Translation Hackathon: How CITS Celebrated International Translation Day

On September 30, the Caspian Higher School of Interpreting and Translation hosted its annual Linguistic Games to mark International Translation Day. This year, the organizers shook up the traditional format, making a real translation hackathon the program’s highlight.

There was no coding or programming involved. Instead, it was all about teams, tight deadlines, complex language tasks, and plenty of unexpected twists.

Participants had to complete a series of challenges designed to test their listening comprehension, editing and proofreading skills, as well as their translation ingenuity. In one assignment, the students even had to work with languages from literary and cinematic universes, seeking meaning where conventional translation strategies no longer worked.

The work was organized in teams under strict time limits, requiring the participants to make split-second decisions, communicate and make decisions as a team, analyze context, and think outside the box.

The Linguistic Games offered a small-scale simulation of a real professional situation: in the work of a translator or interpreter, there isn’t always time to overthink a single option. Sometimes, you need to quickly grasp the task, catch the core message, identify an error, or find a solution where you least expect it.

That’s why we decided to move past theory this time and dive straight into practice.

Thank you to all our participants for their enthusiasm, teamwork, and willingness to take on the most unexpected translation challenges!

See more photos in our album:  vk.ru/album-60064933_31460…