Six students from the University of Macau (UM) won prizes at the recent Chinese-Portuguese Translation Contest for Higher Education Institutions in China.
The event, now in its third year, was held concurrently at the UM and Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU). According to a UM statement, it aims to “promote exchanges in Portuguese language teaching between universities in Macao and mainland China, encourage students in Portuguese studies to gain practical experience in Chinese-Portuguese translation, and identify high-quality Chinese-Portuguese bilingual talent.”
A total of 84 students from 26 universities in mainland China and Macao participated in the contest, which was divided into undergraduate and postgraduate sections. The results were announced last month.
[See more: The Portuguese ‘still play a role’ in preserving Macao’s identity, study finds]
This year, six students from the Department of Portuguese of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at UM won awards, including Tian Xiner, who took first prize in the undergraduate Portuguese-to-Chinese translation competition, and Lian Zimo, who came first in the postgraduate Portuguese-to-Chinese contest.
The jury was co-chaired by Yao Jingming, emeritus professor in the Department of Portuguese at UM, and Ye Zhiliang, professor in the School of Hispanic and Portuguese Studies at BFSU.
Portuguese is one of the official languages of Macao but spoken by only around two percent of the population. The government is making strenuous efforts, however, to promote use of the language in order to maintain Macao’s historic Portuguese connections and to facilitate trade with the lusophone world.
