By Garima Jand

The Summer Internship by Modlingua Certified Translation Services started on 7^th June 2017 and ended on 20^th August 2017. The duration of this online internship was almost three months. This company is located in New Delhi, and there were approximately 250 interns this year, who are involved in field of language services from all over the world. Professional translators as well as language students and aspiring translators were a part of this Internship. Online meetings were conducted weekly through GotoMeeting app by Mr. Ravi Kumar, Founder and Managing Director of Modlingua.  These meetings were also recorded and uploaded on youtube. In this way, people who were not able to attend the meeting on the given date and time, could watch the videos according to their own convenience. It was a great experience where one could learn innumerous new things related to translation and translation business.

An internship is a job training professional careers. Internships offer students an opportunity to work in their desired field. They learn how their course of study applies to the real world and build a valuable experience that makes them stronger candidates for jobs after graduation. The focus of this summer internship was on Entrepreneurship and Professional Development of Translators, Interpreters and language professionals. We’ve learnt about entrepreneurship, social media marketing, project management, quality standards, networking and business development. Entrepreneurship is the process of designing, launching and running a new business, which is more often than not, initially a small business, offering a product, process or service for sale or hire. The people who create these businesses are called entrepreneurs. We were taught about how translators can be successful entrepreneurs. Since social media has gradually become a huge part of our day-to-day lives, we can make everyone aware about our activities through social media marketing. It is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service. The interns have promoted the youtube channel of Modlingua and experienced how social media marketing works. We were given targets of making the subscribers 500 and then 1000. The substantial expansion of the translation market in the vast majority of countries has led to the creation of quality standards in this field, defining the basic rights and responsibilities of translation companies and consumers of their products. For example, Germany’s DIN 2345 Standard, Russia’s GOST R ISO 9001 Standard and American Translation Service Quality Standard ASTM F2575-06. These are standards of different countries with their own set of rules. Project management includes effective planning, organizing and implementing of a project. Projects are made up of tasks, and knowing how to manage your tasks is the secret to getting your projects completed on time.  Project management is about coordination, teamwork, planning, and control techniques. It undoubtedly increases efficiency in every aspect. This internship also trained us on how to develop our communication skills with people of higher rank inside the business and how to treat, obtain and retain clients.

We were supposed to write articles related to the topics discussed in the online meetings. We had 7 such assignments, including this one.  In the first assignment given on 17^th June all of us were supposed to prepare our personal profiles. Here we learnt how to submit an article through our Modlingua accounts. We added our profile pictures there, mentioned about our educational qualities, hobbies, professional training, language skills, professional goals and a few areas on which we focus to build our strengths. After the submission of this assignment, all the interns had their own profile links. Interns could share these links with their friends, family and social media. In rest of the assignments, we were given four options . We had to choose one and write the article. All the four options were related to the an almost common theme that was discussed in the previous meeting. The second assignment was about networking. We were supposed to write about basics of networking, translators network and team work. It was a very interesting subject for me. In order to attain success, translators must have language skills, computer skills, a good sense of networking and team work. We translators should learn the basics of networking and team work from ants. Since years, Ant colonies are an example of obedience and wisdom. We can learn a lot from ants : their behavior, their attitude, their way and a lot more. The third assignment was related to why Google Search and Top Ranking in Google search is important and how translators or multilingual writers benefit from this phenomenon. Google is an important platform where the ranking of search result really matters. People hardly search open the 4^th or the 5^th page of the search result. The other options in the assignment were about the relationship between Content writing, Online Marketing and Translation in multiple languages. It also dealt with globalization, Localization, Internationalization and Translation of content. The fourth assignment dealt with how to we make new clients and how we retain them as a freelancer. A Freelancer is often considered to be a self-employed person, offering services, generally to businesses and to multiple clients at a time. As beginners, we should avoid rejecting projects and assignments. We must provide great quality of service so that your existing clients recommend you to others. Only by good quality of work, without creating lots of issues and by being reliable, we can create a good impression of ourselves. A positive word of mouth is always beneficial.  We can connect with people who require our service. Active use of social media, ad campaigns, blogs, creating an attractive website can be great ways to create awareness about our work. The fifth assignment was really helpful. I came to know a lot of new things because it was related to quality standard. We had to write about how Quality Standards are useful for language professionals, translators and service providers, and also about the development of various quality standards in Translation Process across the globe. We could also present our views on whether lack of awareness about quality standards in India is hampering the professional development of translators and language professionals or not.  The sixth Assignment concerned how Project Management helps in increasing efficiency of any workplace and how Project Managment Integration takes place in Translation Business. Project management is the discipline of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of a team to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria. This is an important aspect which should be efficient in order to achieve goals. Learning about it is always going to help me in my career. The final assignment is this, where we need to write a report about the entire internship, what we’ve learnt during these three months and our conclusion.

The methods of teaching involved lectures through GoToMeeting , discussions on the facebook page of Modlingua. Since the internship was taken by people of different countries, Mr. Kumar divided each meeting in three shifts with different times due to different time zones.  The Internship system and methodology were very helpful for freelance translators who are very busy and could follow activities online at their own convenience. There was also a lecture by Prof. Ioanna Daskalapoulou a Greek Guest speaker at Modlingua, Summer Internship Program 2017. The lectures were indeed informative and useful.

Personally, I feel this internship is very beneficial from the point of view of career. We’ve learnt things that are not taught in the universities. Of course there are translation courses but it does not highlight the different aspects of entrepreneurship in the field of translation. Normally, we study the linguistic aspects and learn new languages but we don’t consider the non linguistic aspects. Since translation has become a complex in this global world, it is really important to learn these things that were taught in the internship. The pressure of deadline has taught me time management and to put in extra effort whenever required.  I always wish to gain additional knowledge through whatever I do. Fortunately, that happened through this internship too.  This internship worked really well for all the interns.   
 
Profile link : http://www.modlingua.com/interns/328-garimajand-german-translator.html