Today, on European Day of Languages, Queen’s is launching the Anthea Bell Prize for Young Translators 2025-26, sending out teaching packs on translating poetry to over 2,000 teachers.
We are proud to launch the Anthea Bell Prize today to mark European Day of Languages and International Translation Day (30 September), by providing creative, cultural, and inclusive content for languages classes across the UK. Teachers can register here to receive free classroom resources for poetry, fiction and non-fiction translation. Please visit our FAQs for more information.
The Anthea Bell Prize for Young Translators is the Queen’s College Translation Exchange’s flagship project, launched in 2020 to get students aged 11-18 in every part of the United Kingdom translating enriching, authentic texts with creativity and rigour. Last year, the Prize ran in six languages, including French, German, Mandarin, Spanish, Italian as well as Russian for the first time, alongside translation from French into Welsh/Cymraeg. A record-breaking 20,000 students participated, as the ranks of young linguists grow year-on-year.
The ambition of the Prize has always been to give teachers and students high quality resources that bring creativity and culture into the classroom, and to combat the worrying decline in language-learning at GCSE, A-Level, and University. The Queen’s College has a rich history in teaching and research in Modern Languages, and continues to be one of the best places to study Modern Languages. The Translation Exchange’s work brings this reputation into classrooms across the country, and the Anthea Bell Prize continues to grow with each edition.
