CITS Translators and Interpreters Celebrate Professional Holiday

Assembly adopted a resolution recognizing the role of professional translation in uniting peoples, promoting peace, understanding and development. The International Translation Day is celebrated annually on September 30.

The holiday is timed to the day of the death of St. Jerome of Stridonium, who is considered the patron saint of translators. Events in honor of this important professional event have also been held at the ASU Caspian Higher School of Interpreting and Translation.

The holiday brought together professors of the Faculty of Foreign Languages, CITS, other educational units of the university, MA students of translation and interpretation programmes, and representatives of the university administration — Vice-Rector for Research Activities Lyudmila Baeva and Vice-Rector for International Activities Antonina Maslova.

The CITS staff prepared a rich program for the guests of the evening. The meeting began with an interactive presentation: participants were asked interesting questions about the false friends, the difficulties of machine translation of Russian classics and interesting idiomatic expressions in English.

Then CITS Director Uliana Saveleva told the audience about the history of the holiday, significant translators of ancientry and our days, and graduates of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and CITS who already provide T & I at a high level, working with the heads of various states.

In addition, there were several video greetings, sent by CITS professor Olga Egorova, RSL professor and interpreter Antonina Shikhova and Head of the Support Section of WIPO PCT Translation Division Jeffrey Westgate.

There was also an immersive game.

“We invited anyone interested to try interpreting the welcome speech of our WIPO partner simultaneously. After all, nothing gives such a vision of the profession as immersion in it,” said Uliana Saveleva. “The initiative was taken by Head of the Artificial Intelligence Project Office Aleksandr Koshkarov, who fearlessly walked into the booth, put on headphones and, like a real simultaneous interpreter, helped the audience understand a foreign-language speaker.”

The immersion worked well, and, as Aleksandr Koshkarov admitted, it was quite a difficult, but very exciting experience.

Many pep words were addressed to the students present at the event, who have yet to build their own T & I path. A lot was said about changing times, technologies competing with humans, and the eternal doubts of translators and their incorrigible perfectionism… But all the speakers agreed: translators and interpreters still remain a bridge between languages, cultures and peoples, and one should not be afraid of any difficulties of the profession, but grow and move forward, reaching new heights of T & I.

Source: ASU official website