Translating for the European Union

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By Grischa Wenzeler

20 Nov, 2024

Translating for the European Union

With 24 official languages and large volumes of outsourced translation work, the European Union (EU) offers various opportunities for freelance translators to work on texts produced by different EU institutions such as the European Commission, the European Parliament, the European Central Bank, and the Court of Justice of the European Union. Based on my experience with EU texts, I shall pick three project sources and use them as examples to briefly outline some of the specific requirements when translating for the EU.
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Almost every year, EU language departments organize tender processes for multi-year contracts to translate for the EU as an outsourced service. The demands in terms of speediness, reliability, the ability to handle ad-hoc translation requests, and the need for multilingual services mean that it is mostly translation agencies competing in a tender rather than freelance translators. However, at the time of a new tender, there is often a dash by agencies to sign-up experienced freelancers in order to be able to present to the EU department in charge of the tender a large pool of translators with experience in legal, financial and other fields and, thus, improve their chance of winning the tender.

Tender requirements and translation resources

The exact requirements for freelance translators differ for each tender process, sometimes they need to sign up exclusively with one agency, sometimes they have to pass a translation test, but it is always essential that translators interested in working with EU texts demonstrate top quality to be able to continue working for the EU in a long-term perspective. In terms of translation resources, the EU Interinstitutional Style Guide provides guidance to publishers and translators of EU texts across multiple institutions and can be used as a reference point for different text types and languages. Most EU texts are translated with the help of Trados Studio, the market-leading computer-assisted translation (CAT) tool, and translators have to be proficient in using this CAT tool. Texts reaching the translator’s desk as a Studio project package have usually been machine-translated. However, it would be wrong to assume that these texts only require some minor editing. More often than not extensive changes to the machine output will have to be made to produce a translation that is ready for publication. Particular attention is required for quotations, for instance, as the translator needs to ensure that the translated quote matches the original officially recognised translation, if it exists.

Given the number of EU institutions, there are various sources for EU translation projects. The following are three examples, used to outline some specific requirements for freelance translators. 

1. European Commission (EC): Outsourced translation projects for the EC go through the Directorate-General for Translation (DGT) and its respective language-specific department. Typical texts may comprise regulations, directives, policy papers, etc. Each new project requires extensive research in the relevant topic to be undertaken by the translator, including thorough terminology research. The DGT usually makes certain resources available, for example parallel texts and reference materials, as well as IATE (Interactive Terminology for Europe), an online database that facilitates terminology research for the relevant context. The translator may also want to use some third-party resources, such as Juremy.com, which is available at a relatively small subscription fee and identifies terms and fragments of previously translated EU texts. Another important reference point is Vademecum, a guidebook published by the DGT that takes the translator through the manifold formal requirements in terms of orthography, formatting conventions, special characters, terminology, etc.

2. GROW contract: Another important source of EU translations is the GROW contract with the Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs. It is based on the single Market Transparency Directive (SMTD) that implies that an EU member state drafting technical regulations on goods and information society services needs to inform and get approval from the EC. Document types comprise, inter alia, draft technical regulations and impact assessments. The translator typically works with machine translation output in English that needs to be edited or revised in the relevant target language. English thereby serves as a relay language, machine translated from the original language in which the national regulations were drafted. The task is performed with the help of a mandatory Studio plugin called Information Box that provides valuable information about the previous translation step from the respective original language into English.  

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3. European Parliament (EP): EP texts may comprise questions by MEPs and proposed amendments to legislation put forward by the EC. Amendments have strict formatting rules. All political, linguistic or technical changes to the original proposed legislation, for example, must be in bold italics as do repositioned parts of a sentence, whereas changes of lower and upper case do not. Deleted parts must be indicated as such in the target text. These rules also apply to footnotes. As with all EU texts, editing and revision jobs for the EP require the translator’s utmost attention to detail.

Clients of freelance translators who work for the EU can have full confidence in the translator’s abilities since EU translation work represents a “gold standard” and is a sure sign of a translator’s quality and experience as well as their ability to deliver even the most demanding translation jobs.

 

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