Directorate-General for

Translation

The work of the translator at DGT

December, 2009
Rusana BARDARSKA
EUROPEAN
COMMISSION
 Content

1. Profile and competences of the translator

2. Job opportunities
3. Work environment
Work and work-related activities
Norms of productivity
Professional development
Flexibility
Conventions and innovation
Quality control

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 Content

5. Workflow and internal sources of information

and terminology
Document and data workflow in the Commission and
DGT
Pre-processing
Translators workload
Dossier Manager
Translators Workbench TWB
Euramis
Elise
Information sources at department level
Information sources at DGT/Commission level

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 Content

6. Most important external sources of information

and terminology
EUR-Lex
IATE
Interinstitutional Style Guide
National sources

NB! There are separate ppts presenting:

information and terminology sources
free-lance translation

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 Profile of the Commission translators

http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/translation/workingwithus/
recruitment/translator_profile_en.htm

Perfect command of your main language / mother tongue

Very sound knowledge of English or German or French
Very sound knowledge of a second source language
Knowledge of any additional languages is an asset
Grasp problems of all kinds, often of a complex nature
React rapidly to changing circumstances;
Communicate effectively

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Competences for professional translators-EMT

http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/translation/programmes/emt/key_d
ocuments/emt_competences_translators_en.pdf

Language

Thematic Intercultural
Translation
service
provision

Info
Technological
mining

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Job profile of the Commission translators

Traduction, en principe, vers la langue maternelle ou principale

et rvision, relecture, valuation de traductions excution de
toute autre tche relevant du domaine linguistique et/ou de la
gestion notamment en matire de communication interne et
de gestion de l'information, de l'utilisation des outils d'aide la
traduction et de formation.
Educational background philologists, but as well economists,
lawyers, engineers Two-way development
Job-related annual objectives:
Productivity
Quality
Horizontal activities
Professional development
Conduct

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 Job opportunities

Permanent employment
Temporary agent
Contract agent
AD, AST
Translator, assistant, lawyer-linguist/legal
reviser, editor, interpreter, proof-reader
Freelance
Traineeship

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 Work and work-related activities
Translation and revision
Translation from at least 2 source languages (one procedural) into main
language/mother tongue
Revision of internal translations
FL workflow - preparation of dossiers to be externalised, revision and
evaluation of external translations, giving feedback
Written or oral summaries (usually from 1st source language into main
language/mother tongue)
Reverse translations (usually from 1st source language into main
language/mother tongue)
Horizontal activities
Terminology
research while translating, contacts with experts, feeding IATE, building thematic
packs, ELISE and other platforms for interinstitutional exchange

Coordination, project management, knowledge-sharing

Correspondents (training, library and documentation, language, IT, FL, etc.), lead
translators, DGT working groups, presentations
Training
Annual training paths, ad hoc dossier-related, thematic, language & IT training
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 Internal norms of productivity

Translation into 1st language appr. 6-7 pages/day

Translation into 2nd /3rd language appr. 3-4
pages/day
Revision internal translation appr. 15-20 pages/day
Revision external translation appr. 15 pages/day
Translation written resume into 2nd /3rd language
appr. 10 original pages/day

Only indicative figures!! Actual output depends on many

factors!

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 Professional development

Training
Internal thematic specialisation
IT skills
Language competences
Competences through horizontal activities
Annual evaluation, promotion system

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 Flexible work environment

Mobility (transfer to another post in DGT,

Commission, another institution)
Flexitime, Teleworking, Part-time
Flexible workload sharing - within and across
language departments and interinstitutional
Trans-Ardennian dimension

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 Conventions
in terminology, phraseology and layout

SOURCES
Existing EU legislation the acquis translated before the
accession (app. 100 000 pages), court decisions
Existing EU legislation since 2007
Other official documents/acts some translated, others - not
Other reference documents Interinstitutional Style Guide,
internal Style Guide
National sources legislation, official documentation, experts
PATTERNS
Form of acts (phraseology of legal drafting, layout)
Hidden or explicit textual citations
Referrals form and content
Terminology

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 Innovation

More freedom and linguistic mastery:

New notions CAP health check, neighbourhood policy, low-
carbon economy/prosperity sense, language paradigm,
consultation
Press releases
Political speeches/strategies, etc.
Explanatory and/or consultation texts (memoranda,
green/white books)

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 Quality control

Peer review (revisions)

Revision, evaluation, feedback for FL
Ex-post quality review (HoU, quality circle,
outside partner)
Feedback from commitology committees
(national experts), DGs, national authorities,
DGT TELLUS, other institutions (linguists, other
officials)
Total Quality Management at DGT

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 The European Commission
Internal categorisation of translation requests

Political priorities and/or new legal obligations

Existing legal obligations
Communication priorities
Non-core documents

Rules on
language regimes
maximum volume
externalisation
quality assurance
indicative deadlines

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 Document workflow in the Commission
Interservice consistency with other
Unit(s)->Dir. responsible Consultation policy areas, political
for the drafts aspects, technical
substance, legal basis and
Legal service certainty, legislative
drafting quality
? Language, correctness,
consistency ?
Unit(s)->Dir.->DG
Other institutions responsible for the drafts
Adoption
Publication
By
State authorities
The
Companies
Commission
Citizens, etc. Secretariat GeneralAction 2 DGT

