The aim of promoting good relations among nationalities, fighting stereotypes and prejudices has always been a worthy one. It is even more now, in a world that is becoming smaller every year. The members of the Language Working Group (LWG) are proud to be part of this work. You will probably ask how the LWG does that, since its primary concern in AEGEE (as the name suggests) is just languages. Actually, the group’s work goes far beyond that.

AEGEE-Praha is fighting against stereotypes

Last year, from October to December, the European Day of Languages (EDL) was held in thirteen AEGEE locals. The Council of Europe celebrates this day in September but since many students still have holidays at that time, a new date was agreed upon which was November 20th. Still, locals could choose any other close date suitable. In fact, some of the locals held several events, like AEGEE-Voronezh and AEGEE-Baki. It looks like it has become a tradition to celebrate this day over weeks (the same happened last year), and as long as the tradition is likely to go into 2015, even more events can be expected this year.

Many locals, supporting the cause of bringing nations together, chose to hold intercultural events, where many languages were spoken and people from different cultures came closer to each other. For example, AEGEE-Catania and AEGEE-Coruña invited participants from other countries to share their food, as well as languages. Native languages and cultures of the participants were also the central point of other antennae’s events, like those by AEGEE-Voronezh, AEGEE-Praha, AEGEE-Napoli, AEGEE-Oviedo, AEGEE-Beograd, AEGEE-Baki and AEGEE-Aachen.

At AEGEE-Kyiv’s event the participants talked about stereotypes and the way you should behave in their countries, AEGEE-Baki, AEGEE-Oviedo and AEGEE-Napoli discussed about language issues and played language games, while AEGEE-Zagreb focused on the French language. In total, the number of nationalities taking part in the events was more than twenty-five. Still, other locals, like AEGEE-Pisa and AEGEE-Minsk opted for the issue of endangered languages. They looked into the problem and tried to find solutions in open discussions. AEGEE-Pisa also used the opportunity to present AEGEE to a broad audience. Still, the EDL is not only about serious talks! Pubs, clubs and movie nights were perfect endings to many of the locals’ events.

AEGEE-Pisa repeated the workshop about endangered languages held at Agora-Cagliari

Antennae later posted photos and descriptions of their events in the EDL Facebook group, which was the place to ask for help during the organisation of the events and to share the success after. The group also helped to enlarge the pool of ideas, ready to be used at any other event, as well as it helped to establish a closer community and to show the readiness of the LWG members to help with language issues and language-related events.

If after reading this article you still do not know what the LWG is about, or want to learn more, head to the website or Facebook page. These enthusiastic people – language-lovers! – are willing to welcome you in their community. They constantly work on a number of projects which await YOUR participation!

Written by Inna Mezentseva, AEGEE-Minsk

Have you ever wondered how many languages are spoken throughout Europe? Do you enjoy listening to other foreign languages despite the fact that you don’t understand a word of them? Have you ever wanted to be involved in a linguistic tandem? If you answered yes to one of these questions, you would have enjoyed one of the events of the European Day of Languages (EDL). EDL is present in AEGEE since 2001, this year events were organised by 17 different AEGEE antennae thoughout our network.

“Learn 6 languages in 90 minutes” was the activity which was organized by AEGEE-Kaiserslautern.

This edition of the EDL had more than 22 languages involved, including 3 non-European languages, and more than 700 participants from 26 nationalities. If all these activities had been held in one place, it would have definitely been impossible to choose only one to attend: basic language presentations were carried out by AEGEE-Beograd, AEGEE-Voronezh and others; movies in original version were projected in AEGEE-Padova and AEGEE-Moskva; the typical APErasmus from AEGEE-Bergamo concluded with a native speaking video; language and cultural stereotype quizzes were held in AEGEE-Roma and AEGEE-Milano; typical food and drinks from each country plus linguistic tandems were organized by AEGEE-Las Palmas and AEGEE-A Coruña; “Learn 6 languages in 90 minutes” was the activity from AEGEE-Kaiserlautern; AEGEE-Torino decided to sing in different languages, and finally AEGEE-Kraków organized a city game with native speakers. So you see, it would have been difficult, to pick just one interesting workshop…

AEGEE-Voronezh organized some cultural and linguistic presentations.

It is great to see that the European Day of Languages has had this huge affluence of participants; above all, these events are a way of making people more aware of the linguistic stereotypes –and consequently the cultural ones– in order to break them and make people more tolerant towards each other. Looking back at all theese events, we can conclude that the 2013 edition of the EDL was a success.

We, the LWG, would like to thank locals who have joined EDL 2013 –you’ve been keeping this activity alive!– and we would like to encourage the whole Network to participate in the new edition in Autumn 2014.

If you are wondering why AEGEE celebrates the EDL in November instead of September – which is when the Council of Europe celebrates it – we’ll tell you: as many students are still having their holidays in September, AEGEE decided to change the dates to make sure that everybody could attend the activities. Even so, every local chooses their own dates and makes their activities last even for a week!

Then, what can you do if having read all this you realize that you are as passionate as we are about languages? You can get to know the Language Working Group! We can bring you in touch with people who are also crazily in love with this topic. So don’t hesitate; cheer up and join us!

Written by Núria Fenoll Domingo, AEGEE-Tarragona & Language Working Group member

Recently, the Language Working Group (LWG) started a project aimed at improving the level of English in publications of AEGEE. It’s called “Lingua” and offers a high quality translating and proofreading service to the whole Network. The AEGEEan interviewed the three initiators of the project, Adri López Smith, Isabel Sodric and Carlota Lifante to hear more about the idea and how this service works. These ‘three musketeers’ are working on splitting the different tasks at the moment, after the sending of an Open Call to the AEGEE-L mailing list, which resulted in a lot of people have already showing interest in getting involved.

The AEGEEan: Who came up with the idea of creating a pool of translators and proofreaders?

Adri- When I entered in the board of the LWG, I realized that there were some professional translators/interpreters and I told myself: why don’t we take advantage of this high-quality human resource to help locals with translations? A few days later, during ZarAgora, Isa and Carlota, after having seen some English mistakes in AEGEE’s official documents, approached me with a similar question: why don’t we try to improve the quality of external documents in AEGEE? Then I just tried to mix both ideas.

Carlota- I co-organized a congress at the faculty of Arts of the University of Alicante based on translators’ visibility. After that, Miguel Gallardo (Comité Directeur) told me I could contribute to a new point of view which would be very useful in the LWG. There were so many professional translators there and after chewing over it, Isa and I realized during ZarAgora that it would be such a great challenge for us to create and coordinate these translators. We could provide a high-quality service of translation and proofreading with the intention of reflecting a greater professionalism in the association. And, of course, we would need a third Musketeer who help us to win over some adversities.

What is the exact idea behind the project?

Carlota- The main idea is, while promoting a borderless, communicative and cooperative association, to offer a professional multilingual image and reflect the commitment of its members, who are making a great effort in order to carry out a Europe for youth.

Isa – I see this project as a way of taking care of the image of the association. In the same way that others have helped to show the world what AEGEE is by designing logos, websites or taking professional pictures, we can help as far as language is concerned to reach a higher quality in AEGEE documents.

Why are you personally interested in the topic?

Adri – Because I want to support antennae with a lower language knowledge.

Carlota – I grew up surrounded by translations, words, books, texts and languages and I learnt to appreciate all of this at a very young age. So when I was younger, whereas some dreamt of becoming a doctor, a firefighter or a singer, I dreamt of becoming an interpreter or, at least, a translator. Multiculturalism has gone with me all my life and the fact is that I do love what I do.

Why do you think this is important for AEGEE?

Carlota – As a vocational Translation and Interpreting student and as a (wannabe) translator and proofreader, I am very concerned with everything which is related to communication between cultures and cultural mediation issues. In order to provide a high-quality communication, you need professionals who are able to transfer the message properly. AEGEE is a European association and the professionalism of its members -who are working so hard in order to move forward- is (and it should be) deduced to every aspect. Documents, web pages, articles, e-books, presentations, Power Points, brochures and so on, are the main sources that reach the rest of the world, so these should reflect our competence, professionalism and expertise.

How do you plan to find and motivate proofreaders and translators to take part in the project?

Adri- From a formal point of view, this is the kind of work that a translator in training could add to their CV and therefore, this experience would be worth it for the rest of her/his professional career. So they should automatically be interested.

Carlota- And we will create a know-how manual in order to support members who are not professional translators or students of Translation to become familiar with word-processing tasks as well. They will have the opportunity to learn from people who are more experienced and to apply their knowledge in a practical way. In addition, we will also provide a record of the work each person manages based on the points below, so that people can be aware of their tasks, and so they have a clear overview of what they could put on therir CV.

1. Task Title (name of the document to translate or to proofread)

2. Task Type (translation or proofreading)

3. Source (source language)

4. Target (target language)

5. Word Count (translated words)

What are the next steps in the project?

Adri – Right now we are in the middle of the recruitment process (we already have more than 50 people!), but if you feel like being part of this team, do not hesitate to fill this questionnaire and we will contact you! We are also collaborating with The AEGEEan proofreaders and we are creating a manual or guideline (a know-how document) with some tips on translation/proofreading. Once all this is finished, we will inform all the Network on how this service is going to be operating exactly.

Carlota- There will come another Open Call to gather more interested translators and proofreaders, with a separation attending to working languages, and a distribution of translation and proofreading tasks. All AEGEEans want to translate or to proofread concerning AEGEE issues will always be welcomed. In addition, perhaps we will start a collaboration with current projects as I was talking to some of the project managers at the fair during the ZarAgora and they were pretty interested in translating their coming projects into several languages.

It will be interesting to follow this idea by the Language Working Group and Carlota ends the interview asking “Maybe it could be even a good initiative in order to attract new (translators or proofreaders) members to the association. Who knows?”

Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-København