In order to cultivate Chinese-Portuguese translation professionals, strengthen the exchange of teaching and research between Chinese-Portuguese translations globally, promote the construction of Macao’s “International Portuguese Training Centre” and “Chinese-Portuguese Bilingual Talent Training Base”, and contribute to the “Belt and Road” Initiative, the Higher Education Bureau of Macao SAR Government and the Macao Polytechnic Institute jointly organized the “4th World Chinese-Portuguese Translation Competition”. This year's World Translation Competition attracted 211 teams from 50 universities around the world, fully demonstrating the role of Macao as a “Chinese-Portuguese platform”. Due to the impact of Covid-19, the awards ceremony of the World Chinese-Portuguese Translation Competition was held online at 17:00 on 23 September 2020, Macao time. More than 500 contestants and instructors from Asia, Africa, Europe and South America gathered online to witness the announcement of the winners and to celebrate together the success of this international competition.
Since 2017, with the great support of the Office of the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture of the Macao SAR Government, the Language Big Data Alliance (LBDA), and the Portuguese Polytechnics Coordinating Council (CCISP), the Higher Education Bureau of the Macao SAR Government and the Macao Polytechnic Institute have jointly organized the World Chinese-Portuguese Translation Competition and received overwhelming response from the participants and the society. All processes since the first competition, including the registration of the competition, sending of translated text, submission of entries and so on, have been carried out online in a well-organized way. Therefore, the epidemic did not affect the smooth running of the competition this year. As the largest Chinese-Portuguese translation competition in the world, with the largest number of participants and the most far-reaching influence, the competition has been held for four years, attracting nearly 600 teams and over 1,000 students and instructors from Portuguese-speaking countries and regions, Mainland China and Macao.
There are Grand Awards (one champion, one 1st runner-up, and one 2nd runner-up), “Special Awards for the Macao Higher Education Institutions Team” (one champion and one 1st runner-up) and five teams for Outstanding Awards in this competition. After months of intense competition, the results of this year's competition were officially announced: Renata André Véran de Azevedo de Moura and Cheng Xiaoyu of the Universidade de Lisboa won the championship; the 1st runner-up were Bo Ai and Liu Tianjie from the Macao Polytechnic Institute; the 2nd runner-up were Zhao Dian and Luo Jinyi from Hubei University. In order to encourage Macao institutions to participate, the organizer specially set up the “Special Award for the Macao Higher Education Institutions Team”; the champions of this category were Chen Xiao, Huang Liying and Pedro Filipe Rodrigues Seco Biscaia from the Macao Polytechnic Institute; the 1st runner-up team was from Macao University of Saint Joseph, Cai Yongjun, Tan Huiyu, and Tomaz Medvedec Vilela. The winning teams for the Outstanding Awards were: Julia Scherer Schwingel and Thais Scherer Schwingel from Instituto Confúcio para Negócios FAAP in Brazil; Catarina Lin Wang, Anna Wu Chen and Liu Guangyuan from Instituto Politécnico de Leiria in Portugal; Li Jihao and Yi Hongyu from Universidade do Minho in Portugal, Zhu Shuaijie and Yang Shirong from Jilin International Studies University, Jorge Francisco Goga and Olga Marlene Rodrigo Chilaule from Universidade Eduardo Mondlane in Mozambique.
The winning students from the champion team of the Grand Award, the Universidade de Lisboa in Portugal, said that this competition is a very valuable learning experience, cultural differences are often encountered in translation, and due to the epidemic, discussions among the players have also been affected; they have had a profound experience through this competition, “as long as we work together, we can overcome difficulties and break down the barriers of language and culture.” The Macao Polytechnic Institute team, which won the “Special Award for the Macao Higher Education Institutions Team”, claimed that the competition has greatly helped them to improve their translation practice level, they can apply what they have learned and gain a lot of knowledge outside the classroom; it is a very meaningful experience to overcome time zone difference and develop cooperation between the Chinese and Portuguese students. The winning teams from the Instituto Confúcio para Negócios FAAP in Brazil and the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane in Mozambique said that the competition has made them feel the profoundness of the Chinese language, and has stimulated their enthusiasm for learning Chinese culture and language; they thanked the organizers for providing a Chinese-Portuguese language cultural dialogue exchange platform for them.