| Cody |
Hello, I’m Cody Carson. I’m currently a Business Development Manager at RWS Moravia focusing on identifying new clients to help enhance their localization efforts. With us today is Priscila Mello. She holds experience at a large global hospitality organization. She is an expert of language from both a teaching perspective as well as investigating how to effectively communicate content throughout the world and communicating that to internal business owners. Today’s episode is about teaching, being a life-long learner and entering the corporate world as a localization analyst with that background. Let’s have Priscila introduce herself now. |
| Priscila |
First of all, thanks for having me. I am from Brazil. I come from a very poor background, but I did go to college. I went to a public university in Brazil. I studied English and Portuguese languages and literature.
Then I moved to the capital. I started teaching. I taught for a very long time, then I moved to the US. I started teaching a little bit of Portuguese, but then, you know, I was teaching for members of the Air Force, so my schedule was really crazy. I would have to wake up at 4 in the morning to teach a guy that was deployed in Germany, and then, you know, another one which was in Cuba, and, you know, it was crazy for me. I could not just live like that, waking up in the middle of the night, going back to sleep, and I wanted something more steady.
And then, that’s where it started in the hospitality business, with no background whatsoever what the corporate world was about, how to address people, you know, how to send an email, conference calls. Everything was brand new to me. But it was a really nice learning curve. |
| Cody |
You had taught for nearly 20 years in Brazil and Texas. |
| Priscila |
Yeah. Something like that. |
| Cody |
What did you enjoy most about teaching foreign languages? |
| Priscila |
Well, you know, I’m a kinesthetic kind of learner, so I learn on the go. That’s why I started teaching, because teaching made learning easier for me. And the connection, you know, with a different culture, with a different language, it’s just so unique to me.
Teaching is addictive. If you like the human interaction, that’s the most natural place where it happens. So, there is someone who wants to learn, and that’s you who wants to teach. And that is just dynamite, you know? So, you want something, they want something and that’s where it connects. It’s an amazing experience. You know, of course it works a lot with your self-confidence, but it works a lot with your different perspectives of life too.
So, in order to reach a student, you have to think about how can you translate what you know in a way that he’s going to understand that? So, sometimes, it’s not about the way that you have been taught. It’s about the way that a student is prone to learn. So, you have to change the words that you use, you have to change the approach that you use, and I think that it’s just so magical. |
| Cody |
It makes so much sense in understanding why you would still consider yourself a teacher of language now, especially seeing the crossover between that and now going into the corporate world and localization. |
| Priscila |
Yeah. |
| Cody |
So, as far as, you know, you’ve been an EFL teacher, and then you’ve been a Brazilian and Portuguese teacher, what would you say, when talking about learning language, what are the best ways? I always hear immersion is the best way to learn a language. But what do you think is the best way to learn a language? |
| Priscila |
Well, first of all, I think that’s why I like it the most: it’s because learning is a self-discovery journey. I think that in order for you to learn, you have to know what makes sense for you. Being immersed in, you know, an environment, a community, it happens most, because you know, it’s about the time that you dedicate.
So, if you’re not immersed in a language or anything that you do, you’re just going to dedicate maybe two hours a day, two hours a week to something. So, in contrast, when you are immersed, you’re just living the language, living the life 24⁄7. So of course, it plays a big role. |
| Cody |
How did you stumble into the hospitality industry as a localization analyst? Was that something you sought out? Or something that just so happened by chance? |
| Priscila |
Well, just like most of the things in my life, it was by accident, yeah. So, I was here, I was working and I was struggling, you know, thinking about what can I do? Do I have to reinvent myself? These kinds of questions that, just when you have a deep change in your life, you start asking yourself.
And when I moved to the US, my neighbor—she’s Brazilian, too, she was an interpreter—and she told me once, “Oh, I have just received a message from a recruiting company. They wanted to talk to me about a position and it was for a senior analyst, but I’m not interested. You know, I work from home, I don’t want to go to any office. It’s not what I have been looking for. Are you interested?” And I said, “Yeah, of course, you know I’m always interested,”
She put us in contact. She sent my resume to the company. And my experience was about classroom; I was a teacher. They wanted a localization analyst, so at the time, they were looking for someone with a corporate background, so at first, they turned me down. And I was really sad about that because, you know, in my head, it was a perfect marriage. I was like, “Oh, I’m going to be this analyst, and then I’m going to help them with Portuguese and bring all my, you know, cultural background and everything.”
A couple of weeks later, the recruiting company reached out to me again and they were like, “Well, you know, we’re having a hard time to find someone who speaks Portuguese. Are you still interested?” And I said, “Yeah, yeah. That’s me. That’s me.” And there I went for an interview, we talked, and she was like, “Well, you know, you’re hired!” And that’s where I started. |
| Cody |
What were some of the biggest challenges when you made the switch from teaching to now learning what it’s like to be in a corporate localization role? |
| Priscila |
It’s intimidating at first, you know? So, you look at that environment, people are so, you know, they’re dressed up, they know what they are doing, and I was like, how do I get in a conference call? I didn’t know any of those things! How do I address people here? Do I call it “dear,” do I call it “sir,” do I call it, you know, “hi”? How does it happen? Everything was a challenge.
