The main purpose of this study is to investigate problems that are faced by university student as novice translators. To find research questions, the author uses qualitative descriptive method. The subjects of this study were third semester students of Arabic Language Education major who took the TarjamahTamhidy course at Kudus Islamic University. The researcher's data analysis and process is carried out by reading the documents, analyzing, categorizing the findings and finally concluding them. Some of the problems found were 1) concluding ideas; 2) determining equivalences; 3) identify syntactic functions; 4) rewriting text messages; and 5) adjusting the target language norms. Based on this finding, the researcher concluded several factors that were the cause, such as language competence, vocabulary mastery, topic comprehension, and writing skills.