Congratulations to our 2025 winners!

We were thrilled to receive so many high-quality entries, demonstrating excellent translation work across the five languages of the competition. With over 200 entrants across the five languages, the competition was fierce! Winners of each language strand are listed below, together with commendations for that language.

Chinese, sponsored by the Confucius Institute

Winner: Joanna Wang (UCL) [read the translation]

Commended: Cemara Liauw-Prior (SOAS), Boroka Javor (University of Leeds)

French

Winner: Alice Frearson (University of Exeter) [read the translation] - also awarded the prize for overall winner across all five languages

Commended: Caitlin Taylor (University of Manchester), Harriet Pickering (University of Warwick), Imogen Barnes (University of Cambridge)

German, sponsored by the Goethe Institut

Winner: Robert Couchman (University of Warwick) [read the translation]

Commended: Isabelle Winter (University of Oxford), Moiyah Jackson (QMUL)

Italian

Winner: Jiayu Zhang (University of Manchester) [read the translation]

Commended: Luisa Adamson (University of Westminster), Emily Farnon (Queens University Belfast)

Spanish

Winner: Hannah Gallacher (Durham University) [read the translation]

Commended: Ariana Dubov (University of York), Isabelle Winter (University of Oxford), Doa Acikgun (University of Cambridge)

The theme of this year’s competition was The Travelling Self: the source texts explored experiences of travel, including themes such as cultural/linguistic difference, split sense of identity, and multiple ‘homes’.

Entry was open to final-year undergraduate students of Modern Languages at UK universities – this includes Single Honours, Joint Honours, and any programme in which one or more languages forms a substantial component. The competition this year was for translation from Chinese, French, German, Italian and Spanish into English.

Separate prizes of £30 each have been awarded for the best translation from each language, with a prize of £75 for the best overall translation.

Judging

Submissions were judged by staff teaching on the MA in Translation and Cultures , assisted by colleagues from the School of Modern Languages and Cultures. Particular attention was paid to sensitivity to nuance in the source text, and to creative and effective use of the target language.

Congratulations to all winning and commended translators, and thank you to everyone who took part this year. We are also very grateful to our sponsors for their support: