Translation training and language instruction at the academic level

The aim of this paper is to make a point in a discussion whether and to what extent it is advisable to incorporate language instruction activities into the translation course. Although translation competence is often perceived as a set of sub-competencies that always includes language skills, regardless of the theoretical framework adopted, it is generally assumed that language proficiency of students taking a translation course at the university is adequate to undertake such tasks. However, as experience shows, novice translators frequently struggle with language problems unexpected at that level. Based on an experiment conducted with students of English philology attending a translation course at the Pedagogical University of Cracow, the author of this paper presents challenges and areas of linguistic problems faced by inexperienced translators, proposing solutions that might be useful for a translation trainer designing such a course. A reference is made to a reversed concept of translation as the fifth skill in learning a foreign language. This controversial idea of using translation in a language class, rejected by the modern language teaching approach as deriving from the traditional grammar-translation method, has been recently gaining popularity among teachers and researchers. The findings in this area may be of practical value for both translation teachers and language instructors.