Multilingualism Day in Brussels

It is a seemingly impossible task, catering towards five hundred and fifty-two different language combinations. Yet, the European Union seems to have figured out a way how to.

On Saturday 28 September, Patrick van Oosterom, Max van Winden, Anne Visser, Emma Buijl, Irina Morozova, Lieke Stelling, and I, Tessa Karsten, boarded a train to Brussels for the Multilingualism Day. The excursion was part of the Terreinverkenning course of the TLC domain, which features multilingualism as its main theme.

Once there, we started off the day by attending a workshop on how to best deliver news in the form of a podcast to an audience of different ethnicities, multicultural backgrounds, and social classes. After a quick lunch, we headed to the fourth floor for a talk in the hemicycle about interpreting and translating during debates and votes. One of the employees of the European Parliament gave an insightful talk about how to make sure that all representatives of the twenty-eight member states can speak in their countries’ official language, of which there are twenty-four in total, and how to make sure that every person sitting in the room can follow along.

For the final part of the day, we left the European Parliament and headed to the House of European History. Here, we took part in a tour about the history of languages in Europe. Through anecdotes told by our enthusiastic guide, we learned more about the rich diversity of the continent. At the end of the tour, we got to speak to one of the museum’s curators, Kieran Burns, about what it’s like to organise a multilingual exhibition and what exactly goes into it. To finish off the day like proper Belgians, we got some fries, beers, and a waffle in the city centre and then made our way back to Utrecht CS. All in all, a very successful, educative, and fun day.