-> app. 88% in EN or FR because

-> Editing service, lead translator
-> Documents normally come after, but as well during Interservice
consultation
-> For Action 2 documents DGT has the sole responsibility for the
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 Document workflow at DGT
Directorate General for Translation - DGT

Planning Unit Pre-Processing Translation Units Planning Unit

Requesting DGs
Secretariat General

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Data workflow at DGT

TWB
Euramis
memory SGVista
segments,
DGTVista
alignments

Pre-processing

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Pre-processing

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Pre-processing

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Pre-processing

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 Translation unit
Composition and tasks
Workflow

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Name of event/occasion
Translators workload

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Fiche de Travail

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Dossier Manager

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Note in Dossier Manager

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Dossier Manager - Versions

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Dossier Manager CMP file

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Translators Workbench

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Translators Workbench

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Translators Workbench

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Translators Workbench

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Translators Workbench

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 Euramis

All institutions
Alignments
Acquis and after 2007 for BG and RO
Information presented; operational options
First appears normative memory
Sentence management

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Euramis

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Euramis

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Euramis

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Elise

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Sources - Language department

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Sources - Language department

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Language department - Templates

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Sources - Language department

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Sources - DGT Vista

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Sources - SG Vista

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DGT Library
(internal)

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 DGT LIBRARY

Directorate-General (DGT)
Directorate D - Transversal linguistic services
Unit DGT.D.3 - Library, Terminology & Translation Support
Brussels (G12 00/45) & Luxembourg (JMO B0/10)

Reference works in all Community languages

Paper: books, periodicals, newspapers
Electronic: CD-ROM, on-line databases
etc.

Reading room
Loans
Contact with the European Commission's Central Library
VM18 - Rue Van Maerlant, 18
http://ec.europa.eu/libraries/doc/index_en.htm

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MULTIDOC - Multilingual Virtual Library
(internal)

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 MULTIDOC

Virtual library of DGT

One site per language -> Multilingual pages per subject
22 categories encompassing the main EU subjects

PERTINENCE and QUALITY of electronic sources

keep and manage data found and/or created by the Departments

(translators, terminologists, documentalists, etc.)
for reference purposes
for self-training purposes

New application: end of 2009?

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ECLAS

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 ECLAS

ECLAS is the catalogue of holdings of the

European Commission network of libraries. DGT
15 000 titles included in the catalogue.
EC staff can borrow books and obtain
photocopies from any EC library

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QUEST Metasearch
(internal)

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 QUEST

Interface that finds solutions to terminology problems in 20+ term

sources
(including not only terminology databases but also related sources
such as
Euramis Concordance, DGTVista and Eur-Lex).

Macro button in Word (see Quickstart Help)

New application soon

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 MOST IMPORTANT EXTERNAL
SOURCES OF INFORMATION AND
TERMINOLOGY

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EUR-Lex - The access to European Union Law
(http://eur-lex.europa.eu/)

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 EUR-Lex

Free access to European Union law and decision making procedures from
all EU institutions

Multilingual documents from:

the very beginning of the European cooperation
the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951
the European Economic Community and Euratom in 1957
the several enlargements
till today.

Some 441 000 references in several languages

around 2 300 000 texts in total
average of 15 000 documents added each year

Bilingual display of texts in .html format (document synchronisation)

Texts available in .html, .pdf and .tif format
full texts before 1998 not always available for EU 15 languages

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 EUR-Lex & Translation

Official EU terminology

Quotations

Translation solutions (bilingual display)

Modifications /rectifications / consolidations of legislative texts

Copy & Paste of texts

Documents for Translators Workbench (TWB)

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EUR-LEX

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EUR-Lex: Search terms

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EUR-Lex

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EUR-Lex

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EUR-Lex

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 IATE
Definitions, explanations
Launched in 1999; available from 2004 for the EU institutions; free public access in
2007
Merging of EURODICAUTOM (Commission); TIS (Council); Euterpe (European
Parliament); Euroterms (Translation Centre) and other databases -> duplicates!
interactive terminology database: multilingual drafting, translation and interpreting with
regard to EU activities

validated terminology; terminological debate

added value versus other sources of terminology (documents)

terminological solutions in the EU official languages (can be fully multilingual)

Eurojargon; technical terms; nomenclatures; etc.
23 official languages (public) and more than 100 others (internal access)

approx. 1.5 million concepts

approx. 7.0 million language entries
approx. 9.3 million terms, abbreviations & phrases

7.0 million /1.5 million = 4.6 languages per entry

not always fully multilingual!

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 IATE

1 reliability
2 reference
3 context
4 note
5 definition

domain author

1 2 3 4 5

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 IATE

5 1 reliability

2 reference

3 context

1 4 note
3

5 definition

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 Interinstitutional Style Guide
(http://publications.eu.int/code/en/en-000100.htm)

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 Interinstitutional Style Guide

uniform stylistic rules and conventions which must be used by all the
institutions, bodies and agencies of the European Union.

obligatory for all those involved in document production (paper or electronic).

Publication procedures
Structure of the Official Journal
Presentation of documents

Linguistic conventions
Spelling, punctuation, etc.
Conventions common to all languages
Names of institutions, bodies, agencies, etc.
List of countries, abbreviations, etc.

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Interinstitutional Style Guide

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Interinstitutional Style Guide

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