Technicis Intern, France
As a translation intern on the Finance Team at Technicis, I translated a variety of texts from French into English, including legal, marketing, editorial, and technical texts, with a special focus on financial and economic texts. I also proofread and edited freelance and in-house translations for grammar, accuracy, and style. Additionally, I gained a working knowledge of SDL Trados, WinAlign, and Wordbee, and of formatting and modifying the layout of target files, in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, to align with source formatting and layout.
This experience gave me an inside look at the structure and workflow of a major LSP. I spent the first two weeks shadowing members of different teams, including CDPs (project managers) and commerciaux (sales staff) to understand the big picture and how I would fit into it as a translator. During this period, I also received excellent training from fellow translators on Studio and Wordbee, and learned a myriad of formatting tips and tricks.
After the initial training period, I was treated as a regular member of the translating staff, able to accept and decline translation projects in accordance with my preferences. I received regular personal feedback from team members and was able to review edits made to my translations to continue to improve. My best advice to students who wish to take advantage of this internship in the future is to approach it as a team sport. Esprit de corps is highly valued in this firm, so be sure to always send an email to your team asking if anybody needs help before accepting a new project. They will appreciate it immensely and will undoubtedly return the favor when you are inevitably swamped. It also doesn’t hurt to brush up on your UK English conventions, as these are privileged in the European market.
Overall, it was an incredibly valuable experience and I would recommend it to anyone interested in working in this field, either as a project manager, in-house translator, or freelancer.