After spending two months with The Translation People’s Birmingham team, the time has come to say goodbye and to have a look back at what I’ve learnt.

As a second year student of a Bachelor in Translation Studies (English and French) at the Ruprecht-Karls-University in Heidelberg Germany, I wanted to gain insight into the translation industry outside of university and to use the skills I’ve acquired in a professional context. Consequently, I was delighted to be offered a work placement in The Translation People’s Birmingham office.

During my work placement, I was given the opportunity to complete a huge variety of tasks. These included proofreading translations, preparing texts for freelance translators, formatting and quality-checking of translations, creating and populating Translation Memories, and translating blog articles, parts of the new website, and other internal documents into German.

I also took part in the recruitment of new freelance translators. I viewed CVs, conducted telephone interviews, selected appropriate test translations for each translator, assessed completed German test translations, checked references and finally, concluded contracts. Leading other applicants through The Translation People’s ISO 9001 certified recruitment process has taught me which qualities translation agencies look for in new freelancers – something that will be very important to me if I intend to work as a freelance translator myself.

I also had the chance to work with the latest translation software such as Trados Studio 2009 and so I could consolidate my knowledge in the use of CAT-Tools. These are becoming more and more important to professional translators and so it was very helpful towards my future career, to learn more about TagEditor, Translator’s Workbench and WinAlign.

I thoroughly enjoyed the two months in the Birmingham office as my work was very varied. On top of it, all Account Managers were very friendly and eager to explain all details of their work to me. I felt welcomed as a part of the team from the very first day. During my work placement I saw how a translation agency really works and gained some first experiences in project management, a career option I’ve never considered before but which is a diverse and interesting field.

I would like to thank all The Translation People for the two great months I’ve spent with them at the Birmingham office; I really enjoyed my time and learnt a lot!

Vanessa Wagenblast

As a student in my first year of a Masters in multilingual translation (specialising in English and Spanish) at the University Charles de Gaulle in Lille, France, I was keen to experience translation in a professional environment. Consequently, I was delighted to be able to join The Translation People’s Birmingham team for a two month internship. Furthermore, I spent the third year of my degree specialising in Applied Foreign Languages in English and Spanish at the University of Wolverhampton, where I studied as an exchange student – I was excited to be able to return to the West Midlands, as it is now a familiar region to me.

This internship was an opportunity to strengthen my translation and communication skills, along with being introduced to project management. I developed my competences in these areas by proofreading various translations, formatting documents, translating blog articles from the company website, establishing purchase orders for clients and conducting telephone recruitment interviews.

All of the Account Managers were very happy to explain every aspect of their profession to me and they really made me feel like a part of the team. I was really lucky to have the opportunity to work as a professional, using the latest software in translation and project management such as SDL Trados 2009 and Worx.

This professional experience enabled me to see how varied and challenging the work of an Accounts Manager can be, with a constant flow of new projects coming in everyday, each from different clients located all around the world. These clients were requesting translations which were all based in very different areas, such as: marketing, advertising, law and science. As a result of my internship, I am now considering project management as a future career, an option that I had not had in mind before.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time with The Translation People as the team were always supportive, helpful and patient when it came to answering my questions. I would recommend The Translation People to anyone who is considering translation or account management as a future profession, as it is a brilliant way to benefit from real professional training and to develop the essential skills required to work in this area.

Sophie Gibrat

Unfortunately my stay with the Translation People is coming to an end, so now it’s time to reflect on what I’ve learned…

Just to quickly introduce myself – I graduated from the University of Sheffield with a degree in French and Spanish with Interpreting in 2009, after which I spent some time in Montreal, brushing up on my French skills. Before returning to the UK in December 2010, I looked to get some experience in translating and was lucky enough to be accepted at the Birmingham office of the Translation People.

First and foremost I would like to say a huge thank you to all of the Birmingham team – over these past four weeks they have made me feel extremely welcome, at ease and part of their team. Working with the Translation People, I’ve had the opportunity to familiarise myself with numerous applications e.g. Worx, Ad Words and TRADOS, which have consolidated both my translation and administrative skills. I’d had some previous experience with translation software, but I feel that here I’ve been given the opportunity to get to grips with it more.

Secondly I’ve had a taste of what it’s really like to work in a translation company, learning the ins and outs of coordinating various translation services, and the importance of working as a team. There are so many equally important stages to managing a translation project which I hadn’t considered beforehand: assigning the translation to a freelance translator or agency, proofreading and formatting to name but a few.

