On November, 6th and 7th, I was lucky enough to go to Brussels and attend the Translating Europe Forum 2017. This summit is organised by the DGT (Directorate General for Translation), the European Commission’s translation department, and brings together various actors from the translation field for 2 days of talks and debates. This year, the main topic was the new profiles and new skills translators need to survive in a fast-changing market.
I was invited to this event thanks to my university which, as part of the EMT (European Master’s in Translation) network, was able to send one of its students as a representative. My role was to showcase a poster, created with a colleague, to present the “team project” we carried out in the course of our degree. This first real professional experience took place over 3 days in December 2016, during which we worked on a real project for a real client under the (distant) supervision of our teachers who remained available, should we have needed help or advice. This experience, that my classmates and I really enjoyed, interested many participants in Brussels. Indeed, my master’s degree is one of the very few to offer this kind of training, with a work to be done in a limited amount of time, for a real project, in a professional atmosphere.
Therefore, during these 2 days, different actors from the field of translation (students, teachers, translators, managers and representatives from professional organisations) were able to exchange on their different experiences, reflect on what the translation market has become for them, and wonder how a translator can succeed today.
With over 40 speakers, the Forum allowed for many ideas to be exchanged and many new ways of thinking to be explored. This is how we came to define the most important skills of a translator today as, among others, flexibility, adaptability, creativity, curiosity, versatility and passion, along with a set of more technical skills such as management, CAT (Computer Assisted Translation) tools or team work. The ability to take risks and the importance of keeping up to date with the market’s most recent changes were mentioned too. Debates have taken a keen interest on today’s managers as well, and on the skills they must show due to the rocketing number of millennials entering the labour market. Indeed, in 20 years time, these young people born in the 1980’s to 2000’s will represent 75% of the working population. And finally, we had a look at the possible developments for Master’s degree courses in translation. On the second day, the core debates related to the importance of technology, especially in relation to the growing role of machine translation, with some discussions on the potential implications for the market and the new profiles which may arise from this trend.
I thought the TEF was a truly fantastic experience. It was very interesting and enriching and I don’t regret for a second attending! Listening to opinions from very different actors from the translation industry was really fascinating. I also had the opportunity to attend a special session for “young participants” (i.e. Master’s students and DGT trainees), which offered interesting food for thought to young graduates, such as the question of specialisation, the importance of a recognized degree for companies and how to create an address book.
Besides the talks per se, the TEF is also an opportunity to meet people from all over Europe (and even from all over the world), which is also really enriching. Within 2 days, I got to talk with people from at least 10 different countries! Thus, the TEF is a wonderful opportunity to connect with colleagues from all over the world and exchange on our business area. I can only encourage everyone working in this wonderful industry to attend at least once! You won’t regret it!
Camille Gondral 