On December 20, 2025, the final round of the 4th "Yunshan Cup" International Remote Interpreting Contest concluded at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. Under the theme "Mutual Learning among Civilizations • Guangdong, Go!", the contest leveraged a remote interpreting online platform to create a stage for global interpreting contestants, featuring both consecutive and simultaneous interpreting.
This year's contest featured deep collaboration with the "GO Guangdong" Platform. Real-world competition materials were sourced from various cultural, historical, and industrial sites across multiple cities in Guangdong Province. Contestants accurately translated descriptions of these sites into the 16 languages, conveying the voice of Guangdong to the world through authentic and vivid local narratives, thus practicing international communication with language as the bridge and culture as the medium.
The contest tasked participants with interpreting from Chinese into 16 other languages, namely English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Italian, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian, Malay, Lao, Burmese, and Cambodian. The preliminary round attracted over 4,500 participants from within China and abroad. After rigorous selection, 251 contestants across the 16 language tracks advanced to the finals. The live stream of the event attracted tens of thousands of viewers.
At the opening ceremony of the finals, Liu Jianda, Vice President of GDUFS, said the competition leveraged remote technology that gathers young Chinese and international contestants proficient in 16 languages, serving as a significant practice in telling China's stories well. He emphasized that translation is a bridge for mutual learning among civilizations, and that accurate and masterful interpreting can foster international consensus.
At the closing ceremony, Sylvia Kadenyi Amisi, President of the AIIC, stated that translators' role extends far beyond that of language converters; more importantly, they are cultural interpreters and bridges of communication. Their work is key to facilitating cross-cultural exchange and building social consensus. The outstanding interpreters of the future will undoubtedly be guided by humanistic spirit, empowered by technology, to more effectively convey the voice of civilizations in global dialogue.
The 4th "Yunshan Cup" International Remote Interpreting Contest was guided by the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC), the Academy of Translation and Interpretation of China International Communications Group, the Interpreting Committee of the Translators Association of China, and the Network on Assessment and Evaluation in Interpreting, and organized by Guangdong University of Foreign Studies and the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
