Interview

Name: María Fernanda Gerpe.

Profession: Translator- Certified Translator Spanish-English

                     Teacher- Secondary School Teacher of English.

-When did you go to USA?

-In 1995.

-Why did you go?

-I was going to take an English course in England and we decided to stay some days in New York before.

-How do you evaluate this experience?

-I really enjoyed it!

-How did this trip contributed to you profession and your life?

-In a sense it contributed to improve my English, specially my speaking skills, communicative skills, but in a wider sense, it was my first time in an English speaking country, traveling on my own, within a group but without my family, and I was only 16 years old! I discovered I enjoy traveling, meeting people getting to know their culture… communicating… and I realised speaking English was really helpful for that purpose.

-What did you like most about the trip?

-I think I loved the trip in general, visiting new places, meeting new people.

-Where did you do your professional studies?

-I studied at University in Montevideo.

-What is your favourite profession? Why?

-When I was very young I wanted to be an Archeologist and a teacher of history, later I decided to be a translator and to teach English and I really like both! Because we are all the time learning new things, because  can develope my creativity… I can be in touch with other people and different topics and share and exchange all the time.

-What is your opinion about the culture, the people from USA and the country in general?

-I guess it is a large, diverse and fascinating country which I would like to visit again.

-Some anechdote about your trip?

-There are many! I went in january so in Uruguay it was really hot, I traveled with a pair of jeans and a light sweater, I took a jacket also, but when we arrived in New York it was freezing and we had to stay almost all day with our “summer” clothes because there was a problem at the hoter and we got our rooms at night, so we walked around Manhattan where the water was becoming ice in the corners with our lovely summer clothes, feeling really cold but happy.

-Other  relevant infromation about your trip that you can tll me…

-As regards languages, I think it is a great experience to visit the countries where the language you ´re learning is spoken, there´s no better way to learn it!

-Tell me about your work in the american journal, please.

-At present, I translate into spanish the headlines for an american medium. It is an interesting job that I do every morning, so instead of reading the paper or watching the news I find out what´s going on in the world while translating.