A day in the life of an intern

What is the typical day of an intern at AgroLingua like? To give you an idea, we spent a day with Jason, who is completing an internship with us as part of his Translation and Interpreting study programme.

I usually start my day by revising my own translations. These are often texts I translated the day before. Leaving the translation to breathe for a day lets me look at it again the next morning with a more critical eye. Sometimes I find a few minor errors, or see ways to improve the flow of the text. Once I'm completely satisfied with the result, the translation is sent to the revisor. Jeroen, one of the in-house translators, revises my translations into German. As Jeroen is at the office, he can give me extremely valuable verbal feedback. I learn a lot from this direct communication and can ask him questions. I also try to speak in German as much as possible with Jeroen. Not only because this is the ideal opportunity to practice and improve my command of the language, but also because I love speaking German!

As soon as I have finished the revision, I often get started on a new translation assignment straight away. Smart devices to monitor cows, recipes, texts about humidity issues in poultry houses, a website for a restaurant: I can get to grips with a diversity of texts and topics. There's much more to the agricultural sector than tractors and farm animals! The terminology can be quite a challenge at times, but I usually manage to find a solution by referring to the termbases and searching online for the right reference material. On my to-do list today is a translation of social media posts from one of our clients in the food sector. I like the challenge of this type of translation, as I have to be more creative.

Although I really enjoy translation, the high level of concentration can get tiring after a few hours. So if I feel like a break to refocus, I can start on another task. AgroLingua gives you opportunities to show your own initiative and shape your internship. It's great to have that freedom as you can gain the most experience and boost your skills. As well as translation assignments, I also write blogs for the website, including this one. At the moment I'm also working on a blog about AI and machine translations, so I have to do some background research and take a deep dive into the subject matter. All of my tasks are language-related, but are different every day. I can always shadow a colleague and learn from watching how they work. Working at the office every day is a great way to experience how the profession works and it's easy to ask any questions.

I just have to translate a post for our LinkedIn page and then it will be time to go home. Tomorrow is another day with new translation challenges!