Who does it better? : Comparing L1 to L2 translation results between foreign language students and translation students

Zlatnar Moe, Marija (author), Žigon, Tanja (author), Mikolič Južnič, Tamara (author)

The translation market is often characterised by a diverse group of translators, which includesthose withformal education in translationand those who study foreign languages. Foreign language study programmes in Slovenia have on occasion claimedto prepare students for the Slovenian translation market in a similar way to translation programmes;however,a previous study has shownthat this is not the case in translation from a foreign language into Slovenian. The study reported on here set out to uncover anydifferences in skills between the students of translation as opposed toforeign language programmes. The study focused ontheir ability to translate from Slovenian into a second language (L2), as this is an expected skill on the translation market. In the article, we first compare three foreign language study programmes and a translation study programmein terms oftranslation into an L2. Secondly, we present the results of translation quality assessment of translations from Slovenian into an L2 (English, German and Italian). The results show that thetwo groups ofstudents approached and performed the task differently, in several of the analysed categories, highlighting the role of translation training and enhancement of L1 competence for the development of translation competence.

• Language: English
• Keywords: foreign language students, translation students, translation quality assessment, translation into L2, L1 competence
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 01.01.2026
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: Str. 68–84
• Numbering: Vol. 18, no. 1
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-179992
• UDC: 81'25
• ISSN on article: 1836-9324
• DOI: 10.12807/ti.118201.2026.a05
• COBISS.SI-ID: 269908483
• Publication date in RUL: 27.02.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Tranǂslation & Interpreting
• Publisher: University of Western Sydney
• ISSN: 1836-9324
• COBISS.SI-ID: 523559449

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: študenti tujih jezikov, študenti prevajanja, vrednotenje kakovosti prevoda, prevajanje iz maternega v tuji jezik, jezikovne kompetence v maternem jeziku

Projects

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: P6-0265
• Name: Medkulturne literarnovedne študije

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: P6-0446
• Name: Teoretično, opisno in uporabno prevodoslovje