Translation studies has given more attention to translation competence in recent time to figure out what a translator needs to possess in order to come up with a professional and accurate translation. The present study aims at investigating translation competence with a view to measure Iraqi EFL Learners’ translation competence. A test has been administered to the Iraqi EFL learners to translate a text, which is full with cultural expressions, from English into Arabic. Five translations have been selected and analysed. Finally, some of the findings have been reached among these is that EFL learners possess an appropriate linguistic competence, but they lack a key component, namely the cultural competence component.
Keywords: Competence, Culture-Bound Expressions, translation
