All language students, professors, enthusiasts know that the best way to learn a language you are learning is by immersing yourself! Some are lucky enough to get to travel a lot, afford summer language programs in their respective countries or even have a family member to practice with; but for those who are looking for cheaper alternatives or don’t have the same connections, then a translation internship is the best way forward.
How a translation internship benefits you
Whether you decide to apply for an internship at a translation firm in your home country or country of relevance, the experience you will receive will be invaluable. The first obvious benefit is the impact it will have on your CV. As a language student, having real practice and experience down on your CV shows employers you are serious and truly passionate about the language(s) you are learning. Secondly, even if you aren’t able to undertake a translation internship in your target country, your ability will improve greatly simply by the tasks you’ll be doing during your internship. Reading documents in the language you’re learning and even doing some of the translations yourself allows you to be constantly surrounded by your target language and even if you are no aware of it, you will find yourself becoming more confident and fluent in that language.
Another benefit that is perhaps more subtle will be getting to know the people you will meet whilst undertaking a translation internship. This could be another intern, or other official translators at the firm, but either way the people working there will be equally as passionate about languages as you are and this way you can practice conversing with each other in your chosen languages!
An internship here at CBLingua
With all the above advantages in mind, I wanted to share what it’s like to do an internship with CBLingua in their Seville office. Although my experience has been remote as of yet (due to Covid), I have already benefited greatly. The team are excellent with teaching you right away about the different types of documents you will come across whilst on your internship there and are always supportive and happy to answer any questions or doubts. They are very trustworthy and show that they have confidence in their interns, as they assign us our own real projects to translate (all of which get supervised of course). It is great that they are so open to welcoming foreign students from abroad and it means those interns get full immersion in the office and in their target language! There are many other roles that interns play in the day to days of the CBLingua office, and I am excited to finally be able to have the full intern experience when I join them in a week’s time.
Overall, a translation internship is the perfect way for language students to gain experience in a language-related profession, to be immersed and surround themselves with the target language, meet like-minded language enthusiasts and most importantly gain confidence and improve fluency in the language you’re learning!