To investigate L2 adolescent learners’ use of machine translation (MT), an MT error correction (EC) test was developed, based on the analysis of MT errors arising from translating the learners’ L1 of middle school EFL textbooks. Learners were also asked to report on their use of MT EC strategies on the EC task. Results indicated that mistranslated sentence and verb tense are the most difficult types of MT errors to correct. Furthermore, to resolve MT errors, guessing from context and literal translations were the two most frequently employed EC strategies. When multiple regression analysis was conducted to examine the contribution of EC strategies to the learners’ ability to correct errors, the mid proficiency learners’ reliance on literal translations and the low proficiency learners’ use of multiple EC strategies were positively associated with improved corrections of MT errors. The results of the study are discussed in light of how L2 learners need to develop competence for using MT in L2 writing.

This study analyzed the translation strategies of Korean culture-specific items displayed on the Korea.net Arabic website, the government’s representative overseas PR media. 25 articles with a large number of culture-specific items were selected and analyzed among 74 articles published in the Culture section of the Korea.net Arabic website for a total of 7 months from August 2020 to February 2021. The themes of the selected 25 cultural articles were the contents of related cultural events according to the period, such as Chuseok and New Year’s Day, Kimchi-making Season, Lotus Lantern Festival, and Hangeul Day. Culture-specific items were classified into proper nouns such as country, administrative districts, place name, and building name, and other cultural elements such as food, clothing, holidays, according to the classification method of Lee Geun-hee(2008). As expected, a number of strategies to convey meaning along with transliteration appeared as part of an effort to inform Arab readers of Korean culture-specific items. However, it found the need to establish norms or unified standards for culture-specific items translation strategies, especially in transliteration.