CAREER TALK BY STEPHEN MILLS ON TRANSLATION FOR THE ENGLISH
DEPARTMENT OF THE DIRECTORATE GENERAL FOR TRANSLATION
10th February 2010
Heriot- Watt University
Organised by Career Services and the Languages Department
Stephen Mills : graduate profile
Stephen Mills graduated from Heriot-Watt university in 1982. Heriot-Watt
provided him “great preparation for [his]future career”, he said.
In 1982, the world was facing a recession and the LINT (translation and
interpreting) course counted about 30 people, who had the possibility to do a
combination of 2 languages amongst the 4 on offer (French, Spanish, German
and Russian). Find a job was difficult, but Stephen was determined to work for
the EU. He started to learn Danish while in 4th year to increase his chances and
complement his studies languages (French and German). After graduating, he
lived in Denmark for a few months in order to immerse himself in the language ;
acquiring the written skills came fairly quickly, due to the similarities with German,
and living in the country helped a lot with the spoken fluency.
On returning to the UK, Stephen did a variety of odd jobs to add to the income he
generated from translation commissions. In order to get more translation work, in
which he was determined to make a career, he simply looked up translation
agencies in the yellow pages and proceeded to send letters and CVs to them.
Although he got fairly few replies at first, one of them did contact him and offered
him a translation job. Gradually, more offers of translation came his way. He also
worked on travel tours for American students all around Europe for a while. The
pay was not very high but the tips could be good and it was a good way to see
Europe and save some money.
About a year after graduating, Stephen got his first “proper” job thanks to a fellow
Heriot-Watt graduate who was then working in Agence Europe: this former
student contacted university and asked if they could recommend someone to
cover a 4 month maternity leave. The job consisted in writing information
bulletins in French and distributing them, so it required quick translation and
analysis and the pace was fast.
Through this experience, Stephen learnt a lot about the EU, as the job was
based in Brussels.
He then passed an exam to join the British civil service, which employed
translators at the time, and worked for three years translating from French,
German and Danish. This time of work was very different, as there wasn’t the
same emphasis on tight deadlines : the focus was on research, and what was
required was very accurate, quality translations.
After that, Stephen enlisted to do two competitions to work the Europe : one for
the Economic and Social Commission, and the other for the Council of Europe.
Finally, in January 1986, he was invited to take the written tests. After a few
months (in May-June of the same year), he was told that he had passed these
tests and would be invited to take the oral tests, which took place in July 1986.
Eventually, he started his new job in January of 1987. Even if there was a fairly
urgent need to fill this position, it was nonetheless a lengthy process, and it still is
today, as the assessment is very thorough.
Since 1987, Stephen has been working at the Commission’s translation services.
He learnt new languages, which is strongly encouraged and supported. Firstly,
Dutch, a useful language to know when working in Belgium. Then Swedish : the
language was in demand, and funding and courses were on offer to help
members of staff in the process. Finally, Polish.
In 2003, with the prospect of enlargement towards the East, it was decided that
field offices would be created in 9 new members states, so Stephen applied for a
job in the Polish field office. He got the position for Vilnius, in Lithuania : a
challenge, since it was language and country that he didn’t know. But he started
nonetheless, with a team of 3 translators all working into English. The job was
more a manager and trainer job. He stayed there for 2 years, and the team
gradually grew to a group of 8 translators. Part of the job also meant that
Stephen went to universities to give talks, and focused on some recruitment
activities.
This was completely different from his original position as translator, but it
illustrates the flexibility once you enter the European civil service : you can move
jobs within international organizations.
While in Lithuania, Stephen took classes at Vilnius university; working with
Lithuanians also helped, so much so that by 2005, he was fluent.
He then suddenly found himself back in his translation post, and started doing
lots of translation from Lithuanian. An opening came in Romania, so Stephen
took this opportunity, working in the field office but with a much smaller team this
time. The job meant that he was recruiting again and visiting many universities in
Romania. This job required a lot of public speaking, an interesting new string to
his bow.
Then he went back to translation again and has been holding the post of deputy
head of the English translation unit for the past two and a half years, standing in
for the head of unit when he’s absent. He still does some translation, but this
position requires also and mostly management (of translation project and of the
team of translators).
Working for the EU Commission’s English translation unit
The EU Commission is one of the European institution which employs its own
translators (note that it is different for interpreters : SCIC recruits all interpreters
except the ones for the parliament).
