Old Nottinghamian Linguists – Alex
Posted on 28. Apr, 2011 by Mrs Moorhouse in Languages
Alex Smith left Nottingham High School in 2002 and is the first of our case studies to have pursued a career in translation.
What did you study and where did you go?
I studied Modern and Medieval Languages (French and Dutch) at Cambridge University.
Why did you choose this course?
I chose this course because it allowed me to learn a new language from scratch, and I was keen to study a slightly unusual language (Dutch) that not many people learn. I was also very interested in linguistics and Cambridge offers lots of linguistics papers within the MML tripos.
What were the three most important things that you learnt at university?
I learnt that you can pick up a new language very quickly, which I didn’t really think was possible before I went to university. By doing my year abroad (the third year of my degree) I learnt that it’s important to go beyond the language in your textbooks and experience the real language in the country where it is spoken. I also learnt that it’s not necessarily how many hours you spend in the library that determines your success, but how well you focus your learning on the important things. Specifically, I also learnt a lot about translation and linguistics, which became my main interests.
What role have languages played in your career?
Everything I’ve done career-wise has had some language element. On my year abroad I worked for a publisher in Amsterdam and became a translator, a job I’ve continued to do to this day. After graduating I also spent two years in Japan and a year in South Korea and picked up the languages there.
Do you use languages in your current role? How?
Yes, I use languages in my current role. I have just translated my first novel (Rendezvous by Esther Verhoef) which was published recently and have edited a couple of translated books. I am also still learning Japanese and taking exams in it so that I can possibly use it in my career one day.
What advice would you give to our current A-Level linguists?
I would advise them to have as much exposure to real French, German, or whatever, as possible and travel in countries where the language is spoken. I would also advise them to find something that interests them in the language they are studying, such as TV programmes, films (even dubbed from English), magazines, or books (even translated from English into the foreign language) and use that to help their learning. Looking to the future, I would really encourage your students to consider studying and unusual or ‘difficult’ language at university – not only is it really interesting but you might find yourself in much greater demand for certain careers when not many other people can speak that language.
