The European Commission is who is organizing of this competition aimed at secondary schools. Candidates for the prize, the Juvenes Translatores, can test their skills by translating a text into a language of their choice, in order to obtain a prize.

"We find it especially gratifying that some of the previous winners are currently studying translation at the university," said Commissioner Orban.

In the first phase, secondary schools from all Member States are invited to register using the on-line form available on the contest website. A number of the schools from each Member State that have registered will be randomly selected by computer. As the number of schools is limited, the basis for selection is the number of votes that each Member State has in the Council of the European Union multiplied by two. For example, UK has 58 participating schools, and Netherlands has 28.

In the second phase, each school should submit the names of up to five students. At the same time, the students should choose the language from and into which they intend to translate. They are free to choose from any of the 23 official EU languages.

Contestants will have two hours to translate a text sent to the schools shortly before the competition starts. Contestants may use dictionaries, but not electronic devices.

After the contest, the translations will be marked by a panel consisting of professional translators from the Commission’s Directorate-General for Translation, and the contest jury will choose the best translation from each Member State. All winners will be invited to an award ceremony in Brussels in the presence of the European Commissioner for Multilingualism. During their trip to Brussels the winners will have time to get to know one another and also to meet a number of EU translators.

source: http://euroalert.net