To apply, you need to use the EPSO web-site (see notes on Angeliki Petrits talk) :
EPSO organizes all the recruitment competitions.
The English department translates documents from all EU languages into English
only. There are 23 departments in total, corresponding to the 23 official
languages.
The English department is the biggest, with 115 translators (more or less on a
par with French and German) and the other departments have around 60
translators, apart from Irish and Maltese, which are smaller units.
Each department has 3 units : one base in Luxembourg and 2 in Brussels. Each
one of these units specializes in certain fields, for instance unit 1 tackles texts on
human rights, competition laws, etc … while unit 2 deals with “natural resources”
(fishing, agriculture, ecology …).
Why are there so many translations ?
All EU citizens have a right to communicate in their official language. The first
regulation adopted by the EEC (Council Reg n°1/58) stipulated that all the laws
and directives should be available in all official languages.
The number of official languages has risen from the 4 of 1958 to 23 and it is likely
to continue with the possible accession of Croatia, Iceland, the Western Balkans
and Turkey.
All languages have an equal status, none is “superior” to the others.
Now, on top of the official languages, there also are co-official languages
(Scottish Gaelic and Welsh, for instance).
The purpose
- ensuring that all European citizens can understand the law
- ensuring that all EU citizens can take an active part, without having to
learn another language.
SO multilingualism is at the heart of the EU ethos.
Now, English is the predominant language (though they are still all equal legally) :
this de-facto situation is directly linked to the enlargement process. In the past,
French was the dominant language, but with the entry of Sweden and Finland, a
new group of officials joined the institutions and French was not the most learnt
foreign language in these countries, it was English.
For instance, Romano Prodi was educated in Harvard, and prefers speaking in
English than French. This trend has been reinforced in 2004 with the new
member states, who follow a similar pattern.
Now most documents are drafted in English and much less legislation is drafted
in French (aside maybe from the documents from the DG Agriculture). It means
that the type of translation work done by the English department has shifted from
the translation of drafts towards the translation of documents from the “outside”,
like consultations from member states (governments, lobby groups, etc …).
Since the Commission also has a monitoring role, they check that directives are
applied correctly, so this also means more work for the English translation
department.
The workload is now double, as there is an important need for translation into
English. This department is the only one, with the French department, to work
from the 23 official languages.
There is a concept called “deficit languages” : it corresponds to the languages for
which too few translators can work from, so it tends to be the languages of the
new member states who joined in 2004 and Finish and Greek.
The department also resorts to freelance translators for documents in Russian
and Arabic, for instance.
Subjects of the texts
The texts needing translated can cover everything and anything, since the
Commission’s remit is vast.
The main categories are :
- legislation : 33%
- consultation : 8%
- information : 25%
- administration : 30%
- others : 4%
The texts can be letters, reports, press articles for members of the Commission,
etc …
The DGT employs 1 750 translators and 600 support staff. Of the 115 translators
working for the English department, 40% are based in Luxembourg, and 60% in
Brussels.
There are about 4-5,000 translators employed in total within EU institutions.
What do translators use ?
- dictionaries (CDroms)
- IATE
(online
resource,
available
to
all
:
http://iate.europa.eu/iatediff/SearchByQueryLoad.do;jsessionid=9ea79919
30d68c2f76de28a34f45941d86f930dfabe2.e38KbN4MchyMb40SbxyRaN0
Kc310?method=load )
- EUR-lex
(also
in
the
public
domain
:
http://eurlex.europa.eu/en/index.htm ) : you can use this data-base to search in
different ways, for instance by legal text or by terms (check the
bibliographic notice and text option, as it brings up the text in the two
languages)
- Quest metasearch : this internal tool enables translators to find all the
resources around one particular term
- Web search engines (like google)
- DGT Vista : a data-base of electronic copies and SG Vista. These collate
all the electronic archives and make it possible to do a word search in the
archives.
- Euromis, which is the DGT translation memory data base for legal texts
and is available in the public domain : http://langtech.jrc.it/DGT-TM.html
- Translations are typed in Word format.
Now translators are language specialists, while before, they were more
specialists in a topic.
Translators also use workbenches like Trados. The texts can come in different
formats, like PDF and TIF, so you need to know how to convert them as it needs
to be in Word format for use in Trados. Trados is used by translators at the
Commission, and consequently, it has a huge built-in translation data-base
memory after a while. It is very handy because if you enter a part of a text which
is already stored in the memory, it brings it up.
