Building on the fact that 'I mean' is one of the basic features of an interactive spontaneous speech, it is hypothesized that the function and meaning of 'I mean' should be interpreted in light of pragmatic (and contextual) aspects of the interaction. However, failure to communicate/translate 'I mean' is likely to take place when it introduces an utterance that does not actually refer backwards to something (and) not shared by the participants in the interaction. Consequently, lack of this pragmatic competence may result in communicative / translation failure. It is also hypothesized that intimacy of the participants in an interaction and its degree of formality determines the use and meaning of 'I mean'. Moreover, due to the fact that our student-translators have no actual exposure to the English language use, they are likely to have inappropriate use of discourse markers in general and 'I mean" in particular. Again failure to translate them into Arabic is most likely.