Erasmus + coordinator Jan Chapek delivered a series of lectures to future German translators

   Jan Chapek, Doctor of Philosophy, Erasmus + Coordinator, visited the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine in October 2021. The program of the visit was quite busy - discussion of possible cooperation, meetings with teachers and students, and workshops. A prominent component of Mr. Chapek's work program was delivering lectures in German for future German translators.

    The material presented by the guest lecturer was of great use for the students. It was devoted to purely linguistic phenomena that philologists need to pay attention to, as well as literary forms (myths, legends), and the historical background, which determined the linguistic peculiarities of the language and affected creative reflection of facts in literature.

    A special attention was paid to the journalistic genre, in particular, the examples of manipulative influences of the politicians’ speeches in the past. A vivid demonstration of the possibilities of language transformations, falsifications, misinterpretations highlighted the need for the translator to have profound background knowledge.
 

    Mr. Chapek’s lectures also covered modern cinematography and the latest trends in this field, which may have difficulties for translators. Although the translation of movie audio requires special training, the students used basic examples to observe how the translation could be done and grasped an idea of this type of work.

    Both students and teachers thanked Jan Chapek for this series of lectures and expressed hope that they would continue in the future.

Svitlana Amelina,
Head of the Department of Foreign Philology and Translation