News

Under the supervision of Dr. Abdullah Al-Melhi, Dean, and represented by Dr. Eyhab A. Bader Eddin, Lecturer, the Faculty of Languages and Translation (clt) collaborated with the Deanship of Community Service and Continuing Education to offer an intensive 18-hour course titled "Introduction to General Translation". Concluded on March 8, 2017, the course took place in the Al Qimma room, located on the 2nd floor of Building 4. Dr. Al-Melhi underscored the importance of bespoke, in-depth short courses in meeting market demands and enhancing knowledge acquisition.

The course participants were predominantly English teachers from the Ministry of Education, with representation from the military sector and the Ministry of Health. The instruction was provided by Dr. Eyhab A. Bader Eddin, a skilled expert in translation with prior experience in the European Union and United Nations.

Dr. Bader Eddin simplified the complex facets of translation for the participants, commencing the course with a brief historical overview of translation and then delving into its core elements. The initial session introduced general characteristics of English and Arabic statements, addressing issues such as syntactic mismatch in both languages and strategies to navigate these inherent challenges.

Subsequent sessions tackled the importance of linguistic phenomena like hyponymy and homonymy in translation, dissected specific issues in lexical semantics, and introduced stylistic features of headlines with relevant data from official newspapers. Participants were engaged in translating numerous headlines, discussing the elements of a quality translation and identifying pitfalls. Translation quality assessment techniques were also reviewed.

Further sessions explored the translation of non-finite clauses and if-conditional in both languages, underscoring the resulting nuances of meaning. Participants spent time translating a variety of short texts, from journalistic and political to scientific and literary. Significant focus was given to the challenges of translating idiomatic expressions and proverbs, highlighting the cultural richness in both languages.

To reinforce understanding, weekly assignments were distributed, corrected, and returned. Anonymous individual feedback was collected through evaluation forms to inform future course design. The course concluded with a ceremony where certificates of attendance were distributed to those who attended at least 80% of the course. Dr. Mubarak Al-Hamdan, Dean of Community Service, and Dr. Al-Melhi participated in the closing ceremony and extended their best wishes to the attendees.

Participants provided glowing reviews about the course, with anonymous testimonials stating: "Active learning has been seen in an interesting environment. Teaching has been conducted in a way that comforts students or learners and attracts them." Another participant added, "An excellent course, I hope that it continues for several times so that we can benefit from it." A third trainee shared, "First, thank you so much for this great course. This course changed my ways in translation."

For those who wish to learn more about the course, the first lecture can be viewed by clicking here.