What about machine translations, like good translation ? There is an issue with
these : it’s a private, American company, and they keep a copy of any text you
translate with google translation so there is a real issue there with the confidential
nature of some of the documents translated. It’s an ongoing debate, but machine
translation is likely to be used in future, although only as an aid.
Voice recognition
Now most translators have PCs and type their own translations, but some still
use voice recognition tools (like dragon dictate). In the past, translators all
dictated their translation, which was then typed by a secretary.
The DGT deals with translation, but also runs other projects:
- an annual school competition called Iuvenes Translatores
- a unit specialized in web translation (more focused on localization)
- editing services (because the drafting of laws is done in English but not
necessarily by English native speakers)
- European Masters in Translation, a network of universities doing
programmes in translation : 38 universities have joined and more will at
the next round.
- IATE: the terminology data-base
- VTS: a visitor translation scheme. Translators are sent to universities for
example for 6 weeks (they used to be sent to the country of a language
they had learnt, so that it would reinforce their language skills too in the
process, but now they tend to go to their home countries). This scheme is
aimed at promoting the image of the DGT and it’s good for the training of
translators.
Recruitment
The competitions for translation are based on skills only, so you don’t need
experience, just the abilities (though experience, obviously, is likely to increase
your abilities).
The aim of the competitions is to build a list of resources, from which translators
are selected when a position becomes available.
There is a 9 months probation and after completing this probation period
successfully, the recruit is made permanent.
The next competition is likely to be held in the summer: register with EPSO and
join the We are waiting for the 2010 EU English-language translation competition!
Facebook group to be informed of the date and deadlines.
The English department has been recruiting temporary agents (hoping as well
that they’ll take the competition when it is open). This is a separate, extra
process, and the recruitment of agents is not done via a competition. Temporary
agents can only be employed for 3 years and the English department is aiming to
have a list by May. The deadline for applications is the 28 th of February
(Interested candidates are invited to e-mail an up-to-date CV (preferably using
the Europass model:
http://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/europass/home/vernav/Europass+Documents
/Europass+CV.csp?loc=en_GB), together with a covering letter, to DGT-AT-EN2010@ec.europa.eu ).The interviews will be held in London, Dublin, Brussels
and Luxembourg. The selection process won’t be simply on the basis of skills, it
will also take current language needs into account.
The Competitions
- you need to be an EU citizen
- you need to have a full bachelor degree on any subject (it doesn’t have to
be a Masters, and it doesn’t have to be languages)
- professional expertise is not required (though obviously, it may help your
chances)
- there is no age limit
- regarding language knowledge, it’s being defined, but for the last
competition, applicants needed to have French or German as their first
“passive language” + another European language (that is also what is
required of temporary agents)
The application process
- online, via EPSO
- there are pre-selection tests (MCQ on numerical and verbal reasoning, as
translators belong to an administrators’ body and can move jobs)
- translation tests, which will be held in different centres
- a group exercise
- oral presentations
- an interview
Note : being placed on a list does NOT guarantee you a job. Translators on the
list are contacted as vacancies arise and it could be for another of the EU
institutions. At this stage, you’ll be invited for a 2nd interview. But once on the list,
you do have a fair chance of being recruited.
Traineeships (also known as “stage”) in the English department
- 5 months at the Commission, working with translators
- 2 rounds of selections (March and October)
- Only for university graduates (so you have to have completed your degree
when you apply)
-
You need to be able to work from two European languages into English
You receive a monthly grant (around € 1,500/month)
It’s open to all nationalities
Conditions for permanent members of staff
- € 48,000 net starting salary
- Generous leave entitlement (which includes traveling time to get to your
home country and public holidays are added to your entitlement)
- A varied, challenging work
- Opportunities to learn new languages, in the country of that language
- Job security
- A multicultural work environment
The contractors
Some translations are done via contractors, i.e. agencies which have
successfully secured a tender for the DGT. The list of agencies which work for
the DGT is available online
(http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/translation/workwithus/calls/list/index_en.htm ). Trying to
work as a freelancer for one of these agencies can be a way to gain experience
and to start working (indirectly) for the EU institutions.
Web-sites to check :
www.eu-careers.eu
http://ec.europa.eu/translation/index_en.htm
Remember : you can also get help and advice on recruitment from Career
Services (writing CVs, looking for jobs, preparing for interviews, finding
information on the different types of interview and tests, etc …). Visit Career
Services
in
the
SR
building
or
contact
Lorraine
Chambers
(l.s.chambers@hw.ac.uk)