As I entered the second year of my postgraduate studies in specialised translation and interpreting in Budapest, I applied for a translation internship with the Europeana Foundation, which turned out to be a truly enriching experience. During my three months working in the Audience Engagement Team I had the opportunity to improve my skills and explore new aspects of translation while diving into the rich cultural heritage of Europe.
Telling stories of cultural heritage
One of the main attractions of this internship for me was contributing to something that I believe is truly important: making cultural heritage accessible to people with diverse backgrounds. Discovering the rich tapestry of European nations, cultures and languages through the content made available on Europeana.eu strengthened my belief that communication across cultures is a powerful tool to bring us closer together and increased my dedication to translation and interpreting as a profession.
One of my tasks included translating the Seven tips for digital storytelling into Hungarian – a useful guide on how to tell engaging and inspiring stories with cultural heritage online.
Working in the Audience Engagement Team, I got a glimpse of how much work goes into making cultural heritage accessible and had the chance to contribute by translating content into Hungarian.
Translating on diverse and inspiring topics
In the first half of my internship, I focused mainly on editorials, translating over 30 stories into Hungarian. This significantly expanded the Hungarian content on Europeana.eu.
The fact that these stories encompass very diverse topics made my experience both interesting and enriching. As a soon-to-be specialised translator, it was a great opportunity and challenge to briefly immerse myself in different topics. Whether exploring the characteristics of art movements across Europe, learning about the life of an Olympic champion and their sport, understanding ceramic production techniques or uncovering the history behind culinary traditions, each translation offered a new perspective.
One aspect that I particularly enjoyed was that Women’s History Month took place during my internship, and I was able to translate numerous stories about famous as well as lesser-known but equally remarkable women, such as Marie Skłodowska Curie, Lilly Steinschneider and Tina Blau. This gave me the opportunity to get to know significant female figures and their work throughout history, which I found thought-provoking and inspiring.
My work also involved preparing a style guide for future Hungarian editorial translations. Though still a work in progress with many other languages yet to be completed, this tool aims to improve translation processes and ensure consistency across the website, outlining key considerations like terminology, style and formatting.
Reviewing website texts to enhance user experience
During my internship I had the opportunity to focus on a quite different but nevertheless important aspect of multilingualism at Europeana: reviewing the automated translation of static pages and interface texts across the website. This has not only been a huge and ambitious project but it also required a very different approach and skillset compared to editorial translations. While machine translation is rapidly improving, it still has its limitations when it comes to the nuances of a specific language. Therefore I believe that reviewing these texts will significantly improve the user experience on Europeana.eu and will play a pivotal role in supporting dissemination of cultural heritage.
Completing this internship provided me with real-world experience in translating and with both professional and personal experiences that I will take with me as I start my career as a translator and interpreter. I am very grateful to the Audience Engagement Team for their warm welcome, especially to my supervisors Adrian Murphy and Maggy Szynkielewska, whose enthusiasm and support guided me through these three months.
Apply for an internship
Are you inspired by Anna’s experience and would you like to contribute to Europeana’s multilingual editorial? The Europeana Foundation is currently offering three summer internships for Translations Studies students – find out more and apply by 16 May!