It’s interesting to see as a company how you can bring the world in through internships. Working with interns is a win-win strategy anyway you look at it, because you can give students a taste of working life and a chance to develop their skills. At the same time, interns can liven up the atmosphere and bring new perspectives to the workforce. During the past months, we had the pleasure to work with three great new talents in our translation team.
Alice
Alice studies translation and interpreting at the University of Metz in France. She worked remotely with our teams in Ghent and Bratislava and showed a great interest for the automotive industry, which happens to be one of our specializations.
Morgan
Morgan is also a translation and interpreting student at the University of Lille in France. His special interests lie in the field of research & science, healthcare and environmental topics.
Yevheniya
Yevheniya is a Ukrainian student who lives in Antwerp and studies translation at KUL Antwerp. Before coming to Belgium, Yevheniya had already gained some translation experience. Via a postgraduate program in specialized translation at KU Leuven, she hopes to deepen her knowledge.
Alice: “As part of the quality team, I learned that all steps of the translation process are equally important. It’s great to be good at translating, but it is also important to check all potential errors and special requirements before delivery to the customer.”
Yevheniya: “I learned a lot about the inner structure and efficient functioning of a language service provider. The biggest asset of any company is its team, and I found a great team of open-minded, friendly, and professional people at Yamagata Europe. During my internship, I followed training sessions with the vendor team, project managers, technical support team, quality team and the managing director. Through all these pieces of the puzzle, I was able to get a clear overview of how a company is supposed to operate.”
Morgan: “I learned that careful quality assurance is critical, especially with technical documentation. During my studies, I didn’t think that seemingly unimportant details could be so significant for customers. Things like punctuation for example can make or break a text. That’s why I appreciate that I was able to use dedicated QA software like QA Distiller – an indispensable tool, especially when you have to check large volumes of text.”
No bad Mondays at Yamagata Europe
At Yamagata Europe, we try hard to create a working atmosphere where everybody feels comfortable and can do their best work. This also applies to our internships. We asked our interns if we did a good job.
Alice: “I really liked the fact that I could do many different things during my internship: QA checks, terminology extraction, working with new tools, and for different customers in various industries. And although I did my entire internship from home, I was able to communicate with a lot of colleagues, which created a positive and collaborative working environment.”
Yevheniya: “My internship began with the words “Mondays are not that bad”. That was my password provided by Sven, the IT manager. Those words struck a chord with me. I immediately felt I was at the right place with Yamagata Europe.”
Morgan: “The working atmosphere at Yamagata Europe is great. Everyone is friendly and involved, which in my opinion is one of the company’s greatest strengths.”
How our interns inspired us
We hope that our interns got real value out of their time at Yamagata Europe. On the other hand, it’s only fair to say that they inspired us as well. Here are our shout-outs to our recent trio of interns:
Julie Lenoir, Localization QA Coordinator: “Alice’s sense of spontaneity and initiative was truly inspiring. Although she worked remotely, we felt that she was 100% part of the team.”
Annelies De Vliegher, Project Management Team Leader: “The way Yevheniya combined her internship with intense social work was a true inspiration for us all. Yevheniya has been volunteering at the center for Ukrainian refugees in Brussels to help them through the complex administrative procedures for legally entering the country.”
Leslie Heyrman, Quality Team Leader: “Although we learn from each and every one of our interns, with Morgan this was even more the case. Never before did we put our IT infrastructure and digital working environment to the test in terms of connectivity with alternative input devices such as dictation software, an inverted mouse and the Windows visual keyboard. We are very proud that also our own developments withstood this test so that Morgan could take on the same tasks as the rest of the team despite his physical limitations. He even inspired us to be more aware of the ergonomics of our developments in the future. This goes to show that diversity is an enrichment for any company. We are very proud that Morgan chose Yamagata Europe for his internship and his perseverance is an inspiration to us all.”
A great future in translation
At the end of their internships, Alice, Morgan and Yevheniya are already making plans for a bright future in translation.
Alice: “Since my high school studies in foreign languages, I have always wanted to work in the translation industry. I would like to be a freelance translator, but if there is an interesting fixed position at a translation agency, I will consider it too. And I definitely want to work with customers from the automotive industry.”
Morgan: “I would like to work as a translator in the research, medical, scientific or environmental industry. But my ideal scenario would be that I could make a comfortable income from comic book or game translation projects.”
Yevheniya: “Next to my volunteering work for Ukraine, I am focusing on helping my own family settle in in Belgium as well. The past three months have been intense, but if I can leave a message to future interns, I would say: May the force be with you! Do your best, be proactive, and enjoy the support of the Yamagata Europe colleagues.”
We wish all the best to each of our interns!
