As the Kingdom’s need for language teaching increases, it is incumbent upon the College of Languages and Translation to provide citizens with the language skills necessary to support the communicative needs of the economic, scientific, and intellectual sectors of the country. 
The College was first established as a branch of The college of Arts in 1977. It was called The European Languages and Translation Center  

In 1990, it was transformed into the Institute of Languages and Translation; in 1994, the Institute was renamed the College of Languages and Translation. 

This change was urged by the wish to emphasize the high status of the Kingdom among the nations and to lay the foundation for the strong and unique relations it enjoys with international communities. 
The College offers ten bachelor-degree programs in ten modern languages:  English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Italian, Turkish, Hebrew, Farsi, and Japanese. 

Each program consists of three sub-divisions:  preparation in any of the ten modern languages, preparation in the Arabic language, and finally, theoretical and pragmatic training in written and oral translation.  The undergraduate plan is a five-year-long program.

The translation program at the College includes training in written and oral translation at four levels:  bi-lingual, consecutive, simultaneous, and visual.

The College takes into consideration these four types of translation in addressing the actual needs of the public and private sectors inside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.  Great emphasis has also been placed on various fields of written translation.

There is a pressing need for translation in making available the references and course textbooks for colleges in various applied sciences. This process is regarded as the main area of contribution in curricula-Arabization. In addition, there is an increasing demand for oral translation from the public and private sectors