The Translating Europe Forum (TEF) is an annual event organized by the European Commission. It spans several days and includes panel discussions, presentations and Q&A on subjects related to a specific translation-related topic. This year’s topic was “Platforms: digital ecosystems for translation”. The conference took place between 4 and 6 November 2020. Due to the SARS-COV-2 pandemic, it was held online to prevent the spread of the disease.

The conference focused on two main angles of digital platforms:

• their effect on the translation profession (new business models, workflows for language service providers);
• their translation needs, or how translation supports digital platforms.

Due to the ever-growing popularity of various digital platforms and their general usefulness and accessibility, translators often face completely new challenges. Many issues and different approaches to them were discussed during this year’s forum. Differing points of view were presented and a lot of interesting information was shared. The speakers were not only translators, but also members of the European Commission, university professors, TS scholars and EMT representatives. Some of them were even founders or CEOs of companies providing translation tools! All those experts came together to share some of their knowledge with students and trainees, but also with already well-established and experienced translators. After all, learning does not end with a university diploma!

All of the sessions are available on the Translating for Europe YouTube channel. The European Commission’s website also enables their viewing with the additional feature of simultaneous interpretation into French, German, Italian, Polish and Spanish. It is interesting to see how professional interpreters deal with such a difficult task.

Please see for yourself:

EC’s website: https://ec.europa.eu/info/events/2020TEF_en

YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/DGTranslation

Dominika Wójcik and Patrycja Pięta (second-year MA students, translation specialization)