Building Professional Awareness in the Cyberage: The World of Professional Translation and Interpreting in the German Speaking Countries

Abstract

Within the overall framework of the Cibertaaal project, the task El mundo profesional de la traducción y la interpretación en Alemania2 was designed for second-year Translation students who learn German as a second foreign language. Their average level of proficiency in German, according to the European Frame of Reference at the time of completing the task, was A2/B1. Translating from German into their native Spanish or Catalan is the main objective of the curriculum for the second foreign language in a Translation degree, which turns reading comprehension into the most important aspect of the language courses that precede the actual training in translation. This focus on developing reading strategies as well as the pre-intermediate level of proficiency of this group of students makes them the ideal target group for a cybertask as outlined in the previous chapters.