What is it about?
Foreign language courses, preparatory to translation classes in university sections, should be tailored to the real needs of students. Since translators are now more and more required to translate into their foreign language (L2), especially when this language is English, the courses need to focus on the skill of producing target language texts that are acceptable for the reader of that language. For instance, grammar courses, instead of being delivered according to the standard order set in textbooks, should mainly address the real problems encountered by students when writing L2 target texts.
Why is it important?
What is unique about this work is that it addresses the issue of foreign language competence in light of the recent development in translation directionality. In addition, it is based on a study that looked into the difficulties, namely grammatical ones, encountered by students at two different levels of their studies: one immediately after completing two standard grammar courses, the other after being exposed to a big number of authentic English texts in their translation classes. As in this latter case, the rules triggering errors are duly addressed by translation instructors, students' ablity to produce L2 target texts has greatly improved. The call for grammaical rules to be taught as part of real texts is therefore well-justified.