Have you always wanted to localise Flash animations but didn’t know what technology to use? Have you always wanted to introduce subtitling in your teaching but always lacked the necessary resources? Have you wondered how translation for voice-over is different from traditional translation? Then look no further as this presentation will discuss the current professional and educational multimedia localisation contexts, the transformational effect they have had on the traditional training of translators, and present the resources for vocational training in multimedia eContent created in the Leonardo project eCoLoMedia.
The evolution of AV technologies and localisation practices requires educators in translation to continually rethink and update the way students are trained and the materials used. Determined to provide quality professional training, teachers face three difficulties: their own lack of training in specialised tools, the difficulty of obtaining illustrative sample multimedia materials (e.g. film or game sequences) and the time-consuming preparation of multimedia files and corresponding pedagogical scenarios. In an attempt to enrich the existing training resources, eCoLoMedia offers materials created by a linguistically and culturally diverse team of professionals, from institutions such as RTBF, ITI and CBTIP/BKVTF and academics, to support the teaching of multimedia translation. We will take you through the eCoLoMedia ‘training kits’ that include typical multimedia materials such as Flash animations, game, audio and video sequences, and cover various localisation techniques including captioning, voiceover and subtitling. We provide the original sample files as well as their localised versions in a variety of European languages.
The training kits tackling issues for beginners and intermediate users were developed at increasing levels of difficulty, . They illustrate various types of multimedia localisation and cover various challenges from the technological (file formats and software) and linguistic, to the pragmatic and cultural. We also investigate the suitability of using CAT tools and applying some project management workflows that are maybe widely used today in localisation, but have yet to penetrate the world of multimedia localisation.
This presentation does not promise to change your life, but it might provide a few helpful answers regarding your training questions and needs or suggest new and exciting ways to teach multimedia translation.

Pascaline MERTEN graduated in linguistics and literature and then in information science at the University of Brussels; she has a PhD in humanities. She began her carrier as a researcher, in machine translation and in terminology. After having worked in the private sector as an analyst, she became teacher of computer science and machine-aided translation at the ISTI. She has written papers on exchange formats and on the pedagogy of machine-aided translation. She was the ISTI coordinator during the eCoLore project and is now project leader of the new Leonardo eCoLoMedia project.