The present study investigates whether students’ familiarity with the meaning and the most common translation equivalents of phrasal verb particles plays a constructive role in the translation of phrasal verbs. To address this, a survey was conducted to assess the translation proficiency of 40 high school students at the B1 level of English proficiency whose native language is Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian. The survey aimed to determine the students’ proficiency
in translating two distinct sets of phrasal verbs and to identify which of these sets presented greater challenges. The first set comprised ten phrasal verbs which, when translated into BCS,incorporate a preposition in their translation equivalents. In contrast, the second set included ten sentences containing English phrasal verbs that are translated into BCS using a verb without a preposition. The results revealed a higher overall accuracy rate in the translation of the first set of phrasal verbs, thereby confirming the research hypothesis. These findings suggest that BCS ELLs may acquire such phrasal verbs more easily, with potential implications for the teaching, learning and translation of phrasal verbs at the B1 level.
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