At Blueprint, our Localization team is a diverse team of translators that share a common reality: none of us live in the country of our native language. We all live in the US, where English dominates our daily lives. Our kids go to English-speaking schools, our work meetings are in English, and we even start to dream in English (read all about dreaming in foreign languages in this great article). The longer we’re away from our home country, the more challenging it becomes: how do we keep our first language alive?
The reasons for keeping our mother tongue up to par are numerous. There’s the professional motive: we want to be excellent translators. What does that mean? In our case, it often means keeping English influences at bay – a challenging task. English sentence structures sneak in and English words make their way into more and more languages. It also means staying up to date with our language and culture back home. Knowing the latest slang and being aware of what is popular is all crucial in localization. I personally joke that my yearly vacation to Belgium is a work trip – but that’s not far from the truth.
Those of us with kids have another reason to keep our mother tongue active: we want to pass it on. Our dream is bilingual (or trilingual) kids, who effortlessly switch between languages and speak fluently with their grandparents over Zoom calls. In reality, they switch to English whenever they can, unless they need something and know your soft spot is to ask for it in your language.
Recent research has given us additional reasons to train that language brain. For instance, being bilingual enhances decision-making. It also delays the onset of diseases like Alzheimer. And the language we use can even change our perspective on the world. Talk about broadening your horizons!
Time to answer the big questionHow do the translation & localization specialists at Blueprint keep their language alive?
I went ahead and asked some colleagues from all corners of the world.
Margo
Russian Translation & Localization Specialist
“I live in the New York City area – the ultimate melting pot. This makes it easy for me to find Russian-speaking friends and activities! What makes it even easier, is that a lot of people from post-Soviet countries are bilingual and speak Russian fluently (I am from Belarus myself, for instance). In NYC we also have the so–called Mozgoquiz Club (Mozg is “brains” in Russian) where people gather in teams and play different kinds of trivia games in Russian. Different Russian-speaking bands, actors, speakers, etc. visit NYC regularly as well. Finally, reading Russian books, watching YouTube, listening to podcasts, following social media and memes are all super useful to keep up with current trends and the internet culture.”
“Besides reading Thai daily news and gaming posts online, as well as watching anything Thai on YouTube, I have yearly subscriptions to two popular Thai magazines. One of them is like National Geographic and covers a wide variety of subjects. The other magazine focuses on Thai culture and history. It had several of my own articles published in the past. These two magazines have various authors with different writing styles. Their articles are always well written and intelligent. Reading them also keeps me abreast of current colloquial language used in Thailand.”
Wilas
Thai Translation & Localization Specialist
Eveline
Dutch Translation & Localization Specialist
“As a translation major, the importance of native proficiency was drilled into me from the start. To stay on top of my language, I subscribe to a professional Dutch language magazine, but that’s only half of the equation. Reading and talking about things you love is a great way to keep your language alive. That’s why I enjoy being a part of Dutch groups online, and I start my day with the Dutch news. Aside from talking to my friends and family back home, my favorite way to keep up with informal language is watching TV (even commercials!). I’m currently following the new season of Expeditie Robinson, the Dutch Survivor, and I always watch Dutch national soccer games on Dutch TV. It’s great because soccer commentators use surprisingly rich language and of course there’s the added bonus that they cheer for the right goals!”
“I speak German daily with my Blueprint colleagues of the German team. And every second Saturday, I play Dungeons & Dragons via MS Teams with my German friends. I also chat and video–call regularly with my relatives and friends back home. Reading is something I do in German as well. Books not that often, but I have subscriptions to a German videogame magazine and a German IT magazine.”
He-Zin
German Translation & Localization Specialist
Valentyna
Russian Translation & Localization Team Lead
“I’m from Ukraine, from a region that speaks Russian. We moved to the US when my son was three. For me, keeping my language alive also meant passing it on to him. I enrolled him in language classes when he was five. When he was eight, he got a Nintendo Switch, and initially I only let him play the Russian version of games – until I realized that some of the translations were horrible. We also tried several Saturday schools, but in the end having more school and more homework was becoming counterproductive. What did work? Finding activities in Russian that he loves. We found a Russian amateur theater company. My son was the main character in a play and memorized 60 pages of lines, in Russian! It’s perfect for him: he loves being the center of attention AND he’s using his language skills!
“When I started working at Blueprint, I loved that I could speak Finnish daily with my colleagues! I didn’t realize how much I had missed it until then. One of the things I love about our company is that we get the chance to work from abroad for four weeks a year. I use it every year to work from Finland. I hang out at public places (even railway stations!) to hear people talk and to catch up on the latest slang. But even here in Seattle, Finnish is never far away — we have the second largest Finnish population in the US. There are many cultural activities, like Midsommar or Finnish Christmas markets. I also love audio books. I listen to as many books as I can in Finnish, even English ones that have been translated. Being a translator from a country with a small population, I usually even know the translator personally!”
Tarja
Finnish Translation & Localization Specialist
Angela
Chinese Translation & Localization Specialist
“My family and my social environment are a true mix of Mandarin and English. Our baby is nine months old, and we are teaching her both languages simultaneously. We sing nursery rhymes in English, but I started a whole collection of children’s books in Mandarin. I buy them second-hand from our local community in New York, or I ask my family in Taiwan to buy them for me. Thanks to Blueprint’s Alternate Work Location Program policy, I can go back every year and pick up the books. Once our daughter is a bit older, she will also go to a bilingual daycare. As we live in a very multicultural environment, I wonder which other languages she will pick up and learn from her future friends!”
“I left Peru a long time ago. So long ago that my friends back home claim I have completely lost my Peruvian accent and the dialect from my hometown. They might be right. But here in the US, I was lucky to always live in areas with a large Hispanic population. Also, my work has mainly been in Spanish: I was an editor, a content consultant, a writer for a Spanish newspaper, and now I am a translator at Blueprint. Over the past couple of decades, I have worked with Spanish speakers from different countries. I have learned their dialects, I can understand and use their accents and specific terms, and then go back to my own. My wife and I talk mostly in Spanish. Between my linguistic background and her work as an interpreter, we have some critical and interesting discussions about language. We also share our love for food: we go to Peruvian restaurants, watch cooking shows, or just enjoy reading Latin-American cooking books. But as I’ve said, we are fairly critical. And as for both food and languages, we don’t always like how people change some “basic ingredients!”
Luis
Latin-American Spanish Translation & Localization Specialist
Talking with all these localization specialists and discovering their different approaches has been a great experience. It highlighted that our love for languages often intertwines with other passions, such as reading, gaming, cooking, theater, socializing, and yes: working. A recurring theme was how great it is to use our native language at work – not just to translate, but also to interact with colleagues. It is our pleasure to work as Localization specialists in America and have the unique ability to connect with those across the world, regardless of their home country or native tongue.
