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

First post: A new experience

Hi everyone,

my name is Cedric and this is my blog about the internship that I will be doing this first semester. I currently study at André-Laurendeau college in the: art and letter: trilinguism and culture program.

Goals:

During my internship, I hope to improve my fluency in English. I know that since I am in the 103 level of English I should be quite strong in English but it does not prove anything at all. I feel that I am still quite far from being bilingual, however I can still handle myself quite well when I need to speak in English. I also hope to improve my writing skills by making less mistakes when I write essays for example. My first goal is to be able to speak fluently and more clearly since I tend to easily get nervous when I start to talk. My other goal is to make less spelling mistakes and to enrich my vocabulary.

The strategies:

In class, we learned a few techniques to help us learn another language more easily. I chose five of them that I think that they will be useful. Here they are:

Utilisation of mnemonic techniques: It means to make association with words that we know.

Talking to yourself: Talking to yourself can prove to be useful in a lot of situation. It helps me to talk more fluently and it helps to remember more easily.

Constant search for meaning: It helps a lot to remember words and make connections with others words that you know

Repetition: Repeating a word helps to practice with pronunciation.

Monitoring: I tend to search a lot in a dictionary, especially when I don't know the meaning of a word.

My first meeting:

Before:

As I said before, I started my internship quite soon. In fact, my first meeting with my host was scheduled on Wednesday the 25th of September. I went to meet a nice lady at the LaSalle Multicultural Resource Center. My first concern was if it was far from the college or not. Since I live in Chateauguay, I was scared to be sent off to someplace far away because it would take a lot of my time just to go there. When I discovered that it was close to the college, I felt relieved. My second concern was that I was not sure what I would be doing there. I knew that I would have to translate but I was not sure if I would have something else to do.

After:

As I said before, I tend to easily get nervous when I start to speak English. Hem and haw was almost the only thing that I could do. I was still able to answer her questions correctly and it was over before I could even realise it.

Little note to my futur readers:

I'm  not very good in arts. As time goes, I will try to embelish my blog with pictures and colors. Juste be patient and I hope that I will be able to make my blog more beautiful.