Glossika Internship: Linguistics

"This job was truly unlike anything I’ve done before and it opened my eyes to see the adaptability of linguistics. And from my observation in the company, all the employees here are exceptional, especially in terms of critical thinking and problem-solving skills."

Jia-Ling Shi, Providence University

I came to Glossika because of a letter from my teacher. In this letter, my teacher mentioned about the possibility of internship at Glossika, if I plan to have a career in the area of linguistics. Since everyone I know has told me that there’s no future in studying linguistics, I can’t help but prove them wrong. Then, I began my internship at Glossika.

Starting the very first day, I was overwhelmed (in a good way) by the linguistic knowledge that Mike introduced to me. It was all very exciting, as if there’s an infinite amount of concepts and information in the world of linguistics for me to freely explore my way around. I also listened to audio files, starting with Danish, Norwegian to Bengali, and then worked my way through Taiwanese and other dialects. This job was truly unlike anything I’ve done before and it opened my eyes to see the adaptability of linguistics.

From my observation in the company, all the employees here are exceptional, especially in terms of critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Although I commute a long way to work from my house, I must say that this is a time that I look forward to every week. I’m very grateful for the internship opportunity, from which I not only gained working experience but also the etiquette and attitude one must possess in the professional world.

Yan-Ting Huang, National Chengchi University

I found out about Glossika’s internship opportunity from a job hunting site and visited glossika.com to get to know more about their products. Provided that I already knew about the company’s language learning materials, I was still surprised by the scope of languages that their products offer, which include widely spoken national languages as well as minor and unwritten ones.

I’m a diplomacy major in college and study subjects dealing with national states, mainstream cultures, and the political warfare between major countries. To me, languages are not just tools for communication. There are rich history and culture hidden behind every unique language, which also lead to many ethnic conflicts -- for this reason, I’ve always been interested in language learning. Glossika takes a stand on preserving endangered languages and producing a selection of minor languages, despite the low public demand for them. I've long admired their way of systematically preserving these diverse cultures through language production even before I started working here.

I grew more fond of Glossika soon after I began my internship here -- they have a great working environment and atmosphere. Although I seldom interacted with other colleagues while doing my job, everyone was always very kind, considerate, and helping each other out, which made me feel fortunate to be able to work here.

My main job responsibility is to proofread Thai materials. As painful as listening to sound files and checking sentences may be sometimes, I had the opportunity to get to know some of the most natural ways of expression, learned new Thai words, and even had the pleasure of befriending the Thai girl, who recorded the audio files for the training course. I didn’t expect to be blessed with these opportunities before entering Glossika, and I’m really grateful for these special experiences and everyone’s help.

During my internship here, I took advantage of the available resources and tried learning English, Japanese, Thai, and Tibetan. However, I wasn’t able to spend very much time on each language, so I chose to give my full attention to Thai in the end (which I’m still learning to this day). Since I was introduced to effective learning methods by Glossika, I believe that I’ll keep learning other new languages, or even ones I’ve tried and given up on, the way I now know best.

Xie Yu-chen, National Taiwan Normal University

I was the final intern to join the group, and the internship program gave me unimaginable rewards.

I got to know and learn so many languages here, both mainstream and non- mainstream, and it’s really widened my view on languages in general. My primary responsibility is to proofread scripts and sound files. However, since I had never learned these languages before, it was a big challenge for me. My major is not in foreign language and I am not good at other languages, but Glossika gave me the chance to improve on my foreign language skills. This has been such an amazing learning experience for me! Now not only can I proofread the script by myself, I can also understand a little bit of the script content. This experience gave me self-confidence and hope, and really made me believe that I can do it! If I had never tried, I would never have known that I actually have what it takes to accomplish something that I haven’t done before.

The greatest benefit from interning at Glossika was that I can learn and practice so many things. My major is Chinese and sometimes I feel confused about what I want to do in the future, and unsure whether I can use what I’ve learned in school for a career. However, the internship program provided me with the opportunity to apply my knowledge from school to my job. For example, when I was working on the Shanghai dialect project, there were many new words that I didn’t know, so I used a website for ancient and modern Chinese characters to overcome this challenge. This experience taught me that there’s always an open window even when you feel like all the doors are closed. Just because you’re not able to apply what you know to your current situation, accumulated experience will serve as true wisdom in the long-run and come in handy one day when you least expect it.

I came to Glossika with the simple intention of gaining more work experience and better foreign language skills (than what I was able to learn in school), but now that I’ve completed the internship, I must say that I acquired more than I even thought possible -- the confidence and self-assurance that I can achieve anything that I put my heart and mind to.