Workshop 1

 Kristiina Suviste, eTranslation Advisory Unit, DGT, European Commission

AI at the European Commission: Machine Translation and other AI-based multilingual services

This workshop offers a comprehensive exploration of AI-based language services developed and deployed by the Directorate-General for Translation (DGT) of the European Commission. Participants will engage in hands-on sessions to explore eTranslation, the European Institutions' neural machine translation system. eTranslation facilitates multilingual communication across EU institutions and member states. The workshop will guide attendees through the process of setting up and using eTranslation for translating various types of content, including documents, emails, and multilingual websites. Through practical exercises, participants will learn about application areas and advantages of using eTranslation. The workshop will also include examples to showcase the different styles of eTranslation offers to accommodate domain-specific translation needs. Finally, the workshop will wrap up with discussions on current trends in AI-powered services, along with step-by-step guidance on accessing and optimizing these tools for effective multilingual communication.

Workshop 2 

Ciprian Dan Dumea, Intercultural and Language Professional, Directorate for Citizens' Language, Directorate General for Translation, European Parliament

Translation as an exercise of adaptation

We as translators are in service of our clients. We must adapt to their legitimate requests. Thus, we must find out what they need and what they want to communicate to their audience. At the same time, we must adapt to our public. Will they understand a language that is specialised or rather down to earth? Would a formal tone work better than an informal one? And we need to adapt to the medium we use. Will our translation be a text production? An essay, a flyer, a slogan, or maybe a specialised text? Or will it be aired later as a podcast or a piece of news? Or maybe our job is to subtitle a movie or a YouTube video, where we suddenly have to abide by new technical constraints, like characters per second (CPS) or characters per line (CPL). Context and adaptation, as you see, are paramount, not only for finding the right word, but also for finding our way in the complex world of translation. Let's see together how.