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About your work in China, what do you do in China?
In China I work in Inspection, an inspection company...
I do my practicum there and I've been there for six months already
After you do your practicum in China what do you plan to do?
Yeah, that's a good question, because I like traveling...
and I like to go to other countries and experience how life in the countries is...
learn about the language a bit, or maybe a bit more... depends on how long you stay in the country
So, finally after I graduate I would come back to Asia definitely, I'm not sure yet which country
I do like China but I've already been there for nine months as I've told you...
So maybe I could switch to another country, depends on the possibilities that I have for a job
But even if it is a country like Middle East or Latin America, even Africa, I think it's good for me
I'm really open for all countries
I would like to come back here for a job or maybe do something with translations and start my own company
I'm still thinking about it
Yeah, talk to us about your company, ah yes, it's a startup company...
So I created a website, I just created it last week, the name is www.lettheworldtranslate.com
So what we do is, because the last few years I traveled a lot around the world and I went to
many countries where I met many people with another native mother tongue, and with another language
And I checked the Dutch market, and also the European market about, I did some marketing research about
translation companies and how much they charge for translation, like in Holland and also other
countries in Europe, there's many companies that are willing to pay 12 euro cents for every translation
and I thought, hey, I have the network, I'm passionate about languages, I think I could arr--? this better
So I started this project and I did like... I already did like 20 or 25 translations on a few months
and it works prefectly, so there's like native speakers all over the world who speaks English
very well and they translate from English to their native language for a very good price, and yeah
the price is so far only 7 euro cents for every word So you help the world translating and you help
like students in Indonesia or maybe Filipinos in the Philippines have a good job as a translator,
so you also support them, so like this way we want to build a local, a global network of translators
In the end, everybody can translate
What's the website again?
www.lettheworldtranslate.com
So what would you like to do, you want to stay here in the Philippines all your life or...
...because you speak so many languages so you have many possibilities toget scholarships...
The thing is if you speak a lot of languages here the jobs where you are gonna be employed...
the demand is always high for multilinguals but the supply is always low, so it's like...
some sort of job security thing that you are not gonna go jobless, and they pay well, so leaving
is actually quite hard to do because you have to give up your language premium and stuff, but...
at the same time I like to experience living abroad, just to study or work... not really work...
With languages I think I just got lucky because you know, there's always those stories about
not finding jobs. For me it has been very easy ever since just because I speak Spanish...
When did you starts speaking it on a, like really speaking so no longer studying in school but..
when you started your job...
2006, so I started working part-time in a call center
So how was that, first you studied Spanish in school and then you had to use it on a daily basis...
like on the phone. How was that change, the switch from the books to the real conversation
It was exciting at first because it's a different thing, because when you're in university...
it seems sort of, I don't know, simulated? So you know, you read from the books...
It depends on the professor, if the professor is kind of inventive enough
depends on his way of managing the class
But my experience has been, the students were just forced to get the language for credits...
So if you're not really into it would be quite a difficult thing to do and in a weigh you're also
weighing down the other students because they can't practice so I was kind of frustrated with that
but when I started applying for jobs I wasn't even a graduate yet, that's the immersion part
So you know, they just, you answer the phones and do your own ad lib...
Was it hard to speak Spanish at the beginning, on the phone?
Sort of, but the thing about it is, it's all because of panic attacks, 'coz you think you couldn't
you won't understand the other person...
What do you do then in that kind of situation?
On the phone, when you are speaking with the customer or the client and you don't understand in another language.
What do you do, so okay, you ask your colleague or...
There's a mute button, hahaha
No, you have to find a way to understand them so it's either you ask them to repeat what they said
Or you know, repeat what they said in your own way or just a clarification if you understood it correctly
Do they get frustrated or angry sometimes?
The thing about Latin American clients is that they are very polite
Ah, really
Yeah, so I worked for around three years in call centers cumulative, 'coz my work now is...
more on research... And I think I only encountered around ten
rude people who really shouted...
Only ten...
Yeah, for three years
Did you learn from it or not...
Yeah, of course you learn from it, haha...
Yeah? What did you learn from it. What do you remember when somebody was shouting, I mean what did they say...
Learn more Spanish! Learn more Spanish!
That's the time when they discover that you are not native, but most of... Of course you have to
understand them, they are customers. You're also a customer sometimes. You have to understand that
those people are frustrated, so they really need someone to vent out their frustrations on, and
And you are representing the company... And you know, when someone shouts at you on the phone
it makes you more alert, you understand more! So yeah, I think that's how I was able to
develop my Spanish and Portuguese skills. If I didn't work in a call center I, my Spanish would be very bad
I'm not saying that it's very good...
But what about Portuguese? You learned Portuguese only from work right? You never did any class
How was the switch from Spanish to Portuguese?
At first I thought it was Russian. Hahaha It sounded like Russian, or some Slavic language
but the thing about is, our colleagues from Brazil spoke to us in Portuguese and we spoke to them in Spanish
and then we understood each other, so I think it was similar like that
So, and after you just try to copy their pronunciation
Yeah. I never studied Portuguese in the classroom
Never?
But you don't want to do like hardcore translation interpretation...
Myself? Ah, no no no no because you know I got some languages, but Alfred here is really the master
NO!
I'm not that good and of course my native tongue is Dutch, an then after that, English but most Dutch
people do speak English as a second language so it's not that special. My Mandarin is quite okay
but like, like my level is not that high enough to do translation, and it's also not my goal when
I learn a language. I just want to be able to communicate with the people, travel there,
learn a bit about their culture, so that for me is the main goal
So, I'd rather learn many languages, not too... not like real fluency, butof course fluency is great
and I really respect people who can speak many languages fluently, but it's too hard for me, sorry
So it's breadth over depth...
That's what I mean