So, from how to send an email to coping with the technology, everything was just overwhelming at first because I was not in my country, I was not doing that in my own language, I was not in my culture. So, I had to adapt in so many ways. So, there was a lot to that. |
| Cody |
So, as far as teaching, too, in that transition, have you felt like you’ve maybe brought a different perspective to the localization team as well? Just coming from your background and maybe from that learning-driven perspective, have you been able to provide different insight to the team? |
| Priscila |
I don’t know if it’s my background with teaching, if it is just the curiosity within myself, but, you know, I’m always asking questions and challenging things and making things be seen from a different perspective. |
| Cody |
I’m curious what exactly a localization analyst does. I know you’re specific to the hospitality industry, but I’m sure there’s quite a bit of crossover when it comes to your role in various other sectors. |
| Priscila |
Yeah. So, it is a wonderful position because we deal with languages and cultures, and that is something fascinating. You know, just to be able to communicate with someone from a different culture in a way that they feel comfortable, not threatened, conveying the message but also being respectful of the culture…I think it is an amazing thing.
So, at first, I was just taking care of Portuguese, making updates to the website, you know, translating, reviewing, things like that, and then we evolved a little bit. It was about, you know, working with projects and managing projects and language. I was working a lot with marketing and especially the fast and furious projects, the ones which were, you know, two-, three-day sales and everything like that. So, it is a fascinating world. I love it. |
| Cody |
So in the spirit of you loving the industry and the world, what would you say you love most about your role right now? |
| Priscila |
The ability to connect with people and bringing lots of things into perspective. When I’m talking to a business owner and they want to launch a campaign in five languages, I just look at the five languages, I look at the source files, you know, in English, and immediately I think and I have to tell them, “Oh, this is not going to make sense for Arabic,” or, you know, that in English, you are talking that this promotion is over in spring, you know that in Brazilian Portuguese, we are in the Southern Hemisphere, so you are talking about a different season, right?
So, being able to connect all of the dots and, you know, have a big picture in place, is what fascinates me the most. |
| Cody |
It’s all back to educating individuals as to markets and trends and what not to say. I’ve also seen with colors—like, the color green is interpreted so very different across different cultures. And what to avoid and certain word phrases that make some sense in English but absolutely mean nothing to other languages and are so confusing. |
| Priscila |
We are advocates for languages, you know, for cultures and everything. In marketing, they’re always going to have a catch headline, they have tons of words, things like that that work great for English, but guess what? Sometimes, foreign languages, it isn’t.
A couple of things for example: if you’re doing emails and then you have character count, you cannot base that on English because languages, they are usually more wordy than English. And then you have to take that all into consideration. That’s the beauty of it.
When, you know, I receive something in English, I analyze that and I instantly provide my feedback from my point of view. You know, of course, you have tons of things in other languages that I have no idea; I have never studied Chinese or Japanese languages. But from my perspective, there are a couple of things in Portuguese that are pertinent to other languages as well. So, for example, the character count or, you know, the seasons of the year because you are talking about another hemisphere, things like this.
When you are from a different culture, you are able to see something that was probably created for English and have a different perspective to that and say, you know, “That image is not going to work well for Arabic, for example, because there is alcohol.” Or, for example, you’re talking about Thanksgiving; we do not have Thanksgiving in Brazil. You have to think about how to translate that into the different reality that you want to market.
And you know what? When you are talking about languages, language is something that is mutable. Language is not something that is static. So, you cannot just be, “Okay, I learn Portuguese inside-out. I know everything.” I don’t! I have tons of questions about Portuguese.
I work with another Brazilian from a different region in Brazil, and sometimes I just look at what she says and I’m like, “What do you mean? What is that? It’s something typical from where you’re from?” She says, “No, everybody says that.” And I say, “I don’t. I had never ever heard that expression before.” |
| Cody |
Translating is one thing, it’s quite simple, but the more difficult thing is to really truly localize something. And that is so much different. I’d love to just hear you explain that again, just from translating words, you know, what that means versus truly localizing something. |
| Priscila |
Yeah. So, first of all, translating something is just changing the code. So, you change the code from English to Portuguese or Portuguese to French. That can be not as simple as we see it, but it’s not as laborious as you would think. When you are localizing something, you have to make sure that not only the meaning of the sentence is the same, but also the context and the understanding part within that culture is really kept.
So, for example, I work a lot with marketing material, so we have catchy phrases, we have tons of words, we have all of that. I cannot just translate everything literally. So, it’s not about making sure that the meaning of each word is the same. I have to make sure that people in Brazil are going to read that and really understand what that is about.
So, it’s another layer of effort, it’s another level of effort that is behind that. So, I have to make sure that the content is appropriate, that the tone of the voice, that the meaning is of course there and the context is the same, so that when a person sees a beautiful flyer or something like that in English and you have another person seeing that in Portuguese, they have kind of the same feeling.
