Eight post, Snowy day

Today I left the school earlier than usual since I did not wanted to be late because it had recently snowed. When I arrived at the LMRC, my host and I started to talk about the weather.

Today's interaction: 

-Have you seen all that snow out there ?

-Yes I have, but in some occasion it's far worse in Châteauguay.

-How so ?

-Sometimes, the... hum.. when they remove the snow...

-When they clean the streets?

-Yeah, when they clean the streets...

I was trying to talk about the snow plow, but I was still able to say what I meant to say.

Gossip:

This particular day, we spoke a lot more than usual. We spoke about religion, but we also mainly spoke about death. I spoke about my recently deceased grandfather and she spoke about her deceased son. We both agreed to say that death is not such a bad thing. I used a lot of words that I don't normally use and my host also used a lot of different words. Nothing that I really knew before but I still thought that I was interesting to talk about brain deceases and such. We also both agreed to say that even if you are going through a hard time, it usually don't last very long. Even if our background is quite different, we both agree on many things

Next week is my last internship and by the same occasion, my last post. I am looking forward to it.

See you next week.

Seventh post: And life goes on

The more I go to my internship, the more I speak with my host. We talk about anything that we want to talk about. However, she always remind me that education is very important, that if I have a degree, even if I end sweeping the streets, I can still find a good job later. I know that she is right.

Improvements:

I noticed that I'm getting used to talk in English, I'm more fluent and I have a better accent. I can find my words or expression easily and I feel more secure when I speak in English. I did not thought that I would improve that much since I did not really talk a lot to my host before.

Work:

Today, I was still working on the multiple documents that my host sent me and I still don't see how I could finish to translate all those documents. I just hope that the amount that I can translate will be of great help to my host.

When I'm stuck:

Sometime, when I don't know the translation of the word and that I'm stuck, I use an online translator, which is not such a great idea since there's a high chance that it won't make any sense. Thus, I also use an English dictionary to find the best translation.

I still made a lot of progress in many different fields and I'm proud of it.

That was it for this time, thanks for reading.

See you next time

Sixth post: A lot of work

Today, my host gave me a lot of documents. She gave me six document and most of them have more than a thousand words. I feel like I'm going to have a hard time translating all those documents since I'm far from the professional level and I kind of work slowly, I probably won't be able to translate all those documents in time but I want to do what I'm capable of.

French names:

I always wonder what I should do when I have to translate a French name. Should I translate it in English or should I keep it in French because it would be far easier to find in French but we still need to know what it is in English.

Improvements:

Today I was able to translate without looking in a dictionary, however, I don't think that this will happen often but it shows that I improved since I started to do translation. I probably have a wider range of vocabulary, mostly related to work but it's an improvement.

Gossip:

We usually talk a little to each other but today, we started to talk about Alzheimer. In the middle of our conversation, some of my host's friends came to pay a visit. She quickly ended our conversation and went to greet her friends. Then she completely forgot about our conversation. I don't think that it was intentional, but it really surprised me.

Anyway, that was all for this week, I hope you enjoyed reading.      

                    

See you next time

Fifth post: Even without a heater

Hi everyone,

Today, the heater was broken because last week, there was water coming from the ceiling. My host said she was sorry. She seems to be struggling sometime in order to keep things in order.

We can still manage to understand each other:

As I was speaking with my host, I decided to talk about my older sister's future job. I couldn't find the name of the job. Later, I learned that the job is called landscaping. What surprised me was that my host didn't know what was the job's name either. Anyway, it's impossible to know everything.

Here is the new word that I recently learned in my internship:

Drip or dripping: when water is dripping, it means that there is water coming from the ceiling, drop by drop.

How is it going ?

Apart from the fact that I stumbled across a few difficulties like the word dripping, I didn't have any other difficulties. It seems like I'm slowly getting used to it. I'm getting a little better with translation.

Different reactions:

My host's friends came to visit to see how she was doing. I think my host was really happy since afterward, I heard her say: ohhh, how sweet. I was curious and decided to mention it in my blog because this was the first time I ever heard someone say that. I would probably have thought something else if some of my friends came to visit. Our reactions are different.

That was it for this post, see you next time.

Fourth post: Strats to feel like a routine

Hi everyone,

Today was like any other day at my internship. I greeted my host, she asked me how me and my family were, then she asked me how me and my family were doing. After, she sent me a lot of documents in French and she asked me to translate them in English. It surprised me a little since she only asked me to translate English documents to French.

Different translation between languages:

It was a lot easier than translating from English to French. I knew most of the words meaning and since French is my first language, it was a lot easier to understand the meaning and find the right words. I still had a few difficulties with French words that I could not find a good translation for.

Word confusion:

Here is today's word that gave me a lot of difficulties. It's a French word that I know and even if I knew the English word and its meaning, I could not do the link between them. I had to use a translator to understand and make the link.

Sexe = gender

I don't know why I could not make the connection. Those are simples words which are commonly used. Maybe it's because they don't spell alike.

See you next time for my next post on my internship

Third post: Getting used to it

Hi everyone,

I'm back after a little while since I have to study a lot.

Since I always arrive early to my internship, I have some free time that I generally use to prepare myself and talk with my host.

And again, quite a few hard words:

This Wednesday, she asked me to translate an English document in French. Since I was getting used to translation, I thought that it would not be as hard as the first and second time. However, I stumbled across a few words that gave me a hard time. Here is a few examples of those words:

Counselling: It's kind of the job of a psychiatrist to do counselling since they listen and give advice.

Crisis: It could translate to: crise but it actually means something even stronger.

coping: to adapt.

Non-profit: In French we call those organisation: à but non-lucratif.

The problem was not because I did not know what they meant, I just could not find any good translation. Those are words that I never really used before, even if I knew their meanings. Once you find a word difficult to translate, it slows you down a lot and it takes a lot of time to search the meaning of the word, then find a good translation.

Cultural or not:

I noticed something, my host is always asking me how I'm doing and if my family is fine and talks about the weather. I don't know if it's something cultural or not, but I think that it's just because my host is well educated and polite.

That's it for this week, thanks for reading.

Second post: My first day

My first impressions:

I was surprised, I thought translation would be far more easier than that. I stumbled across some quite difficult words that I never used before. I had to look in a dictionary often because I wanted to have the most precise translation. I had to translate from English to French. I spent four hours there to translate only around 1200 words.

Here are some examples of difficulties that I faced that day:

I had a lot of trouble to say the word ``variety`` correctly. I had to say it a couple of time before I could pronounce it the correct way.

Before that day, I never heard about the word ``synopsis``. In French, it can translate as the same thing, however, in the context, it meant a ``summary``.

Chairperson: It refer to the person in charge, the most highest ranked person in the organisation.

To expect someone: It is not new to me but I never really used it in the correct way. I had to wait for someone to come and speak with my host.

The documents that I was asked to translate had a lot of information about the LaSalle Multicultural Resource Center (LMRC). Without going into details, I learned a lot about the goals and the services offered by the LMRC.

A small observation about my current English:

I am not as skilled as I thought. It took a lot of time just to translate those documents. I had a lot of difficulties translating a few words. It takes a lot of focus to be able to understand the words that I needed to translate. Now I feel that since if I am not that good in English, I can learn a lot from this internship