From the quaint south-west English city of Bath to the Scottish cultural hub of Glasgow I have come to spend a few weeks with The Translation People. Its only day two but I thought it best to commence blogging sooner, allowing me to perhaps write another entry before my time here has come to an end. So without further ado allow me to introduce myself.

My name is Ross McMullan. I am currently undertaking an MA in Interpreting and Translation at the University of Bath which is assuredly as hard as it sounds but highly rewarding. With a three week long Easter break I felt as though I needed to sharpen my skills acquired in the classroom with some cutting-edge business experience; looks like I have come to the right place. However, first of all I think I ought to explain more about why I am interested in interpreting and translation and, more markedly, why Japanese.

I began my studies in Japanese in the University of Edinburgh in September of 2004. Actually, at the outset Japanese was only an outside subject, a side dish accompanying French which was my main, if you will. But why study Japanese to begin with? This is a question I am often asked, particularly when I am in Japan, where my response is ‘socchi ni yama ga atta kara’, which literally translates as ‘because there was a mountain there’ in other words ‘because I fancied the challenge’. This is a more succinct explanation than, ‘I started with French but reckoned that going to Japan for a year would be well more interesting than France and also the banter in Japanese class is better’; it’s equivalent would be welcome in English. I suppose the verbose explanation above coupled with the fact that upon leaving secondary education I had a desire to continue learning language would form a plausible explanation.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Edinburgh and year abroad in Japan. Before graduation, however, I realised that being able to speak Japanese would not be enough on its own, particularly given that I was far off fluency at that time (and dare say am now, but considerably closer). In addition, whilst in Japan I had the opportunity to interpret on a very informal basis for family and friends who had come to visit; something which I thoroughly enjoyed. Therefore, I opted for the MA at the University of Bath to acquire practical interpreting and translation skills and hone my language skills.

However, the MA does not cover much of the business side of interpreting and translation; that’s where the internship with The Translation People comes into play. As I said, its only day two on the job but already my knowledge of how translation agencies interact with clients and translators has greatly increased. As someone with a potential career, fingers crossed, in interpreting and translation, seeing how clients, agencies, and translators interact is something which should prove beneficial in terms of perfecting self-marketing and increasing awareness of what to focus on and what to avoid in this highly underappreciated industry of irrefutable importance to international business.

I anticipate an informative two week long internship and look forward to positively reporting what I have taken on board and who knows; perhaps one day The Translation People will be calling me (better keep up the hard work then).