Malaysia is a multinational country with its citizens speaking a variety of languages. Each race in this country uses its respective mother tongue for daily purposes besides the national language and English. This is due to the national education system where, national type primary schools use mother tongue as a medium of instruction. As a matter of fact, the Ministry of Education is also encouraging the students to learn a third language i.e. Tamil or Mandarin. Meanwhile, some of the higher learning institutions (IPTA) offer such languages as international language to their undergraduates. The aim of this paper is to discuss some of the problems encountered by the non-native medical students in University Malaysia Sabah, particularly, in the translation of sentences from English to Tamil, where the underlying reasons for such problems will be addressed. The paper also discusses some solutions to overcome these problems.