It’s that time of the year again…

No, not Christmas (although that’s already way too visible in the stores).

I’m talking about International Translation Day.

Wikipedia has a great article on the history and significance of the day, so I won’t get into that here.

I do want to point out some of the various activities going on here in Germany and Europe, however.

The International Federation of Translators (FIT), for instance, has dedicated a page on their website to this day under the motto “Translation unveils the many faces of humanity”.

The Verband der Konferenzdolmetscher im BDÜ (VKD) has two campaigns going: a running challenge starting tomorrow, 30 September, until 8 October, with the goal to plant as many trees as possible, and a (cute and funny) poster campaign in Germany’s largest train stations, running from 22 September until 1 October, with tons of selfies already popping up on social media with the hashtags #VKD #BDÜ #ITD2023 #multitalkingfähig.

The BDÜ LV Baden-Württemberg has been doing an impulse and image campaign on LinkedIn on the topic of the challenges for our industry in times of machine translation and AI.

And “my” branch of the BDÜ, the LV Bayern, has provided its members with an email signature to use in their correspondence throughout the month of September.

So there’s lots going on to put the focus on our profession, the fantastic people (not only) in the associations, and the great things they are doing every day.

And don’t worry! Even after tomorrow and after the end of all these campaigns, we won’t stop help the world communicate better, whether with written or spoken words.