Translation Internship in Madrid

My internship in Madrid was exactly what I was looking for! My university has a co-op program where we work for a semester instead of taking classes. Unfortunately, as my school does not have a translation major, there were almost no translation co-ops available. Adelante Abroad was one of the only outside options that I saw that guaranteed that I would be actually translating for my co-op as opposed to teaching English. What's more, they quickly let me know that I could either work for a translation agency, or as a translator for a company. I quickly went from having no options to having an abundance of them! What's great about Adelante is that they are with you every step of the way. I never felt alone when applying for a visa, arranging flights, starting my internship, or at any other point during my time in Madrid.

I did a five month program working for a translation agency. It was exactly what I wanted: the opportunity to work in close proximity with other translators. As an added bonus there were always other interns working alongside me from different countries in Europe, meaning I got a lot of exposure to different languages. It was always great helping my new friends out with any questions about English as they translated into French, Italian, German, and of course, Spanish. The office environment was incredibly laid back and I absolutely loved it. Since my contract was for 20 hours a week, the agency let me have any extra hours I worked as vacation time. I worked so many extra hours I had time to go explore Germany, England, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, in addition to areas of Spain. They even let me finish my co-op a week early so I could show my mom and sister around my new home!

Having extensively studied Spanish both in school and abroad in Argentina, language was not much of an issue. Still, the two weeks at the Eureka school were great! It was a really helpful way to ensure that I was getting back in the swing of speaking Spanish every day. Being in the highest level class, the grammar was a little complex, and wasn't something that I ever really remember using. The conversation half class time was great however! The activities were fun, we got to meet a variety of different teachers and hear the different ways they talked, and all the teachers were really helpful with making sure we were learning. The best part for me was learning the differences between the Spanish in Spain and the Mexican/Argentine Spanish I had learned previously (things like they don't say "boletos" over there, etc). Of all the Spanish courses I've ever taken, Eureka was definitely the best, and I would recommend it to anybody, even if they weren't looking to do an internship with Adelante.

My housing was through a company that rents apartments to students, so I was with other (non-Adelante) students either studying or working in Madrid. I lived with students from Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, France, and India. None were native English speakers, but most spoke English decently (and wanted to practice), so we spoke a combination of Spanish and English. We all got along extremely well. The housing was a about a 30 minute metro ride from Sol, which was absolutely perfect for me- the neighborhood was quiet and close to my co-op. I walked to work every morning and back home afterwards, which was great exercise. The apartment was cleaned weekly and any problems were fixed fairly quickly. They even bought us new frying pans when we complained that our old ones were bent!

Adelante is absolutely perfect for getting you an internship in any field that you want, while also giving you the freedom to explore a new country or continent!