Thanks to my time here, I have determined that translation is a profession I would love to pursue and, in fact, Project/Account Management is a career path I will definitely consider now I’ve had an insight into what it’s about.

Current intern with The Translation People’s Birmingham office, Max Cowley, recounts his transition from academia into the real, translation-related world.

Having just finished my Translation Studies MA at the University of Birmingham, I felt it was high time to try and gain some valuable experience of the translation industry itself. Passionate about French and Translation since long before my undergraduate degree, I was sure in which area I genuinely wanted to find a career. Until contacting The Translation People in October, I had dabbled with various bits of paid and unpaid translation work for a handful of companies and agencies in both France and the UK. However, I still lacked the level of experience demanded by so many employers today as well as a real insight into the world of freelance translation. When The Translation People contacted me to say there was a work placement available until December, I jumped at the chance to accept their offer.

Upon arrival at the Birmingham office, I received a very warm welcome from all the staff who have made me feel part of their team. I have spent a richly rewarding few weeks at the Birmingham office so far, in which I have had a range of interesting experiences and tasks.

Firstly, (and importantly) I have gained a real insight into the workings and demands of freelance and agency translation. It has given me first hand experience of what is needed to become a freelance translator in what is a very competitive market. Equally, I have seen (and been a part of) the processes through which work is prepared, distributed and checked. I am now a lot more aware of what is required and expected of a freelance translator.

This work placement has also enabled me to re-familiarize myself with Trados, the indispensable Translation Memory Tool. With previous, superficial knowledge of older versions of Trados, the opportunity to use and practice with the 2009 suite furthered both my understanding of the TM and my confidence in using it. I have also been fortunate enough to re-familiarize myself with other parts of Trados such as TagEditor and WinAlign, meaning I feel a lot more at home with this important CAT tool then ever before.

Other daily duties such as proof-reading, translating, preparatory tasks, translation formatting, and contributing to the web-site mean that no two days have been the same!

I have also taken considerable enjoyment from being involved in the Project Management side of Translation, an area into which I would be interested in moving. I have enjoyed the responsibility of distributing translation jobs, working with deadlines in mind, and keeping contact with translators via email and telephone. I have found these experiences particularly interesting and rewarding. Because of this I am keeping my mind firmly open to a Project Management-related job or career in the near future.

All in all, I have had a brilliant time with The Translation People. My colleagues have been warm, helpful and friendly and I have taken a considerable amount from this experience. It has confirmed my desire to work in the translation field, and has sparked an interest in the more practical, project management side of the industry too. The placement has provided me with an opportunity to expand upon my MA in applying some of my linguistic and personal qualities to a professional translation environment. Hopeful that this internship will represent my first steps towards a career in translation, I could not have asked for more from my time with The Translation People!

As part of The Translation People’s commitment to all things language related, the company recently became a Business Language Champion. This process involves spending time within an educational establishment to promote language learning in the country. Read More. 

The Business Language Champion programme is a partnership between schools and businesses that offer children first-hand experience of how languages are used in the workplace. The programme, promoted by the Regional Language Network, is designed to promote language learning amongst children. This is a subject very close to our hearts, as the translation industry relies on professional, qualified linguists in order to provide high quality language services to our clients.

Of the experience, Stephanie Beckwith, an Account Manager in our Manchester office (far left in photo), says: “Becoming involved with a programme such as this allowed me to gain first-hand knowledge of the reasons why some children feel reluctant to learn languages. Hopefully my input has gone some way to addressing their concerns and sparking some interest in learning languages.” Stephanie has a number of events planned with Salford City Academy over the next few months, such as a project in conjunction with the Tourist Board and a canal boat trip.

Click here for more information on the Regional Language Network and the Business Language Champions Scheme.

As Finland’s second official language, Swedish enjoys compulsory status on the national curriculum. However, schools in the country’s eastern region have put forward proposals that could see Russian take its place.

The core linguistic subjects are: mother tongue and literature, the second national language, and foreign languages. As an integral part of the country’s Constitution, all children have the right to receive an education in their mother tongue, which the Education Act classifies as Finnish, Swedish, Saame, Roma, sign language ‘or some other language which is the pupil’s native language’. Pre-school language classes are made available for children falling into the latter category and further ongoing support is provided once they enter the education system.

