This post is also available in: Spanish
Sara Occhipinti started as a freelance translator in 2003 and as a conference interpreter for the Joint Interpreting and Conference Service (SCIC) of the European Commission and for the Directorate-General for Interpretation (DG LINC) of the European Parliament in 2004. Since 2021, she has been a staff translator at the Directorate-General for Translation (DGT) of the European Commission. She holds a degree in Translation and Interpreting from the Universidad Alfonso X El Sabio (Spain) and a European Master’s degree in Conference Interpreting from the Universidad de la Laguna (Tenerife, Spain). Her language combination includes Spanish as language A, Italian as language B, and English, French and Romanian as language C. She has experience in interpreter training (Romania and Italy) and as a teacher of Spanish as a Foreign Language.
Job opportunities and new professional challenges for translators and interpreters in the European Commission
The workshop is divided into two parts: the first part will present the requirements, selection processes and job opportunities for translators or interpreters at the European Commission. In the second part, a brief analysis will be made of current challenges (Globish and new technologies) and how they impact on the daily work of interpreters and translators in the European Institutions.
The workshop will be held in Spanish.
Andrea Voicu holds a Master’s Degree in Translation and Conference Interpreting, awarded by the Institut de traducteurs, d’interprètes et de relations internationales (ITI-RI, University of Strasbourg, France). She also spent one year in Oxford, UK, and another one in Granada, Spain, for study purposes. After graduating, she worked as a freelance translator and conference interpreter for over four years, until she became an Official of the European Commission in March 2009 and joined the French language department of the Directorate-General for Translation (DGT). She currently works as a translator, coordinates the French component of the EC’s Clear Writing Campaign and often dedicates herself to trainee mentoring. Her working languages are French, English, Spanish, Romanian, Italian and Polish, and she is currently learning German. On a daily basis, she translates and reviews various types of texts, such as legislative acts, communications on the main areas of the Commission’s work, press releases, reports, speeches and legal briefs for the Court of Justice of the European Union.
At the heart of the European Union’s legal order: the role of translators
This workshop will give an insight into the Courts of the European Union and the role of the Commission’s Legal Service, including a short overview of the various types of legal proceedings. It will deal with the peculiarities of the EC Legal Service’s submissions and the sources of information and tools available to DGT translators. Attendants will be given practical examples and shown specific translation issues. The workshop will also offer an opportunity to discuss related matters such as knowledge of in-house phraseology and terminology, workflow management, translating in-house vs reviewing outsourced translations, etc.
The workshop will be held in Spanish and French.
Marina Dudenhoefer has a BA in French and Spanish (Combined Honours) from Trinity College, Oxford. To that, she added a Postgraduate Diploma in Translation from the University of Kent (French and Spanish) and an MA in German (Sprache und Translation) from the University of Mainz (Germersheim). After fifteen years of working as an in-house translator for the FCO, Arthur Andersen, AREVA and Daimler, and as a translation teacher (at the University of Mainz), she became a translator in the English Department of the European Commission. She has been working in house for the Commission for ten years and therefore has extensive experience of legal translation for an international organisation.
Publications:
-”Towards a General Theory of Translational Action – Skopos Theory Explained” by Katharine Reiß and Hans J. Vermeer, translated from the German by Christiane Nord, English reviewed by Marina Dudenhoefer (Routledge, 2014)
-”The Travels of Skopos Theory”, article by Marina Dudenhoefer in mTm, volume 4, December 2012.
European e-Justice portal: managing a multilingual project for a multilingual organisation
1. Overview of the project management for a complex and ongoing translation project, involving both in-house translators and freelancers:
• Demonstration of the detailed instructions, FAQ and style guide, with reference materials provided via our web pages for external translators.
• English is used as a relay language – the importance of quality control so that mistakes are not propagated.
• The final product is a website for the general public, so quality and accuracy are vital.
2. Practical exercises.
The workshop will be held in English.
Kai Gregori is a translator and reviser at the European Commission Directorate-General for Translation, in the Estonian Language Department. Her everyday work consists of translating documents that deal mostly with health, agriculture, education, environment and employment. In addition to translating she revises translations done by her colleagues but also by freelance translators. For the last 9 years her additional tasks have included being the training correspondent of the her language department. She holds a degree in Hispanic studies from the University of Tartu (Estonia). In 2001 she got the Erasmus scholarship and spent a semester studying at the University of Granada.
Translator in the European Commission – a meticulous transmitter of legislation, a smooth informer or even a fair evaluator?
· Short overview of the way translation work is organised at the European Commission
· What is important to keep in mind when translating legal acts
· How to create press releases and other texts that are easy to understand for a wider public
· What to consider when revising a colleague’s or a freelancer’s work
· Practical exercises
The workshop will be held in English.
