By Shenoy Rana
I am Shenoy Rana and I completed my summer internship at Modlingua. My internship programme with Modlingua has been fruitful, in terms of discussions, writing projects and guest lectures. Since I am presently pursuing my Master’s degree in translation studies in French, it has helped me understand a variety of things related to the translation industry which I was otherwise unaware of, before. The guest lecturers were from reputed universities and were proficient in their specific domains. The Internship programme for the year 2018, from June-August, was aimed at increasing our knowledge about translation and other fields related to it. It is an online platform which enables us to connect with interns across the world, through our lectures with Mr. Ravi Kumar and a plethora of other guest lecturers.
This year Mr. Ravi Kumar, our mentor and founder of Modlingua, covered 4 topics, i.e, content writing, transcription, social media marketing, and script writing. We were asked to research these topics in depth and submit our assignments after a lecture from Mr. Ravi Kumar. The very fact that every topic was followed by further research work from our end and assignments with deadlines, helped us understand professionalism better and made us wrack our brains in order to write enough on that topic. The open platform that Mr. Ravi Kumar provides the interns with, is commendable as he’s open to new ideas.
Our first assignment was primarily based on content writing and content development. We were quite clueless about the roles and responsibilities of a content writer as this was a fresh domain for us. A very simple task like writing one’s profile summary involved various steps which we seemed to have missed out on in the beginning. The first lecture widened our horizons on content writing and how one must always have an eye for detail. The assignment following this lecture, expected us to review our own content vis a vis the one published on the Modlingua website, in order to be aware of the corrections. We also learnt about tools like Grammarly, which helps us in correcting grammatical errors.
The following assignment was an extension of the first assignment wherein one was supposed to write an analytical report (according to the choice of your question) of about 1500-2000 words. This further enhanced the content writing and reviewing skills. It also enabled us to inculcate all the steps and tools learnt throughout our session with Mr. Ravi Kumar, in our writing. The publication of the Modlingua rubric was of immense help when it came to checking errors during content writing.
For a translator, it does not simply suffice to know one single domain. A translator must be well versed with a lot of other skills as well, like transcription. Mr. Ravi Kumar introduced this concept with in-depth details. The discussions were rather interesting because of their direct relationship with professional life, a translator might lead. Various dimensions of professionalism and this industry were introduced to us, during the course of the internship. This was followed by a discussion subtitling using transcription and we were also exposed to various tools which one can use while subtitling.
Thus, our next two assignments were aimed at testing our understanding of the domains of transcription and subtitling. The task of transcribing Mr. Ravi Kumar’s instructional videos proved to be a challenge for some as it involved creating foreign language subtitles for English/Hindi audio. This task gave us a brief introduction to the difficulties and nuances of the skill of transcription and subtitling. A speech rendered by the speaker is not always cohesive. Sometimes, there are incoherent ideas marked by incomplete sentences, but a transcriber has no option other than transferring the speaker’s words with minimal intervention or any attempt to shadow it in any manner.
The topic of social media marketing is wide and to be able to talk about it all in one go is impossible. Thus, our mentor Mr. Ravi Kumar tried to give as brief an introduction as possible, followed by a guest lecture by Dr. Clizia, who enlightened us further on this topic. With the rapid growth in globalization, one may want to work abroad or have foreign clients but this is impossible without creating a certain rapport. This is where social media has come to rescue. Dr. Clizia talked about the importance of social media profiles like Linkedin in the translation industry. She also talked about the key points to keep in mind, while creating these profiles. Our assignment that followed this lecture, was to write a report on various topics, which helped in better understanding topics such as the importance of Google search, online marketing, translation, content writing, localization etc.
After covering topics such as content writing, transcription, and social media marketing, the last topic was a little different; script writing. Content writing for pragmatic texts and script writing vary in many manners. Scriptwriting involves a lot more than just knowledge and writing skills, it calls upon one’s creativity. Mr. Ravi Kumar spoke about what essentially script writing is, its variations (Bollywood), and its role in our business. Scriptwriting for famous personalities is in vogue, especially looking at how biopics have taken a lead in Bollywood, in recent times. To introduce a personality and provide enough information is what it essentially boils down to.
Scriptwriting required creativity and to enhance this skill, we were expected to do two different assignments; scriptwriting for any famous personality in the domain of translation or education, and the other on any famous entrepreneur. This task helped in two ways; on one hand, it helped us acquire the skill of script writing, on the other hand, it helped us understand these personalities better. To read up thoroughly on that personality and write it in your own words, using your own creativity was a challenge.
This summer internship at Modlingua 2018, is an online portal, facilitated the learning process in many ways. It connected all of us across the world, without much pain and effort as we all were just one click away from each other. Without any doubt, expert advice from our mentor Mr. Ravi Kumar enriched our knowledge related to various domains and facilitated the acquaintance of these skills. The guest lectures were a cherry on the cake. These lectures not only help in understanding different perspectives of a single domain but also learn new things.
Dr. Julian Zapata, founder, and president at InTr Technologies was our first guest lecturer. He has previously worked at the University of Ottawa and Copenhagen Business school. He spoke to us about speech to text technologies, which are helpful for interpreters and translators. It also introduced us to a wide range of software and technical advances in the domain of translation and Interpretation.
Mrs. Veena Krishnamurthy, an expert of French-English, a versatile linguist and the founder of liveguru.in, talked about cultural barriers in interpretation. She is an expert in the language and have done lots of experiments in life, had a lot to share with us. It was wonderful hearing her talk about the difficulties one faces during interpreting for tourists and their solutions. It was even more interesting to hear her talk about this topic, as it’s something that almost all interpreters wish to do and most seem to be unaware of these technicalities. Mrs. Veena spoke from her personal experience and thus it was very practical. I personally loved her lecture as it helped me understand the nitty-gritty of this profession, which is not only to master a language but to go beyond and overcome the cultural nuances.
Dr. Clizia Polato, an expert with over 20 years of experience in translation, interpretation, language training, language acquisition, writing, and entrepreneurship delivered a lecture that taught us how to keep abreast with this technological advancement in the translation industry and she also helped us with ways to build a rapport in translation business in order to be successful. For beginners, it was especially helpful as it guided us on how to go about it and make a move in the professional life. She also talked about social media profiles such as LinkedIn and its importance in terms of creating a rapport in the professional world.
This internship would have been even more enriching, had we got an opportunity to read works and assignments done by our fellow mates and exchange our knowledge with each other as well. It would have been wonderful if we were given feedback on our assignments so that we could maybe track one’s improvement. Nonetheless, it was still an amazing experience which I would cherish for a lifetime. It was worth my summer break, during which I was exposed to so many different domains and skills while sitting in the comfort of my study. I am thankful to Mr. Ravi Kumar for offering such an internship which has helped thousands of students across the world, so far.
