Internship Post #8

Looking back at my first post, I can’t possibly say that I reached all my goals because when I wrote my first post, I thought I would be at Tyndale Saint-George’s Community Center throughout all my internship but it ended up not being the case. Although I know I made some progress as an English speaker.   

The strategies I used; Everytime there was a word I did not fully understand, I tried guessing its meaning by thinking of similar words or cognates in French or Spanish. When that didn’t work, I would look it up in the dictionnary or ask my supervisor about it.

My English level did increase but not in every single aspect of it. My accent remains the same, my fluency is pretty much the same. By far, it is my vocabulary that improved the most. I encountered many words I did not know the meaning while doing translation work at LMRC.

I don’t think I see the Anglophone culture differently after this internship. Most of my life is already in English, the music I listen to, the movies I watch, etc… This internship experience, somewhat unique because I had the chance to have two different hosts, has taught me that I enjoy explaining things to children but I am also capable of sitting down and focusing on translating written documents. Time flies when I translate documents as weird as that may sound.

If I could do it again, the only thing I would change is not wait before I call my internship host at LMRC, because I could have helped them with a project that was instead cancelled!   

I am very thankful to my hosts for giving me the opportunity to immerse myself in a community that is for the most part unknown to me. I didn’t give them any thank you card or note yet because I still have hours to do there and I plan to give it on the last day. I also plan to go back at Tyndale to give one to my past host.

I would recommend LMRC to anyone who likes to translate English to French or French to English and that has very good mark in both French and English, as for Tyndale, you don’t necessarly need a high level of English to get your meaning across. Also Tyndale is a better choice if you like human interactions and aren’t a shy person. LMRC is better if your passion really is written languages.

Internship Post #7

My “ah-ah” moment is not the good kind, what I discovered is related to the syntax in English,  I found a difference between French and English. During highschool and during my college English classes, I learned  that the way we write essays are much different in French than English and this is a perfect example. I was translating a document until I stumbled upon what seemingly was a needlessly long sentence. In French, you can’t simply write non-stop and put commas everywhere. You need to cut it down or else it’s a mess. In English, on the other hand, you can do that without any problem.  So there I was scratching my head trying to find a way to put all that big wall of text in French! I will definetely keep that in mind while writing in English that I don't necessarly need to cut down my sentences all the time.

What I said

Me: Hi, I am Marc-Antoine Béchard, from Cégep André-Laurendeau. I would like to talk about the internship.

Supervisor: Excuse me?

Me: I think Christi talked to you about me?

Supervisor: Wait... Are you .... Marc..?

Me: Yes, that’s me. I would like to talk about the translation work.

Supervisor: Our first project was cancelled, because we didn’t hear from you last weekend. The next one will only available on January 9^th.

Me: Oh... So there’s no work for me until the 9^th?

Supervisor: The other project was scrapped, but I would have you come in on the 9^th for our other project.

Me: Oh okay, I will come on the 9^th.

The conversation went on for a little bit but ended shortly after that

What I would say in the future

Me: Hello, I am the student from André-Laurendeau, here to talk about the translation work.

Supervisor: Oh! Hold on a second... you must be ... Marc?

Me: Yes, I see Christi told you about me.

Supervisor: Yes, well unfortunately, our last project was cancelled because we did not hear from you last weekend. The next project we have will only be available on the 9^th.

Me: Okay, I will be there on the 9^th.

Supervisor: Okay, see you then.

Saying too much information all at once to someone you have never talked to in the past can be confusing, especially is you mix up English pronounciation for some words and French pronounciations too in the same sentence!

Internship Post #6

First off, it is important to  mention that my internship was changed from Tyndale Saint-George’s Community Center to LaSalle’s Multicultural Ressource Center. I do translation work for them, I translate English documents and letter in French and vice-versa.

When it comes to listening comprehension, I can safely say that it was always easy for me to understand the people I worked with. Whether it was with the kids at Tyndale or one of my supervisor, there was never any real misunderstanding when it came to listening and when there was something I did not quite understand, I would ask questions about it right away. I cannot clearly state that I understand the people I work with better than in the beginning because I worked at two different places.

As for my accent, I don’t think it changed very much since my new stage are mostly in written form. I know my english accent still has room to improve, but it is not a problem. On the other hand, I noticed that my host at LMRC pronounces french terms with an anglophone accent, like names of streets. Example : “Rue Lapierre” pronounced “pir” rather than “piɛr” like in this example, she doesn’t do the diphthong i->iɛ.

When it comes to talk about my fluency it’s a bit weird because I considered myself fluent before my internship. I think I am more fluent in English because of the new vocabulary I learned, I am more aware of the meaning of certain specific words in specific context like the word “Board” can be a synonym of “Council” and it doesn’t mean board like a chalk board.

Funny how I have nothing to say about humor, my internship is serious work.

My personnal goals with the internship were always to improve all aspect of how I speak english. I try to use as many different words as possible to become familiar with them and remember in which context they are best suited for. Since I am already fluent in English, I focused more on language accuracy. Also since my task was to translate written documents, conserving the meaning in each sentence was more important. I noticed when translating documents from English to French that most of the time in French you need more words to express the same idea. Example : My friend’s cat, Le chat de mon ami.

Not example from my internship, but you get the picture

New words, expressions, structures

1-      Board : Group of executives, council                                   (while translating a document)

2-      Counselling : Therapy, help, assistance                                (while translating a document)

3-      It’s completely normal to say “Open the TV” according to my supervisor.

4-      Senior: Means Séniors in French but is never used in French, we say personnes âgées

5-      Months don’t need a capital letter at the beginning in French. January->janvier