The European Commission is currently running their young translator award for the third year. The competition is aimed at schoolchildren and gives them a chance to test their language skills by carrying out a translation of a document into a language of their choice. Several previous winners have gone on to study translation at university. All secondary schools within Europe can apply to enter, although only a few will be accepted due to limited numbers. Those schools will be selected randomly and will need to name five students to take part in the competition.

This year’s competition is open to students who were born in 1992 and will be held on November 24th. Students can translate into any of the EU’s 23 official languages and must state the languages they wish to translate from and into beforehand. The text will be sent to the school on the day of the competition and students will be allowed two hours to complete their translation.

The competition is to be judged by a panel of professional translators and they will decide each member state’s best translation. An award ceremony will then be held in Brussels, where the winners will meet the European Commissioner for Multilingualism as well as professional EU translators.