By Anjali Chawla
Editor's note: Adapted from Anjali's August 2018 internship report. This is a personal reflection on that programme, not a description of current internship arrangements or software features.
My 2018 summer internship at Modlingua gave me a chance to connect language study with practical assignments. In my report, I described how online meetings, writing tasks and discussions about the language business helped me think beyond the roles I already knew.
Learning to review my own writing
The first assignment asked me to analyse errors and omissions in my own profile. Looking again at that text helped me notice grammar, sentence structure and material that did not need to be there. The exercise made revision a task I could practise, rather than something that happened only after someone else read my work.
Another assignment focused on quality standards and the role of feedback. I researched why standards matter in translation and how a review process can help people improve their work. These tasks introduced a wider concern than correct sentences: the quality of the work we deliver.
Putting language skills into practice
A video assignment introduced transcription. I chose to work in French, and a later assignment used the text to prepare subtitles. What mattered to me was the opportunity to apply language skills to a practical task, rather than discuss them only in a classroom.
My report does not establish whether the French text followed French speech or translated speech from another language. For that reason, this reflection does not use the exercise to define a technical category of transcription. Nor is the recorded 2018 subtitling task a current guide to YouTube's tools.
Writing for different purposes
I also explored the relationship between content writing, online marketing and multilingual translation. Other assignments asked me to prepare video scripts about people working in literature or business. I chose Charles Baudelaire for one script and Sundar Pichai for another.
Researching and organising those scripts gave me a different kind of writing practice. I had to decide what information belonged in the piece and how to present it to an audience.
A wider view of the language business
At university, I had studied language, written and oral expression, linguistics and translation. The internship added a view of the business side of language work. Discussions about entrepreneurship made me consider it as a possible career direction alongside translation, interpreting and teaching.
That was an important change in my thinking at the time. A language professional's choices need not be limited to the job titles they first encounter during their studies. Understanding how language services reach clients can also be part of preparing for work.
Responsibility and working with others
Completing tasks, attending online meetings and meeting deadlines helped me practise punctuality and responsibility. Working through the programme also gave me opportunities to communicate with other people and learn from their questions.
Looking back in my final report, I valued the combination of language practice and a wider introduction to the industry. I thanked Ravi Kumar, the Modlingua team and my fellow interns for helping me see how writing, translation and business could connect.
