By Anna Darafeja
Editor's note: This is an edited reflection on the Modlingua Summer Internship of 2018. It records Anna's experience at that time, not the current programme, course availability or her present professional services.
I joined Modlingua's online internship hoping to improve my professional knowledge and understand the translation business better. Over a little more than two months, the work introduced me to teamwork, project management and business development. Many assignments were not exercises in translating a text. They asked me to think about the other skills that support a translator's work.
Proofreading, quality and feedback
The first task was to review the errors in the personal profile and career goals I had submitted when applying. Looking closely at my own writing made me more attentive to proofreading and to the way I presented myself.
For the next assignment, I chose to write about quality standards in translation and the role of feedback in quality control. Alongside the videos provided by Modlingua, I did further research. Breaking the translation process into smaller parts helped me see more clearly what the work involves.
Dictation, subtitles and a lost first attempt
Transcription and subtitling were new to me. They challenged both my concentration and my time management. During the transcription task, I used a speech-to-text tool to reduce typing. I dictated the translation directly rather than writing it out first. To me, that felt similar to the mental effort of simultaneous interpreting; it was a personal comparison, not an interpreting qualification.
Subtitling took two attempts. On my first attempt, half of the work was not saved properly and I had to do it again. Learning the process meant dealing with practical setbacks as well as understanding the assignment.
Business planning and research outside my comfort zone
For the business-planning task, I proposed promoting Modlingua's short-term professional courses. I had little previous experience of business planning, so the assignment pushed me to look for ideas and explain them in a clear, structured way.
I particularly enjoyed researching a script about Nora Gal, a translator whose work and life interested me. Russian culture was close to me, and the assignment gave me a reason to explore that interest through a language-related subject.
The task about a business figure was harder to begin. Entrepreneurship was not a field I felt strongly drawn to, and even choosing a subject was difficult. Researching different people gradually increased my interest and gave me another chance to practise research and analysis. The final report then helped me review the work as a whole and identify room for further development.
Volunteering and Latvian subtitles
I also volunteered to write creative summaries for the videos "Translators Persona, Sanskar, Habitus and Doxa" and "Social Media Platforms as Collaborative Tools for Language Professionals". For the video "Translators in Motion: 200 Plus Interns Take Lessons of Language Management", I worked on Latvian subtitles because I wanted the information to be accessible to my Latvian colleagues.
These extra tasks let me apply what I was learning. Fitting them around the main assignments also tested my time management.
Learning online across time zones
This was my first online internship. I was initially unsure how it would work, but found the format convenient. The main difficulty for me was the time-zone difference: lectures often fell near the time I would normally finish studying and prepare for bed. Many sessions were at weekends, which made it easier to stay up later.
At the time, I valued having materials shared online and not needing to travel. I found the lectures by Ravi Kumar and guest speakers informative and approachable. Working with video and written material also suited my interest in analysing and summarising information.
A broader view of translation work
The focus on the business around translation was especially useful to me. The internship encouraged me to look beyond moving words from a source language into a target language and consider quality, client relationships and professional networks.
My original report also described interests in language teaching and research. Those were part of my outlook in 2018, not an offer of services today. What remains central to this reflection is the experience of learning with people from different backgrounds and discovering how many kinds of work sit around translation.
