IP/09/1261 Brussels, 1 September 2009 EU young translator contest enters its third year The third Juvenes Translatores contest for EU secondary schools gets under way today with the opening of the registration period. “Juvenes Translatores ”, which means “young translators ” in Latin, will have the chance to try their hand at translating a text into a language of their choice and to win a prize. This increasingly popular contest will be along the same lines as have proven so successful in the previous two rounds. All secondary schools wishing to take part can register from 1 September through to 20 October . "A contest that started off as a pilot project has developed into a much-awaited highlight of the school year", is how Leonard Orban, Commissioner for Multilingualism, put it. "The purpose of the contest is to give students a chance to use the language skills they have learnt, to try ”working” as a translator, and to raise awareness of the art of translation. The feedback from schools and participants in the previous contests shows that these goals were achieved. "We are particularly happy that some of the winners are now studying translation at university", Commissioner Orban said. In the first phase, secondary schools from all Member States are invited to register using the on-line form available on the contest website http://ec.europa.eu/translatores A number of the schools from each Member State that have registered will be randomly selected by computer. As the number of schools is limited, the basis for selection is the number of votes that each Member State has in the Council of the European Union multiplied by two (see table below). France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom 58 Poland, Spain 54 Romania 28 Netherlands 26 Belgium, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Portugal 24 Austria, Bulgaria, Sweden 20 Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Lithuania, Slovakia 14 Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Luxembourg, Slovenia 8 Malta 6 In the second phase, each school should submit the names of up to five students born in 1992. At the same time, the students should choose the language from and into which they intend to translate. They are free to choose from any of the 23 official EU languages (for example, from Polish into Romanian or from Maltese into Finnish). The contest will be held on 24 November 2009, with the translations being done at the same time in all Member States under the supervision of the schools. Contestants will have two hours to translate a text sent to the schools shortly before the competition starts. Contestants may use dictionaries, but not electronic devices. After the contest, the translations will be marked by a panel consisting of professional translators from the Commission’s Directorate-General for Translation, and the contest jury will choose the best translation from each Member State. All winners will be invited to an award ceremony in Brussels in the presence of the European Commissioner for Multilingualism. During their trip to Brussels the winners will have time to get to know one another and also to meet a number of EU translators. Juvenes Translatores website: http://ec.europa.eu/translatores Languages in the EU: http://europa.eu/languages/en/home DG Translation: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/translation/