The Historic Evolution of the Martutene Translator School: Begining, Steps Taken, Present Situation

The Donostia Translators School opened its doors in 1980, supported hy The hasque Language Academy. In the hegining, it was limited to translating general culture texts, prior to any specialized translation.

You could say that the first year (1980-1981) was experimental. As heing the first, as much for the students as fbr the teachers, and, among other reasons, the discussions ahout the Basque itself ahout unity and standardization of Basque— often impeded the possibility of confronting translation directly.

With the second year, the school aquired premises within the Martutene Professional School, with the previous years experience, the study period was extended to three years and the syllabus was revised, little hy little, an although among the students there is a feeling of being part of a lahoratoryS the situation is settling down. There are many problems that still exist: a) The infrastructure, in fact the premises are in a deplorahle state, which cloes not favour a good atmosphere to study in. Although here we can point out the school library was provided for wisely. We can also add that the school itself, with great effort and hehalf of the teachers, published varioues hooks in the years 82-86. b) Financial problems. At certain times they were very serious, and hindered the normal running of the school. The future is still uncertain. c) Qualifications given. As the need for Basque translators was rising, and as the school quired a goog name, it was necessary to establish a qualification with academic value. Something similar to teaching was demanded, the Department of Education of the Basque Government offered The Higher Qualification of Professional Education. In the end neither were obtained. But we must say that the 118artutene qualification although without academic value, is begining to be taken into account when tryiing to get certain jobs.

Once the school had lost all hope of official recognition, reorganization was necessary. With only two teachers, new one year corses wew formed, dealing mainly with retraining.

As a conclusion we can say that the school has given many benefits, which we consider and are considered by others as very positive: basically here the first serious thinking on the problems of the translation of basque was done, and thanks to this, the relationship betwen Basque translators have hecome closer. To this effect the creation of EIZIE (The Association of Translator, Proof-readers and Interpreters of the Basque Countly) has heen the work of the teachers from the Martutene School.