Maria Flavia Tohaneanu, an 11th grade student from Carol I National College in Craiova is among the 28 winners of the annual translator contest “Juvenes Translatores” organized by the European Commission.
Over 3,000 teenagers from 740 European schools took part in the contest in November last year. Romania enlisted with 32 high schools. The 28 winners will be awarded in Brussels in April.
“The Juvenes Translatores contest represented a confirmation of my talent in foreign languages. I speak English, French, a little bit of German and Italian. It is not very difficult to perform a good interpretation, but you have to possess several qualities, to feel the language and to transmit the information as naturally as possible, as if you would be the first to speak those things for the first time,” Maria Tohaneanu told Mediafax.
Juvenes Translatores contest has been organized by the General Translation Direction with the European Commission every year since 2007.
This year, the contenders had to translate texts focused on the European identity topic, yet seen from different angles. The text translated by Maria, from English to Romanian was underlining the importance of the family tree in finding out your own identity.