YUEN Wai Ling, Riley

BTB Graduate of 2023

I was definite about my decision to study business translation from the beginning. With an affection for language, I sought a field that would extend and expand my passion. The notion of going beyond the boundaries of language learning to see the business panorama excited me.

Translation is a distinct dimension of language study that demands meticulous attention to detail. For almost the entire first semester, I remained a stranger to the field of translation. I made a series of errors in assignments—errors that were sufficient to set an unprofessional tone in a formal text. Puzzled yet determined, I began to occupy myself in analysing whatever course materials provided to us, often with reference to the ingenious model answers prepared by my teachers.

Over time, I built a solid foundation. In the second half of my journey, I was entrusted with many written translation and simultaneous interpreting tasks that I was immensely thankful for, including translating the Chair’s Letter in the Annual Report of a real estate company and interpreting at the Master Insight Forum. These experiences were also ancillary to handling translation and proofreading tasks while I was interning at a translation company specialising in financial texts.

With the flexibility of course combinations, I enrolled in business electives focusing on taxation and financial regulation and was later rewarded with a minor in Corporate and Commercial Law. For the translation electives, I sought to make my choices as diverse as possible, with topics ranging from finance and Sanskrit to subtitling and conference interpreting, as well as from arts industry to international affairs. The latter two subjects worked reciprocally in my mind, illustrating how ‘past whispers, present echoes’ manifest in major global events. This sparked my interest in pursuing a Master’s degree in International Relations at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

As I look back, my decision has been well justified. I owe my heartfelt thanks to all my teachers, who generously provided scholarly help, advice, and encouragement with their erudition. All these are just a few frames from my seemingly bottomless archives of the illuminating four years that will never be outgrown as I venture forward.