Anthea Bell Prize for Young Translators 2026
We are pleased to be able to offer to all students the opportunity to take part once more in The Anthea
Bell Prize for Young Translators. This competition is run by the Queen’s College at the University of
Oxford, and it aims to promote language learning across the UK and to inspire creativity in the
classroom. If you would like to know more, you can watch the Anthea Bell Prize Introductory Video as
well as look at Where can learning a language take you.
You can find practice resources for Spanish and French here. Please remember to choose the correct task
for your year group. If you would like to enter the competition in another language, please contact Mrs
Morales.
The resources are targeted at four levels in six languages (French, German, Italian, Mandarin, Russian
and Spanish), plus a beginners Russian-language strand for students in KS5. French resources for levels
1 and 2 are also available in Welsh.
Please remember to make the most of the practice resources before attempting the competition task.
Once you are ready, you will find the competition tasks following this link. You will have to sign in using
your school email account.
The deadline to submit your entries to FSG will be Tuesday 17th March. When you are ready to submit
your work, follow this link to upload it in word or PDF format.
• You can work on your translation in pairs if you prefer.
• You cannot receive assistance from teachers or parents when completing the competition task.
• You are welcome to illustrate your entries, but this is in no way obligatory.
• Within the practice tasks you will see they have provided glossaries for each text, but you are
welcome to use dictionaries and online resources when completing your translation.
• The glossaries are intended as a guide; you can choose to deviate from the suggestions.
• The judges will check for use of AI and machine translation software. Competition texts have
been selected because a translation produced by a machine will be inadequate
• Good luck!
Judging, prizes and certificates
Each school can only submit 5 translations per level and per subject, so 20 in total. We will collate your
entries and, after 17th March, the MFL team at FSG will meet up to choose the best 5 entries per level to
submit to The Queen’s College.
A team of Oxford undergraduates and professional translators will judge entries to the competition.
Winning entries will strike a balance between creativity and accuracy.
Area winners are selected for each level in each language. National winners and runners-up for each level
in each language are selected from the area winners. A number of commendations are awarded to
recognize high quality work. See the list of winners and commendation for 2025, where you will also find
representations from FSG: Winners and Commendees 2025
Winners for each level from each geographical area will receive certificates. In each geographical area
there will be some commended entries, and these students will also receive certificates. Area winners will
be entered into the national competition. National winners will receive books as prizes.