By Pallavi Goel

About the internship

The summer internship offered by Modlingua is perhaps one of its kind in the domain of translation and interpretation in India. While a lot of schools and institutions offer various courses and training programmes in the art of translation and interpretation itself, very often they leave out the professional know-how of this domain. As a result, many translators enter the job market under-prepared for it. Modlingua summer internship programme is an attempt, and a rather successful one, to overcome this lack. It thus aims to give translators and interpreters an initiation to the working of the professional word and impart the much-required survival skills.

About the programme
The 2018 Summer Internship at Modlingua focused on the following skills: project management, quality management, documentation, social media marketing, and entrepreneurial ventures. It welcomed interns from across the world and from varying stages of their translation and interpretation careers – from students to beginners and to those who already had some experience in the field. The internship lasted for about two and a half months, starting from June and ending towards mid-August.

The programme consisted of online video lectures that took place via Zoom Cloud Meetings – a software, which conveniently allowed all interns to be a part of lectures. Other lectures were posted on Modlingua Youtube channel. The lectures followed assignments that had to be submitted on Modlingua website, via their dynamic collaborative platform – where interns could keep track of assignment updates via ‘Notice Board’, submit articles, access study material and view assignments of fellow interns, etc.
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Interns were offered connectivity via Whatsapp, where they could interact one-on-one with senior management and clarify any queries. A closed Facebook group for the interns was also used to discuss and solve problems collectively among peer, as teamwork was another important focus of the internship. Twitter served a similar purpose. All platforms were also used to broadcast regular updates. The connectivity and interactions were thus quite smooth and uninterrupted.

The introductory lecture made interns aware of the need for developing not only linguistic abilities but also non-linguistic skills to be able to ‘bargain a better deal’ in the professional field of translation and interpretation. Just knowing how to translate is not enough to excel at the job; one needs to know how to wade through the professional waters with humility, confidence, elegance, efficiency and most importantly, not without knowing and understanding thy client, their expectations and needs well. Thus, it was underlined that the objectives of the internship are to give a technical, technological and professional upgrade.

The tasks and assignments
The first assignment was an analysis of errors in content writing, whereby interns corrected their own ‘Profile’ and ‘Career Goals’, produced before the beginning of the internship to be used as their profile on Modlingua website. The corrections were made following certain industry standards. The task thus acquainted us with various quality standards set and followed in the industry. The assignment that followed was an analysis of the different standards and their importance and of various software that offers quality control services.

 The third assignment was a transcription task, whereby interns transcribed any one of the videos from the Modlingua Youtube channel. The transcription was either in the source language or into the intern’s language of expertise. I transcribed a video into French from English. The following assignment, assignment number four, was then of subtitling – adding the transcribed text to the video, and syncing it. Video lectures on the subject enlightened us as to the increasing scope of this activity in the field of translation.

For the fifth assignment, video lectures were given to explain the relationship between social media marketing, content writing, and translation. We learned about the growing need for translators in this area as well. So, for the fifth assignment, we submitted a write-up about the relation between these three. Some other small tasks were also given throughout the internship to introduce us to the importance of social media in increasing our digital footprints and to use social media to our maximum advantage.

Assignment six was an introduction to script writing, whereby interns had to prepare a video script on the life of an important person from the field of translation, interpretation, content writing, or teaching etc. In the next assignment, we had the exact same task, except for the personality to be chosen as a business entrepreneur and their success mantra to be talked about. 

Many assignments were carried out collectively in teams, as teamwork was another important focus of the internship.

Guest Lecturers
One of the most commendable features of the Modlingua internship is guest lecturers. People from various professional backgrounds talked to us at Zoom meetings about new and enriching topics.

Dr. Julian Zapata from Canada spoke to us about Interactive Translation Dictation (ITD), a translation technique of using voice input as compared to the traditional keyboard-input. We discovered the new technique, its application, its developing acceptance among the translators' community and how it can contribute towards increased efficiency.

Veena Krishnamurthy, known for her venture ‘Liveguru’, spoke to us about the problems of localization and cultural barriers when interpreting in the tourism sector. The lecture introduced to us different kind of challenges and skills required in interpretation as well as to new kinds of avenues.

Dr. Clizia Polato, an author, talked to us about her book, entitled ‘Traduttore Imprenditore’, where she talks about a translator becoming an entrepreneur and how we can excel in our profession too in a similar way.

Personal Experience
I found the internship at modlingua enriching and especially relevant to my professional aspirations. The series of tasks and lectures proved for me to be a successful initiation to the professional world. The internship served as a positive motivation to begin developing my professional image for a career in translation. It also introduced me to different intriguing avenues and techniques of translation that I can possibly explore and chose to work with. I also acquired new skills as was intended by the internship. All in all, I can say that the internship complimented my translation studies programme well.

However, I have a suggestion that I feel could improve intern experience manifold: assignment reviews were a bit delayed or absent, which prevented us from a timely analysis of our mistakes and the possible improvement of skills that the internship aims to impart. I do understand, however, that the Modlingua team has to handle a mountain-load of work and that there are too many interns.

Conclusion
To conclude, I can say that Modlingua Summer internship is useful to everyone interested in making a career in translation and interpretation, whether in India or elsewhere. It is relevant for students of translation and interpretation as well as to those who are working as one or even those who wish to begin working as one. It gives a perfect initiation to the profession and the additional study material and all the video lectures available can easily help one take their first steps into this profession with more confidence and knowledge.