Translating Europe Forum 2024

We promote language learning and translation. If Europeans are to be 'united in diversity', as the EU’s motto has it, we need to be able to understand languages other than our own.  Our annual Juvenes Translatores translation contest, which began in 2007, is targeted at 17-year old students who have a thirst for foreign languages. Learning languages will bring them closer and help them to understand each other’s cultures. And it will make it easier for students to study and work around Europe. Studies show the ever-growing need for translation and translators in Europe and it is useful for language students to be prepared for this. The Juvenes Translatores contest raises awareness of the importance of translation skills and the need to reassess translation — as a means of ‘mediating’ between languages — in the context of language learning.  You can also find us on Instagram.

The main goal of the EMT initiative is follows the EU's priorities for higher education: to improve the quality of translator training in order to enhance the integration in the labour market of young language professionals.
The EMT competence framework, drawn up by European experts, is at the core of the project. It defines the basic competences that translators need to acquire in order to work successfully in today's market. More and more universities, including some beyond the EU, are using EMT as a model for designing their programmes. By training highly skilled translators in close cooperation with the language industry, the EMT aims to enhance the long-term status of the whole translation profession in the EU.

The Language Industry Expert Group - known as LIND - consists of language industry experts providing DG Translation of the European Commission with expertise in translation, language data and language technologies in relation to the language industry. It is made up of influential language industry representatives and meets 3 or 4 times a year in Brussels.

Translating Europe workshops are part of the Translating Europe project, created to bring together translation stakeholders. The workshops complement the annual Translating Europe Forum and consist of smaller scale events, targeted at specialised audiences within national translation communities. They are organised by local field officers of the Directorate-General for Translation (DGT) stationed in the EU member states, often in cooperation with universities from the European Master's in Translation network and other partners in the language industry. Topics include terminology; machine translation; new language technologies such as artificial intelligence; the benefit of translation for businesses; audio-visual translation; localisation; the future of the language industry, and the translation market. Around 40 Translating Europe workshops are organised annually across the EU.

'Clear writing for Europe' is a drive within the European Commission to help staff to write shorter, simpler, jargon-free texts. Launched in 2010 to build on the earlier Fight the Fog campaign, it is managed by a team of DG Translation editors with help from colleagues across the Commission. Clear writing for Europe offers authors practical advice and online resources, such as the How to write clearly booklet in 24 official languages, a weekly clear-writing tip sent to Commission staff and an email helpline. It also rewards drafters of clearly written Commission texts with an annual Clear Writing Awards ceremony, and organises training and awareness-raising events for staff.

Read more about EU traineeship types in the EU institutions, bodies and agencies

Check the European Personnel Selection Office website for details.

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Terminology is at the heart of all translation work. As all good translators know, a reliable, extensive body of terminological data is essential to the provision of consistent, legally sound translation. IATE, the main resource for terminology at DG Translation, is the world’s largest terminology database, with around 7 million terms across all the EU’s official languages. DGT terminologists are responsible for around 70% of that content, and have an influence over the remaining entries. Not only do they curate and contribute to the database, but terminologists also support our translators by providing termbases and responding to helpdesk requests; they also maintain a lively interest in technological advances and look for ways to harness AI and other technologies in definition drafting and data curation.