In North Karelia – a region in Eastern Finland that borders with Russia – a request has made for obligatory Swedish teaching to be replaced by Russian and it is a linguistic shift that has received huge support from the local population, and also from the Prime Minister herself – Mari Kiviniemi. Earlier proposals in favour of the implementation of Russian were rejected by the Ministry of Education, but despite this obstacle, it is thought that trial periods are to be rolled out in the very near future.

A report on the Barentsobserver.com site states that only 5.4% of the population speak Swedish as their mother tongue, and 62% of participants in a recent nationwide poll were in favour of this regional switch-over.

Sources: www.yle.fi; www.barentsobserver.com; http://www.minedu.fi (Ministry of Education and Culture, Finland)

The Sage group has announced the release of a bilingual Spanish / English version of its accounts software. Called Sage Simply Accounting 2011, it has been designed to address the linguistic needs of Hispanic companies in the US. In the five year period to 2007, ‘Hispanic-owned businesses grew a staggering 43.5 percent’ states Sage’s press release and going bilingual is sure to be a huge success.

Aimed at small to medium businesses, its capabilities include a fully bilingual accounts package that allows users to switch between both Spanish and English languages in real time. This means that invoice generation can be carried out in both languages and language selection can be preset.

The press release also cites an ‘accounting and financial reporting compliance feature’ and ‘multiple currency support’. The former ensures that all legal requirements surrounding financial transactions and operations are automatically adhered to in Spanish and English and includes an option to produce documents, reports and statements in either language (or both!). The latter support feature allows for automatic foreign currency conversions to be carried out. Linguistic facilities also continue into the aftercare service, as there is a bilingual helpline and the provision of staff training in both languages.

Sage predict the number of Hispanic-owned businesses in the US to continue on an upward trend, and this new bilingual package looks set to prove as popular as previous monolingual versions.

Sources: www.sagenorthamerica.com

Recent months have seen steps towards the use of English as an official language in certain legal scenarios. Denmark made amendments to its company law; courts in Germany ran a pilot scheme allowing cases to be heard in English; and Japan’s biggest online shopping retailer have selected English as the official language for internal documentation.

The new Danish Companies Act came into effect on 1 March 2010, with interesting linguistic amendments relating to translating and interpreting provisions. According to Mondaq (the corporate and company law website): for board meetings, ‘If a company’s Articles of Association stipulate Swedish, Norwegian or English as the group’s official languages’ then simultaneous interpretation into Danish is no longer compulsory. For the written word, it is no longer necessary for documentation to be translated into Danish and in general, company documents can now be registered in Swedish, Norwegian or English without the need for translation into Danish. For general meetings that are not conducted in Danish, Swedish or English languages, then simultaneous interpretation into Danish is not compulsory, but this decision must be reached by way of a nine-tenth’s majority vote.¹

In February 2010, The Lawyer² reported on the move towards special courts being created in Germany that allow the use of English as the main working language. ‘Submissions and witness statements could be heard in English without the need for translation, although written submissions and verdicts would still be dealt with in German’. In a bid to attract more international legal business into the country, it is hoped that the success of this pilot scheme will pave the way for creating special courts across Germany that are permitted to conduct cases through the medium of English. In June 2010³, The Lawyer stated that as a result of the pilot, a draft bill is being created which would go further than initially planned and which would also allow verdicts to be heard in English. Although many people have championed this development as it would mean more litigation business for the country, others have also raised some language concerns: there is the question of whether certain aspects of German law can be fully translated into English; there is also the concern of whether the judges involved would be fully fluent in both English and English ‘legalese’ (concerns which were also highlighted in the recent bilingual bill proposed for courts in Canada).

And finally, in July 2010, The Financial Times reported that Rakuten became the first major Japanese online retailer to designate English as its official company language – to be used in all internal documentation and for it to be spoken by all regional members of staff. The press conference announced that in two years time, it was hoped that all employees would communicate in English and the press conference itself was carried out almost entirely in English. The Financial Times article states how Japanese firms are looking to further expand internationally and this has meant embracing the English language as a powerful business tool – more foreign executives are being appointed, one company is to select English as the official company language for all internal documentation that is not in Japanese; and in Rakuten, the menus in the canteen have also been translated into English!⁴

1 http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=97960
2 http://www.thelawyer.com/german-state-to-pilot-english-speaking-courts/1003387.article
3 http://www.thelawyer.com/open-for-business-the-german-commercial-court-in-english/1004799.article
4 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9e1186cc-84a6-11df-9cbb-00144feabdc0.html (subscription necessary)