Challenges Faced by level 4 Students in Consecutive Interpreting from English into Arabic

Abstract

This study was designed to focus on one of the practical difficulties in translation, which is simultaneous interpreting faced by fourth-year translation students at the University of Science and Technology – Sana’a, Yemen. This descriptive study aimed to explore the difficulties of simultaneous interpreting, the reasons behind these difficulties, and to suggest some solutions to overcome them. To achieve these goals, the researcher conducted a test and a closed-ended questionnaire for 8 female translation students at the University of Science and Technology in the academic year 2025-2026 to identify the difficulties they face in simultaneous interpreting and the reasons behind these difficulties. The researcher also conducted an interview with two expert translation teachers to identify solutions that could overcome these difficulties. The study results show that fourth-year translation students face significant difficulties in simultaneous interpreting, as only 37.5% of the students (3 out of 8) performed well on the test, while 62.5% did not. The researcher found that the most prominent area of difficulty was vocabulary, which received the lowest score. The researcher also identified from the interview some solutions that may help fourth-year students overcome these difficulties.