Students’ Errors in Using Simple Past Tense in Indonesian Folklore Translated Text

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to describe the kinds of errors in the use of simple past tense in narrative translation text. The data of this study were taken from the translation assignment done by the sixth-semester students of the English Department in University of Widya Dharma Pontianak in academic year 2019/2020. This study is done by using the descriptive qualitative method.  The data are taken from 24 translated texts produced by 24 students. The instrument used in this study is translation assignment, where they were asked to translate the Indonesian folklore into English. The data is analyzed by following some steps which are collecting the translation data from students, identifying the errors, classifying the errors based on the types of errors, then showing and explaining the errors in percentage in descriptions. The results of the study show that there were some errors in using the simple past tense that occurred in the students’ translation texts. The errors were classified into four types of errors namely addition errors, omission errors, missed ordering errors and missed formation errors. In percentage, the total frequency of errors is 531 with 83 (15.6%,) addition errors, 101 (19.1%) omission errors, 58 (10.9%) missed ordering errors and 289 (54.4%) missed formation errors. The highest frequency of error made by the students has missed formation errors and the lowest frequency of errors is missed ordering errors.

Keywords: translation, error analysis, simple past tense, narrative text, folklore