Ministry for European Union Affairs Young Translators Contest

Once our country becomes a member of the European Union, Turkish will be one of the official languages of the Union. According to principles governing the accession negotiations decided in the Negotiating Framework dated on October 3rd 2005,  Turkey will need to produce translations of the acquis into Turkish in good time before accession, and will need to train a sufficient number of translators and interpreters required for the proper functioning of the EU institutions upon its accession.

Since 2010, the Young Translator Competition has been organized by the Ministry of the European Union in order to raise awareness regarding Turkey’s EU accession process and acquis translation among the students studying translation and interpreting in Turkish universities, as well as to contribute to the training in this field.

Students in their final year of the study from the departments of Translation and Interpreting and Translation Studies of universities and translation departments of vocational schools are illegible to participate in the contest held once a year in Turkey.  

The Contest includes the translation of an EU text from one of the three working languages of the European Union (English, French and German) into Turkish. The winners of this Contest will be awarded by the Undersecretary of the European Union Affairs, Ambassador Sayın Selim Yenel. In addition,the winners will go to Brussels to visit EU institutions, accompanied by the staff of the Ministry.

Ege University Department of Translation and Interpreting Department students have achieved high success twice in the Ministry of European Union Affairs Young Translators Contest. In 2012, Büşra YAMANLAR from the department of English Translation and Interpreting received an encouragement award and Oktar Bumin AYKUTLU from the department of German Translation and Interpreting ranked the first place in 2016.