Comprehension in Translation If we ask people who know English whether they understand the following sentence “This car is very powerful” they all say they do. Their comprehension is based on two elements. One is their knowledge of the words and grammar of the English language. But this is not enough. In different contexts and in different situations the word “powerful” may mean different things: “ a powerful car “ in the advertisement is not the same as “ a powerful method” for solving a problem , or “a powerful man” in felling trees, though the three “powerfuls” do not have smth in common. Similarly, the word “car” can mean not only an automobile , but also according to Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language it means “ a streetcar; an elevator cage; a part of the balloon which carries people and equipment” . “Understanding” the above sentence means that those hearing or reading it can imagine automobile, probably big, that can run very fast. This is where the second element of comprehension comes in: besides knowledge of the language comprehension implies knowledge of the outside world, called extralinguistic knowledge or encyclopedic knowledge or background knowledge. Comprehension varies from non-comprehension to full comprehension. Total non-comprehension of verbal statements is extremely rare, since the situation and/or content almost always say smth about its meaning. The problem of full comprehension is rather more difficult to deal with. The subjective feeling of comprehension that arise in the reader’s or listener’s mind is not always a reliable indicator of the actual level of comprehension. A good illustration of this fact is found in a typical phenomenon which occurs often in the translator’s profession: when first reading a text before agreeing to translate it, practitioners may feel that it poses no comprehension