On 2nd and 3rd May 2003 the 1st International Symposium was organized at the Department of Translation of the University of Helsinki on the translation of dialects in multimedia. The book includes the most important papers given at the symposium in German, English and Swedish. The special fields of papers published in the book are: audiovisual translation and audiovisual dialectology, language variations and dialects in multimedia, translation of dialect literature, language and dialect contacts, dialects of immigrants etc. During the last few years, spoken and written dialects have become popular in the multimedia to create a counterbalance against the globalization of ideologies and technology, and perhaps also as a reaction against the oppressive ruling of ideologies and their languages after the World War II, which collapsed together with the Iron Curtain about 15 years ago. Now the people oppressed seek their own identity through dialects and research of old and contemporary dialects.