Το Yourtranslator συμμετέχει ως εταίρος στο έργο Erasmus+ “TOCL (Μετάφραση πολιτισμικών στοιχείων για την ένταξη των μεταναστών)” που υλοποιείται με χρηματοδότηση από την ΕΕ και στοχεύει στην ομαλή ένταξη ατόμων με μεταναστευτικό υπόβαθρο μέσω της διδασκαλίας της γλώσσας της χώρας υποδοχής δίνοντας έμφαση στη μετάδοση των πολιτισμικών στοιχείων της εκάστοτε χώρας. Στο έργο συμμετέχουν εταίροι από την Ισπανία, την Κύπρο, την Σλοβενία, την Ιταλία και την Ελλάδα. 

Από τον Απρίλιο έως και τον Σεπτέμβριο του 2023, δηλαδή κατά το τρίτο εξάμηνο εφαρμογής του έργου, οι εταίροι του έργου TOCL είχαν μια πολύ εποικοδομητική συνεργασία.
Σχεδιάσαμε το προσχέδιο της μεθοδολογίας Translating Culture και το πρακτικό της κομμάτι, συγκεντρωμένο σε ένα εκπαιδευτικό πρόγραμμα που ονομάζεται Translating Culture Training Manual. Στη συνέχεια, το Yourtranslator διοργάνωσε, εκ μέρους της κοινοπραξίας του έργου, τη δραστηριότητα μάθησης, εκπαίδευσης και κατάρτισης που έλαβε χώρα στην Αθήνα μεταξύ 16 και 19 Μαΐου. Αυτή η δραστηριότητα παρουσίασε το περιεχόμενο του εκπαιδευτικού εγχειριδίου TC και μερικά πρακτικά παραδείγματα για το πώς να χρησιμοποιήσετε αυτές τις γνώσεις κατά τη διδασκαλία ξένων γλωσσών στους μετανάστες. 15 συμμετέχοντες από 5 χώρες (Ισπανία, Ιταλία, Σλοβενία, Ελλάδα και Κύπρος) μοιράστηκαν τις επαγγελματικές τους γνώσεις και την εμπειρία τους ως καθηγητές γλωσσών που δουλεύουν με μετανάστες, καθώς και ιδέες και σχόλια. Στη συνέχεια, μετέφεραν τις γνώσεις που αποκόμισαν στις επαγγελματικές τους κοινότητες μέσω της πιλοτικής εκπαίδευσης. Η τελευταία ενέργεια είναι η οριστικοποίηση του εγχειριδίου TC που θα χρησιμοποιηθεί σε πραγματικές τάξεις διδασκαλίας γλωσσών σε μετανάστες σε όλες τις χώρες της κοινοπραξίας του έργου.
Τέλος, η κοινοπραξία έχει ήδη προχωρήσει στο τελευταίο παραδοτέο του έργου, που είναι ο σχεδιασμός και η υλοποίηση της πλατφόρμας ηλεκτρονικής μάθησης του έργου TOCL.
Για να διαβάσετε περισσότερα σχετικά με το έργο και τις σχετικές δραστηριότητες, ανατρέξτε στον ιστότοπό μας και στο τρίτο ενημερωτικό μας δελτίο.

Διαβάστε το τρίτο ενημερωτικό δελτίο του έργου εδώ:

tocl_newsletter_3_grtocl_newsletter_3_eng

cok-2

Over the past few months, Yourtranslator was honored to have collaborated with Amal Alliance for the translation of their award-winning program “Colors of Kindness” into the Greek language. “Colors of Kindness” is an innovative EdTech solution that helps children develop their social and emotional competencies that was inspired by Amal Alliance’s preexisting Rainbow of Education curriculum. Designed to help cope with the effects of the pandemic, this holistic hybrid approach eases the transition back into the classroom while enhancing well-being.

Yourtranslator adapted the material in Greek and, following its pilot implementation last year, the program was successfully introduced in all Greek primary schools in September 2022 through the Skills Labs program.

Amal Alliance is an international non-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO) that aims to empower displaced and disenfranchised children through 4 pillars of support: 1) social-emotional learning (SEL), 2) psychosocial support, 3) early childhood development, and 4) peace education. In June 2022, UNHCR teamed up with the EdTech Hub, mEducation Alliance, Global Innovation Exchange (GIE) and ECW to respond to the learning emergency caused by COVID-19 school closures. Amal Alliance was honored to be selected to design an education in emergency prototype – giving life to Colors of Kindness!

Yourtranslator is really happy and excited to be part of this journey and we look forward to making learning a playful experience for Greek students!

20325-20200113014424_0

Being translators ourselves, we love watching movies with translators as the main characters, as they’re not very easy to come across. We also feel that they help lend visibility to translation and translators in general, which is something that our industry desperately needs.

If you haven’t watched the trailer yet, the movie is about the translation of a bestseller and it’s actually inspired by the process of translation of Dan Brown’s novel. The aim is to have a best-selling book appear simultaneously in various countries and so the translators are gathered into a luxurious bunker of sorts where they have to finish their translations with no contact with the outside world in order to avoid leaks. Nevertheless, soon enough, the 10 first pages are leaked and a ransom is requested, pushing the publisher to the extremes in his effort to find the culprit.

As you may have guessed already, the plot is much more about bestsellers, the commercial aspects of writing and publishing, and greed, than it is about translation. This article is not meant to be an actual review of the movie, but will rather focus on the translation-related aspects of the plot. If you’re looking for a more traditional review, we found this one on Hollywood reporter quite accurate.

So here are our main outtakes from the movie:

It’s not really about translation

Sure, the movie is called The translators and almost all the main characters are indeed translators, but translation itself is actually quite secondary to the plot. The main focus of the action is a bestselling book and the lengths its publisher will go to for commercial gain rather than translation itself. That is probably to be expected from a thriller, but it was a tiny bit disappointing. On top of that, the translators often seem like caricatures, largely based on stereotypes of their respective countries –the leftist Greek, the depressed Dane, the cocky Italian– rather than fully developed characters.

It does touch lightly on the significance of multilingualism

This is not a very profound movie; all its main themes are dealt with quite superficially around the thriller plot. However, one of the most tense scenes of the movie (tiny spoiler alert) involves the translators speaking to each other in various, less spoken, languages to avoid being understood. They switch and translate between languages to make sure everyone understands, as they don’t all share a common third language other than English and French. That scene is rather powerful for a language geek, because it does bring into focus the beauty of multilingualism, as well as the unique advantages it offers. It also underlines the significance of translation in international communication, which we are all for!

It does portray translation as a holistic process (especially of literary translation)

One of the things we rather liked about how the actual process of translation is portrayed in the movie is that, apart from a laptop, the manuscript and a dictionary (only one dictionary? Come on!), the translators are given access to a library supposedly containing books on all subjects of human knowledge. This is a nice touch, given that many people actually think that translation is simply about looking for words in a dictionary and writing them down. Translation is so much more than words; and it’s indeed very often that you have to delve into lengthy books and articles on a specific subject to be able to translate just one small word. However, ask any translator and we bet they will agree that today it’s close to impossible to translate without the Internet, like the characters are asked to! We’re so used to having this easy access to a trove of information that it would be quite challenging to translate without it.

To sum it up, if you’re looking for something light and entertaining to watch while in lockdown (or even out of it), go ahead and watch The translators. It ticks most of the boxes if a quick-paced thriller is what you’re after. Just don’t expect to find too many insights or original thinking about translation in there. Still, we’ll admit that having a film called the translators shown across the world makes us smile–translators for the win!