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26 September is European Day of Languages

Translator Svilena Georgieva: Learning foreign languages teaches us to love and cherish our native Bulgarian

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Photo: edl-bulgaria.eu

Cultural and linguistic diversity - this is what distinguishes the European Union, and the languages spoken in the community are an important part of Europe's cultural heritage. There are currently 24 official languages in the EU and each time a Member State joins the EU, the number increases. This diversity is also the subject of a special day in the Community calendar, which is celebrated in all Member States. The aim is to make Europeans more familiar not only with their own mother tongue, but also with the languages of Europe, and to encourage the learning and use of foreign languages in translation and interpretation.

"Many languages, one Europe" - this is the motto of 26 September, declared in 2001 European Day of Languages (EDL). It is organized jointly by the Council of Europe and the European Commission. 

In the Bulgarian capital there are also a number of thematic events dedicated to linguistic diversity. One of the most exciting initiatives is the "Language Café" where even complete beginners can learn basic words in French, English, Finnish, Irish, Polish, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish... and what is more, learn directly from native speakers.

Booths in front of the Ivan Vazov National Theatre in Sofia
The next more large-scale initiative will be on September 28 when the Fair of Languages will take place in the City Garden in front of the Ivan Vazov National Theatre in Sofia. There, 20 thematic stands will present many of the European languages through cultural institutions and embassies, co-organized by the Institute of Bulgarian Language at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

"We are trying to create a festive atmosphere with lots of language games, quizzes, prizes and lots of music. And for all those who will not be able to be there, we offer an online quiz on the European Day of Languages platform at https://edl-bulgaria.eu.. 


It is open to everyone over the age of 14 from 1 to 30 September," explains to Radio Bulgaria Svilena Georgieva, local representative of the European Commission's Directorate-General for Translation, the organization closest to the European Day of Languages.

"Translation is changing like any other profession, it's inevitable that new technologies are coming in the field. For 25 years the EC has had an in-house service of developers and linguists who create machine translation. Initially it was based on statistical data, but more recently it has been based on large language models, the so-called LLMs. So we as translators are working with new technologies and with computer-assisted translation applications, with large translation memories, large data sets using more and more machine translation. But this machine translation, unlike platforms such as Google or other commercial applications, has been developed entirely in-house by our colleagues and has been trained on our texts, i.e. it is familiar with the whole of European legislation. So our work has changed a lot, we are like strict posteditors of machine translation and we have been using it in the EU institutions for a decade now."

Svilena Georgieva herself has been a translator for more than 20 years, she is fluent in 14 languages and never stops expanding her wealth of foreign languages. One of the things she wants to make sure everyone pays special attention to, however, is the beauty, richness and uniqueness of our native Bulgarian language.

Svilena Georgieva
How important the Bulgarian language is in Europe - this is what we want to show to the young people who will visit our stands on the occasion of the European Day of Languages, says Svilena Georgieva and continues:

"And also our language is not so small, our language has its own value and all EU documents are translated into Bulgarian as one of the official languages - so we are very keen that young people realize how important Bulgarian really is. They should not pretend to be smarter and cooler by using borrowed foreign words in their speech, and it would be a pity if we started speaking bad English instead of our interesting, valuable, beautiful Bulgarian language, with all the linguistic richness we possess. We translators often find in foreign languages interesting, curious words that have no translation in other languages. But in Bulgarian we also have such words. I often give the example of the words "lyubov" (love) and "obich" (more often translated as "affection"). We all know the word for love in English, French, Italian and other languages, but in Bulgarian we have two different words for close emotions, but we Bulgarians know that there is a difference between love and affection. The word "obich" in Bulgarian is used to denote something more tender, more intimate, more sublime - we talk about motherly or brotherly affection, it is much closer to the heart, while love is a more general concept. But behold, a word like this proves that our language has nuances that cannot be conveyed when translated into a foreign language. So by learning foreign languages, we learn to love and appreciate more our native tongue."

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Photos: edl-bulgaria.eu, Facebook/European Day of Languages, unimedia.shu.bg 

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