School translators to battle it out for the third time
Up to 3 000 school students from all over Europe, including Kalix near the Arctic Circle in Sweden, Heraklion in Crete, Saint Martin in the West Indies and Paralimni in Cyprus, will be testing their language skills in the third Juvenes Translatores contest organised on 24 November. The translation contest, whose name means “young translators ” in Latin, is held simultaneously in all the participating schools, from 10 to 12 Brussels time (GMT+1) under the supervision of the schools .
“T he translation contest for young people has become a much-awaited opportunity to test the language skills learnt at school in a real-life situation and to get a taste of the work of a professional translator ”, explained Leonard Orban, Commissioner for Multilingualism. "We have also learnt that the success in the contest has encouraged some contestants to take up language studies. This is good news, because a study to be published soon suggests that jobs in the language industry are doing well and have a bright future", Commissioner Orban said.
This year's contest was launched in September, when all interested upper secondary schools in the EU were free to register for participation. From all these, 600 schools were chosen in a random selection, and their names were published on the contest website
http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/translation/programmes/jt/selected/selected_schools_en.htm
Up to five pupils (who have to be 17 years old) from each selected school will do a translation test on the contest day. They will receive a short text by e-mail in the morning, and will have two hours to translate it as fluently as possible from a language of their choosing into any other of the EU's 23 official language.
After the test, the translations will be sent to the Commission, where translators from the Directorate-General for Translation will evaluate and mark them. The contest jury will choose the best translation from each Member State, and publish the names of the winners on the contest website http://ec.europa.eu/translatores at the end of January 2010.
Feedback from the two previous contests indicates that teachers generally appreciate this opportunity to promote foreign language learning. Pupils like the challenge and the adventure and feel motivated knowing that other pupils in other countries are translating the same text. On the other hand, schools found the age limit too restrictive, hoping that more pupils could participate. Some found the text too long, and some wanted more time for translating.
As in previous years, all winners win a trip to an award ceremony in Brussels to receive their prize and to meet a number of EU translators. It remains to be seen if this opportunity will have an effect on their plans for the future.
For more information:
Juvenes Translatores website: http://ec.europa.eu/translatores
DG Translation: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/translation/
Published on: 2009-11-23
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