EFL STUDENTS STRATEGIES OF TRANSLATING READING PASSAGES AR-RANIRY STUDENTS EXPERIENCES

Translation plays a crucial role in helping EFL students understand and convey meaning between English and Indonesian, particularly in academic settings where reading comprehension often depends on students' ability to translate texts accurately and naturally. However, many EFL students still rely heavily on word-for-word translation, which frequently produces sentences that are grammatically awkward or semantically distorted. This study, therefore, aims to investigate the translation strategies used by EFL students of the English Language Education Department at UIN Ar-Raniry when translating English reading passages into Indonesian, and to examine how these strategies affect the quality of their translation results. Specifically, the study seeks to answer two research questions: (1) what types of translation strategies are utilized by the EFL participants in translating reading passages, and (2) how do these strategies affect the participants' translation results. Using a qualitative research design with a content analysis approach grounded in Newmark's (1988) translation theory, the researcher collected data from ten purposively selected students of the 2022 batch through a hands-on translation test and an open-ended questionnaire. The findings reveal that five of Newmark's eight translation methods were used by the participants: word-for-word translation (40%), literal translation (20%), semantic translation (20%), idiomatic translation (10%), and communicative translation (10%), while faithful, adaptation, and free translation were not found. Word-for-word and literal translation, which stayed close to the English word order and word choice, tended to produce translations that were less natural and, in some cases, distorted the intended meaning, whereas semantic, idiomatic, and communicative translation more consistently produced translations that were both accurate and natural to read. The questionnaire results further reveal that unfamiliar vocabulary, idiomatic expressions, long or complex sentences, and grammatical differences between English and Indonesian were the main difficulties reported by the participants, and that fear of missing information or producing an incorrect translation was a common reason for relying on word-for-word translation. In conclusion, although word-for-word translation was the participants' most frequently used strategy, it was not their most effective one, since translation quality depended less on how many words a participant recognized than on whether they translated for meaning or for form. Based on these findings, it is recommended that EFL students reduce their reliance on word-for-word translation and focus on understanding overall meaning before translating, that teachers and lecturers provide structured practice comparing different translation strategies, and that future researchers examine translation strategies across a wider range of text types and larger, more diverse participant groups.