How to Submit

Before you start

Check that you meet the eligibility rules: an enrolled undergraduate in the United States, 18 or older, translating into English from one of our source languages.

What to prepare

You will upload two documents.

1. Your translation

Up to 1,000 words in English.

2. The source passage

Send only the passage your translation corresponds to — not the entire book, collection, or archive it came from.

Include as much of the following as you know:

• Author
• Title of the work, and of the collection or publication it appeared in
• Date of publication or composition
• Publisher
• Any copyright information you are aware of

Judges need the original in front of them to evaluate your work. The bibliographic details are what let us clear permission later if your translation is selected.

How to submit

Submissions are made through a Google Form. It will ask for your name, your .edu email address, your institution, your source language, and the two documents above.

• One entry per person. If more than one arrives from you, we consider the first and set the others aside.
• You will get a receipt. The form emails a confirmation as soon as you submit. If it hasn’t arrived in a few minutes, check spam, then write to us.
• There is no fee, and there never will be.

The deadline

Submissions close January 5, 2027 at 11:59 p.m. ET. That is New York time — if you are on the West Coast, it is 8:59 p.m. on the same day.

We would rather read a translation you finished than one you rushed, so give yourself more than the last evening.

What happens next

1. Administrative review. We check eligibility, screen for AI use and plagiarism, and remove identifying information.
2. Anonymous evaluation. Each entry goes to a judge who reads its source language. Judging runs across the spring term.
3. Finalists notified on May 5, 2027.
4. Winners announced at an online ceremony on May 15, 2027.

Your rights, in short

• Permission from the rights holder is not required to enter.
• Your submission is confidential — seen by administrators and your assigned judge, and nobody else.
• Entries that do not win are deleted after the administrative review period.
• NULTA does not take publication rights. Your translation stays yours.
• Winning does not guarantee publication. Before anything is published or read publicly, we work to obtain any permission needed from the rights holder of the original.

The full text, including the obligations placed on judges, is on the Rights and Permissions page. It is worth reading before you submit.