A sample of junior students majoring in translation was enrolled in an Arabization course. The students received direct instruction in word formation processes in English and Arabic such as compounding, derivation, back formation, conversion, blends, clipping, acronyms and neologisms. Focus was on similarities and differences between English and Arabic word formation processes and how English lexical items in each category can be translated into Arabic. Although the students had completed several translation and interpreting courses prior to the Arabization course, post-test results showed that the students had difficulty recognizing, understanding the meaning of, translating English neologisms into Arabic. The subjects tended to translate words literally rather than conceptually and gave a single-word equivalent rather than a borrowing, periphrasis or explanatory equivalent Students' difficulties with English neologism were due to unfamiliarity with neologisms, lack of background knowledge, inability to infer the meaning of neologisms from context.