Bulgarian students from the High School in the town of Etropole participate in the "Juvenes Translatores" contest. Photo by EC
The names of the 27 winners of the "Young Translators" contest, held by the European Commission, were announced in Brussels by the EC and the European Commissioner for Multilingualism, Leonard Orban.
"I'm pleased to see that schools across Europe have embraced the contest so enthusiastically", Orban commented. "The contest provides a true challenge in testing the language skills learned at school. At the same time, students get a foretaste of what it is like to work as a translator".
The entries to the "Juvenes Translatores" contest ("Young Translators" in Latin) were evaluated by a panel of professional translators and revisers from the European Commission's Directorate-General for Translation (DGT). The jury has been impressed by the high standard пїЅ" 10% of the pupils obtained a mark in the top range of the scale.
Each anonymous translation was marked by a native speaker of the language into which the text was translated. A board chaired by the Director-General of DGT then picked out the best translation from each Member State.
The 27 winners from European high schools won a three-day trip to Brussels for themselves and for one accompanying adult. They will receive their prizes and certificates from Leonard Orban, during a special award ceremony on 3 April.
2247 pupils from 593 schools in the EU took part in the second edition of the translation contest which was held on 27 November 2008 at the same time in all Member States and supervised by the schools.
Participants were given two hours to translate a text on the topic of multilingualism from one of the 23 official languages of the EU into another official language of their choice. The Commission received translations covering all official languages and 147 language combinations.
The winner from Bulgaria is Stephanie Hadzhiiska, student from the Spanish Language High School "Miguel de Cervantes" in Sofia. Stephanie's translation was from English to Bulgarian.
The names of the winning students, their schools together with the winning translations are published on the website http://ec.europa.eu/translation/contest/index_en.htm.