UvA Talen translates for bilingual UvA Psychology Bachelor

Last year the University of Amsterdam announced its intention to provide teaching in both Dutch and English. As a result of this decision, a number of departments have chosen to offer bilingual degree programmes, one of which is the Bachelor’s programme in Psychology. The university asked UvA Talen to translate all the Dutch texts into English for this new bilingual programme.

Large translation project

UvA Talen is regularly asked to translate texts for various Dutch universities. Translating the texts for this Psychology programme was a particularly large translation project incorporating handbooks for students and lecturers,  tutorial assignments and other instructions.

Bilingual Bachelor

Lectures in the Psychology Bachelor are given in English and the tutorials may be in either English or Dutch. It is expected that this programme will attract Dutch students as well as international students, thus encouraging collaboration between nationalities. Moreover, students will be better prepared to enter the international labour market and to take Master’s degrees taught in English.

Subtle translations

UvA Talen’s academic translators very much enjoyed working on this assignment. “It was interesting material to translate, because as well providing an accurate translation, it was important to convey the subtelties of the subject matter. After all, if the message doesn’t come across, the lesson will be a failure. Moreover, psychology is a field in which the choice of words is particularly important. All of this meant that the translators had to create a solid bridge between two worlds: that of the Dutch author and that of the international students who will be taking the programme. Building such a bridge demands specialist knowledge as well as language skills. Making this material accessible to talented international students made this an important social project as well as interesting from a language perspective.”

More information

You can find more information about UvA Talen’s translation services under Translations. Or ask for a no-obligations quote right away.