Brussels, 03/02/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 3 February, the European Commission published the names of the 27 winners of the annual Young Translators' Contest, known as “Juvenes Translatores”, a winner for each EU member state. Over 3,000 secondary school pupils in total sat the contest in November 2011. With 400 more participants than last year, this was the highest number of entrants since the competition was created in 2007. Winners will be invited to Brussels on 27 March to receive their prizes and to meet translators at work in the Commission.
“This contest encourages pupils to get to grips with foreign languages in a deeper way and to consider using their knowledge in their future career, whether as a translator or in any other professional field where multilingualism is an asset”, said Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth. The contest also encourages schools to take part and to test various methods of language-teaching.
The German winner, for instance, wanted to go to a music school in Hungary so, as well as perfecting her skills on the flute and piano, she also learned to speak Hungarian. The Romanian winner wrote a biophysics paper which was partly based on technical English source material that she translated herself. With her knowledge of French, German, Dutch, English and Spanish, the Luxembourg winner truly embodies her country's multilingual tradition. The contestants all translated a one-page text based on their choice of any of the 506 language combinations possible among the EU's 23 official languages. Although many chose English as a source language, the total number of language combinations used was 148, which was the highest since the contest was first launched. The texts to be translated this year tackled the theme of voluntary work with each language featuring on different facets of the subject. For example, the Dutch text focused on restoring a church in Tuscany, the French on beach cleaning, and the Polish on working in a Chilean school for under-privileged children. The volunteering theme evidently provided inspiration for a number of young contestants from different countries as some decided to then become volunteers for the Red Cross or other NGOs. (LC/transl.jl)