Operations Manager Jasmin Schneider recently gave a presentation at Aston University about employment within the languages industry, and gave students advice on their applications.

Aston University is one of a limited number of universities in the UK offering a course specifically for translation studies. The Translation People have a long standing relationship with the university, sponsoring languages prizes, and promoting careers in translation and interpreting.

The Translation People understand the importance of educating and training young linguists and have taken on many undergrad students as interns in order to aid their understanding and experience of the sector.

As within any sector, it is imperative that those of us already doing business use our experience to aid the education of student linguists, in order to ensure the perpetuation of new and skilled professionals further down the line.

Our Managing Director Steve Wilde commented: “Here at The Translation People we are keen to support and celebrate the achievement of graduates in languages and translation studies. Those going on to a career in translation and interpreting enter our industry at an exciting time. The development and diversity of languages used on the internet and developments in the technology used to support the ever increasing need for translation services throughout the globe mean those entering the industry just now will see a growing evolution in the way our services are delivered!”

Last July saw Alan White from The Translation People visit Salford University once again to present the award for Best Translation Student from the University’s MA and BA programmes. The yearly award, presented at the Lowry Centre in Salford Quays, is in recognition of the need to promote excellence in language studies in order to maintain a steady flow of specialist translators and suppliers to meet the needs of our expanding and diverse client base.

Alan White commented, ‘It was a pleasure as always to catch up with the staff at Salford and exchange opinions about the state of the translation market and how their courses are developing to meet the changes taking place in the industry. I was also fortunate enough to meet with one of our biggest clients, who had been working very closely with Salford University to implement new educational software in the faculty of languages.’

The Undergraduate award was won by Thomas Fudge, while the Postgraduate award was won by Ian John Winstanley (pictured here with Alan White, Business Development Manager at The Translation People).

Ever since my very first French class at the age of eleven, I have always loved languages. I am fascinated by the way learning a new language not only allows you to communicate with a completely new group of people, but also provides you with the tools to think in a completely different way and describe or consider concepts your own language wouldn’t allow.

I chose to study at Royal Holloway for a number of reasons: I wanted to experience living in a large city whilst also staying close to the countryside and Royal Holloway’s Surrey location fitted the bill perfectly. In addition, I was looking for a course which combined practical language skills and translation with cultural and historical study. The BA Joint Honours in Italian and Spanish did both.

I had never been to Italy and didn’t know a word of Italian before I started the course, but the intensive ab initio course, run solely by native Italian speakers, soon had us all at A level standard in just under a year. The obligatory year abroad forced us to take our language skills to another level by securing ourselves university placements in Italy, Spain and Latin America. Having only studied Italian for forty weeks, searching for accommodation was somewhat challenging. At the time it seemed very annoying that the university didn’t have more of a support network for accommodation. However, looking back I understand why we were set such a challenge, it truly forced us to learn quickly – if we hadn’t we would have been homeless!

Unfortunately, the translation course organised by the Spanish department was only run for native Spanish speakers, which was disappointing. However, the translation course run by the Italian department was more open and thoroughly enjoyable. Although, as an Account Manager for The Translation People I rarely see the political commentary, literary or newspaper articles, which we translated on the course, being requested for translation, the documents we did translate covered a multitude of subjects and were carefully chosen. Perhaps it was my enjoyment of this course which inspired me to contact The Translation People to request a work placement back in 2006. Although the course wasn’t particularly work focussed it did provide me with a good working knowledge of Italian and Spanish and the cultural history relating to those languages.