On September 17th and 18th, the TEDxYouth@JahezTranslateathon, a collaboration between the Syrian TED Translators and TEDx communities, took place in Damascus, Syria, at SEBC. The gathering was organized and led by Arabic TED Translator Ghalia Turki, with the aim of introducing TED and the TED Translators project to new volunteer translators; it was sponsored by the UNFPA.
Ghalia kicked things off with an overview of TED and TED Translators, and then guided the 15 attendees through an Amara tutorial, translation tips and common mistakes to avoid. Afterward, the participants chose several random TEDx Talks and broke into pairs to translate the talks from English to Arabic. The translateathon ran for 12 hours.
Once the groups finished their translations, Ghalia reviewed their work, tallying errors and making helpful notes for the translators. She then selected the two pairs who submitted the best translations, taking into account accuracy and speed. The four winners, so to speak, were each awarded coupons of 10.000 Syrian Pounds (SYP) courtesy of an English library in Damascus, while all the other participants received coupons worth 5000 SYP.
On the whole, the TEDxYouth@JahezTranslateathon was yet another productive step forward for the Syrian translation community, as well as for more frequent collaborative efforts between TED Translators and TEDx.
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