Juvenes Translatores Competition for Young Translators

Pupils from Sherborne School and The Gryphon took part on Thursday 21 November in the Juvenes Translatores Competition for Young Translators, organised by the European Commission. They were some of 3,285 competitors in 751 schools in the current 28 EU member states.

Sherborne and the Gryphon were two of the 73 competing schools in the UK. Each school is limited to a maximum of five entrants. Our pupils were able to choose to do their translation from and into any of the official languages of the EU – Spanish, French, German and Portuguese were the most popular amongst our entrants. This year’s texts in Spanish and French really pushed the translators on their ability to transfer the meaning of colloquial expressions, idioms and figurative language while the German text, as expected, had them coming up with plausible translations of those challenging German compound nouns. For those not entering the competition, the morning provided a great opportunity for our pupils to work with Sixth Form linguists from the Gryphon on the same texts but in a more collaborative atmosphere.

Philip Morrow, Head of Spanish