Lutgarde Marivoet holds a degree in translation from the University of Leuven (Belgium), as well as a pedagogics degree. From 1991 until 2015, she worked for two Belgian public employment services, first as a language teacher, later as a coach and traineeship adviser, helping trainees find a (new) place on the labour market. She regularly prepared her trainees to participate in European projects and eventually became a translator, specialized in labour market policies. She is currently a translator, reviser and workflow manager at the Dutch language department of the Directorate-General for Translation (European Commission) in Luxembourg, where she specializes in texts on employment and education and coordinates the Juvenes Translatores contest actions.
Revision strategies at the European Commission – The impact of changed resources and technological developments
The resources we have always relied on for delivering high quality translations seem to have become less available. On the other hand, our CAT tools haven’t stopped evolving. The changed resource mix of in-house, external and machine translation and the development of technology have an impact on the way we revise.
The workshop will be held in English.
Míriam Campos Carrión holds a degree in Law from the University of Murcia and a degree in Translation and Interpreting from the University of Salamanca. She is currently working as an intercultural and language professional at the European Parliament. She is also studying a Master’s degree in European Union law and is learning German. Previously, she worked as a lawyer-linguist at the Court of Justice of the European Union and in different linguistic and legal positions in the private sector. Her working languages are English, French, Spanish, and Italian. She has been involved in a variety of publications, such as a handbook on European Succession Law and the satirical magazine El Mundillo Today. She has been interested in the European project from an early age and has participated in EU initiatives such as the EU Careers Ambassadors programme.
A day in the life of the language professionals at the European Parliament
The workshop consists of two parts: in the first part, a brief presentation of how translation works in the European Parliament and the new linguistic tasks being developed in this institution will be given; the selection process for jobs and internships in the EP will also be presented; in the second part, participants will be able to test their knowledge and skills through a series of practical exercises related to the EP’s activity.
The workshop will be held in Spanish.
Alba Pérez Barrera studied Translation and Interpreting at the University of Salamanca and is currently a permanent translator (EN/FR>ES) at the World Trade Organization (WTO). After two internships at the United Nations headquarters in Nairobi and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in Rome, she decided to specialise in international relations and international cooperation with two Master’s degrees at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and UNICUSANO (Italy), and worked for two years at the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She is a certified translator authorised by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and has worked for seven years as an external translator for IFAD, FAO, ILO and WTO. In 2017 she started working on regular temporary contracts at the WTO in Geneva (Switzerland) and in 2022 she joined the staff, where she plays an important role in the translation of international trade dispute settlement reports.
From the USAL to the WTO: my background and the specific challenges of translation at the WTO
The first part of the workshop will provide advice on how to enter the world of international organisations based on the speaker’s personal experience. The second part will explain how the WTO’s Spanish translation service works and present practical examples that highlight the challenges of institutional translation in general and the WTO context in particular.
The workshop will be held in Spanish.
Colm Caffrey has been working at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) since 2011, first as a translator and then as a translator-reviser. After completing his BA in German and Japanese translation at Dublin City University, he participated in an Enterprise Ireland research project into the applicability of EBMT to the translation of English subtitles into Japanese and German, and then completed an Irish Research Council-funded PhD in AV translation. Prior to his career at WIPO, he has worked as a translator for Nintendo of Europe, a customer service agent for a fortune-telling company, and a reviewer for translations of Irish into Japanese. He has recently published on the applications of translation technology in the Patent Cooperation Treaty Translation Division of WIPO (with Cristina Valentini, in The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Technology, 2019).
Translation in the Patent Cooperation Treaty Translation Division of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
In this workshop we will provide an overview of the work of the Patent Cooperation Treaty Translation Division, beginning with an introduction into the various roles in the Division, and then focussing on the translation work we carry out. Using Japanese and German examples, we will explain the role that our translations of technical and legal patent reports (patentability reports) and abstracts play in the global patent system, and delve into some of the challenges that are peculiar to these source texts. Finally, we will look into the use of CAT tools, including our internally developed NMT system, in our daily work.
The workshop will be held in English.
Jesús Manuel Suárez Liste holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Santiago de Compostela and has completed postgraduate studies at Harvard (Finance) and Cambridge (International Relations). After starting his professional career as a teacher of business Spanish at Harvard University, he worked as a financial analyst and specialist in financial markets for several multinationals in Geneva (Switzerland), where he has been working as a translator (specialising in finance) for international organisations since 2012. He is currently a career civil servant and auditor for the United Nations Staff Union, a role he combines with contributions to various newspapers and magazines.
Economic and financial translation at the United Nations
The workshop presents the different types of texts of an economic and/or financial nature that are translated at the United Nations. Practical examples will be used of reports of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and budgets and financial statements of other specialised agencies.
The workshop will be held in Spanish.
Spanish
English