same thing happens with translation. It is widely acknowledged that
vocabulary is an essential part of correctly and naturally translating a language and
translation accuracy depends on the command of vocabulary knowledge.

Another part that makes up vocabulary is words, which are necessary for any language
learners to build their own vocabulary to get advantages in their language learning. However,
if you learn only individual words without learning how to combine them, or otherwise called
word choice, then you will have difficulties translating Vietnamese texts containing phrases
that need a fixed English translation. Therefore, a word-by-word translation cannot do the
job.

According to Mathieu (2003), lexical choices made by translators influence the meaning of
the target text. Furthermore, when used in context, every single word in the dictionaries will
have a clear meaning. On the other hand, because one word contains millions of meanings, it
can be comprehended if it is put in phrases. As a result, the context of the text will provide
light on the apparent meaning of the term itself. Furthermore, word-choice concerns may be
overcome by checking appropriate dictionaries to determine the specific meaning of each and
every word, translating collocations and idioms that have significance on their own, and
determining the synonym or antonym of each word. Hence, in this way, the translation will
not be read monotonously by the readers.

With a translated text, when learners have no difficulty in word choice, it is easy for them to
translate the source langugae into the target one. In contrast, they are likely to fail translating.
Let’s take a look at the following examples:

When translating the sentence "trời đang mưa rất to", if the learners or translators do not have
knowledge of word choice, it will easily lead to the sentence above being translated into
English as: "it is raining big" or "it is raining largely”. However, the correct translation
should be: “It is raining heavily”.
Another example is the Vietnamese word "uống". In Vietnamese, the word “uống” can be
combined with nouns that indicate liquid and drinkable things, such as beverage, alcohol, and
medicine and liquid food like soup. However, there is a difference when we use the word
“drink”, which is the English translation of “uống”. You will find that native speakers use
drink with beverage or alcohol, but for medicine or even poison, they will use the word
“take” rather than the word “drink”
To drink beer/coffee, wine, or water;
To take medicine/poison;
To drink medicine/poison.
One more example that will show us how word choices affect our Vietnamese – English
translation is the word “nói”. Let's examine the following paragraph.
“Tuấn nói rằng anh ấy là một người có khiếu ngoại ngữ và anh ấy có thể nói rất nhiều thứ
tiếng như French, Germany, Japanese, Italian và Korean. Anh ta còn nói rằng hiện tại anh ta
đang học để nói được tiếng Trung Quốc. Tôi không nghĩ là anh ta đang nói thật và tôi cho
rằng là anh ta đang nói dối.”
If the translator has little experience in word choices, they will most likely translate the above
passage into English into:
“Tuan says that he is a person with a gift for foreign languages and that he can say many
languages such as French, German, Japanese, Italian and Korean. He also says that he is
currently learning to say Chinese. I don't think he's saying the truth and I think he's saying a
lie.”
In Vietnamese, we can say “nói một ngôn ngữ”, “nói một sự thật”, or “nói dối”. However,
when the word “nói” is translated as “say” in English, if we keep the way it collaborates with
other words like in Vietnamese, this will lead to some funny and unnatural sentences or
phrases to native speakers such as to say a lie, to say. a language. These phrases should be “to
tell a lie” and “to speak a language”.

These unnatural translations above all stem from our lack of knowledge about english
collocations or how words are collaborated, or we are used to translating from one language
to another by word-by-word translation. Although translating word-by-word is not
necessarily that native speakers cannot understand what you want to convey, it will lead to
phrases or sentences that sound funny and unnatural, or even a few cases where the listener
will misunderstand what you want to convey, leading to the translation losing its original
meaning.

In conclusion, vocabulary in general and word choices in particular play an important role in
translating Vietnamese into English. How many meanings or collaborations of a word we
know will bring to us many advantages in translation process and thus there will be many
chances for the translation to keep its original meaning intact.     

II. Cultural awareness:

Culture may be defined as the whole of a society's members' beliefs, attitudes, conventions,
actions, social habits, and so on. It encompasses modalities of production, productive
activities, community structure, spiritual life, knowledge of nature and society, emotions, and
moral notions in a wide sense. Language is viewed as both a component of culture and a
network through which other cultural factors function. As a result, language employs nearly
all other cultural aspects in order to develop its universal and self-sufficient character. It
might be argued that we will not be able to translate correctly from this to that language until
we understand its link to its culture. 

Mathieu's (2003) explanation of cultural difficulties is quite similar to Wolfram Wills'

explanation. Both indicated that cultural issues are those that deal with the differences in
cultural backgrounds of the two countries, as well as their values and ideological
perspectives. Furthermore, according to Mathieu (2003), cultural references such as cuisine
and festival cultural implications may be difficult to translate into the target language. As a
result, translators must devise a technique of modifying the meaning or intent of the source
text into the target text by taking into account the method of translating a text that contains
various cultural words that must be effectively translated. For example:

When describing an object purchased by a large number of people in Vietnamese, the saying
"bán đắt như tôm tươi" is used. Our culture, however, differs from that of English-speaking
countries. Direct translation of words carrying cultural features of one nation into the
language of the second country is likely to result in unnaturalness and make it difficult for the
reader to comprehend the meaning of the phrase.

If we translate "bán t nh tôm ti" directly into English, neglecting the cultural variations
between the source and target texts, we will end up with an idiom that is odd and unnatural to
native speakers: “To sell like fresh shrimps.”

The correct and natural translation should be: "to sell like hot cakes."

Translation is a type of action that entails at least two languages and two cultural traditions.
As the phrase suggests, translators are constantly faced with the dilemma of determining how
to approach the cultural features hidden in a source text (ST) and determining the best
technique for properly transmitting these aspects in the target language (TL). The breadth of
these issues will vary based on the cultural and linguistic divide between the two (or more)
languages involved. 

It is well known that Banh Chung and Banh Giay are traditional meals eaten on major
occasions in Vietnam, but there is no corresponding name in English to explain them. Some
translators, however, rendered both terms automatically as "Chung cake" and "Giay cake."
For example:

"Bánh Chưng là một loại bánh cổ truyền của Việt Nam và nó được làm từ gạo nếp, đậu xanh,
thịt lợn, và các nguyên liệu khác."

Some translators may mechanically convert this sentence into English as:

"Chung Cake is a traditional Vietnamese food, and it is made from glutinous rice, mung
beans, pork, and other ingredients."

To represent the cultural aspects of Vietnam, it would be preferable to write "Banh Chung"
and "Banh Giay," same as "croissant" in French and "spizza" in Italian. So, the correct
translation of the sentence above should be: "Banh Chung is a traditional Vietnamese food,
and it is made from glutinous rice, mung beans, pork, and other ingredients."
 The cultural consequences of translation might range from lexical content and syntax to
ideas and ways of living in a certain society. The translator must also assess how important
certain cultural features are and whether or not they should be translated into the TL. The
ST's goals will have an impact on translation as well as the targeted readership for both the
ST and the target text (TT). 

Summing up all of the translation issues raised above, we can conclude that translators must
be fully aware of the importance of selecting words from the dictionary selectively, because
the majority of the issues raised above always involve lexical ambiguity, which occurs when
words have more than one meaning. Furthermore, the words will be completely understood if
they are used in a certain context of conversation. Furthermore, translators are expected to
have a global perspective in order to interpret cultural words correctly, as most translators fail
to translate cultural references such as values, ideological viewpoints, meals, and other
cultural terms in the target text.