5 February 2019
Woldingham Sixth Former Natalia Glazman is the UK winner of Juvenes Translatores, an annual competition which rewards the best translators in the European Union. Natalia beat students from 73 UK schools and will travel to Brussels in early April to be presented with the award, along with a winner from each of the other EU countries.
Natalia won for a translation from Spanish into English – a feat that is even more remarkable because her first language is Russian. Natalia started learning English at the age of seven and describes her linguistic level at the time she joined Woldingham aged 11 as “okay”. But her immersion into a British education at Woldingham quickly saw her become fluent, helped by her devotion to spending much of her spare time to reading and watching films in English. Woldingham’s Head of Spanish, Mr Angel López, soon spotted her talent for his native language (Natalia achieved one of her eight A* GCSEs in Spanish) and encouraged her to continue with it at A Level alongside her other passion, science.
Natalia commented: “I’m still in a little bit of disbelief, but I’m extremely delighted and also very grateful to my teachers who have helped me. I’m very excited to be going to Brussels, and so is my mum, who will accompany me.”
Headmistress, Mrs Alex Hutchinson commented: “I’m enormously proud of Natalia’s achievement, and also of our language teachers who have nurtured and developed her undoubted talents. That Natalia is applying to study Biochemistry with Spanish is testament to the breadth of academic excellence at Woldingham and I have no doubt that Natalia’s linguistic talents will open up many opportunities to her in the future, both professionally and personally.”