Of course, you know, it’s difficult to maintain everything 100% because cultures are different, but I really want a Portuguese speaker to read something in Portuguese and have the same feeling that, you know, a Japanese speaker has seeing a flyer in Japanese. So, we want to replicate that. |
| Cody |
Really what it comes down to, and what a lot of companies are seeing so much value out of, is this idea of transcreation, which is exactly, you know, what you’re doing. You might change something in the English source format, but really when it comes down to it, you want it to feel and hit home, like this was made for me, this was something local to me. |
| Priscila |
Exactly. So that’s the difference when you have translation, which is a one-to-one thing, so it’s just changing the code, you have creative translation in which you can flourish a little bit here and there just to keep everything connected and then you have the transcreation in which you’re going to use the best of your ability to convey the message, but the words might be different.
So, it doesn’t mean that everything that you do is going to require transcreation. Some of the things that you do are merely simple translation. So, for example, Terms and Conditions. There is nothing more literal than there, you know? Yeah. It’s just a one-to-one, you know? Do not reinvent the wheel here. Let’s just keep it as it is. |
| Cody |
Absolutely. Well, and you’ve made mention now of several different projects. Are you able to tell us about maybe a project that you worked on that was especially either challenging or interesting to you? Something that you really either enjoyed or it could be, on the opposite, of something that was extremely difficult, that you had to overcome some obstacles. |
| Priscila |
Sure. I was leading this big project. It involved tons of languages, tons of, you know, moving pieces. It was about email, landing pages, letters, flyers in 18 languages if I’m not mistaken.
So, I was maybe two years with the company and I was leading that project. It was doing really well until it wasn’t doing really well anymore because changes to the source are always going to affect the target language.
So, if people are just like, “I’m just going to change this little word in English. It’s just one little word in English,” and then it impacts 18 languages. And when you’re dealing with a big project like this, it may mean time zone differences, translations, management, production, and that is going to impact your timeline within, you know, five days maybe.
That’s what people do not understand, you know? When you’re dealing with something like this, you have to avoid as much as you can the changes on the go. So, source has to be approved, done and then you move with the languages.
So, my greatest challenge was that I had very little experience managing projects. It was a big one. And there were tons of changes on the go that it was kind of hard to keep track of everything. In fact, we created a PowerPoint with the days of the week and the changes made by the day. It was crazy to that level that I had to keep track of every change because in the end of the day they were like, “Oh, we have English, why don’t we have the languages done?” Because you changed something in Japanese! By the time that I send that to the vendor that works with someone in Japan, you know, in a different time zone, guess what? It’s going to affect the timeline. I can enforce as much as I want that every change is going to impact the languages and the timeline, but in the end of the day, it’s the business owner’s decision. What I can do and what I must do is that I have to open a clear communication channel and make everyone aware that if changes are made on the go, they might affect the timeline, costs and everything.
So, I usually emphasize the costs because that’s where most people open their eyes up and they are just like, “Oh, yeah, costs. So, we have to be on top of that.”
Something that really makes me sad is to see that sometimes languages are not a priority, to think that people have this misunderstanding that within most…I wouldn’t say most, but a lot of people, they have this understanding that no, just use English. Everybody in the world speaks English. And I’m just like, “No. Not everybody in the world speaks English.”
It’s about the connection that you make, it’s about how you reach the customer, the client, and you bond that connection. If you do not make an effort, why should the client make an effort? |
| Cody |
So, we’ve talked about your career as a teacher, we’ve talked about your career now going into the corporate world. Could you tell us what is next for Priscila? Would you like to continue in the corporate world, in the hospitality industry? What is next for you in conquering the localization world? |
| Priscila |
So, I went through just being a teacher to starting with the localization with a focus on translations and review, then I started localization with a focus of project management and what am I going to do next? I really don’t know. I’m still looking at myself. I’ve read books, I went through some job shadowing experiences. Ah, well, a lot has happened, but I think that I need to go back and study.
But first of all, I have to go through a self-analysis journey to think about what my strong points are, what my weak points are and where do I want to be within one, five and 10 years. That’s the most that I can do now. If anyone is interested, I think that there is a great book called First, Break All the Rules from Gallup. It’s focused on managers, but I think that it’s a must-read for everyone. So, it talks about how to understand talent, how to cope with talent and how to make it shine. |
| Cody |
It’s good to be self-aware of your strengths and weaknesses. We have people that listen to this podcast with a variety of backgrounds in roles, titles, everything like that. If you were to give one piece of advice to people listening, what would that piece of advice be? |
| Priscila |
There are a couple of things that I would like to say. So, for someone who comes from kind of the same background that I do, do not be just too hard on yourself, because sometimes we’re…we think that our English is broken, our pronunciation is not the best or something like this, and we do not take another step because we are just so conscious on these aspects. Don’t do this.
Just don’t be afraid of making mistakes, don’t be afraid of talking to people. If they just ask you, “What did you say?,” you say it again. Or, you know, you find a different way to say the same thing. Don’t be afraid of using the right preposition or using the wrong verb tense. This is not going to define who you are. You are much more than that.
If you could just grasp one thing from this conversation, I would tell you just, in whatever environment you are, just really care about the people you work with. So, care about your students, care about, you know, your teammates, your vendors, really care about them in a true meaning, because no one wants to disappoint someone who really believes in them. It’s a matter of trust. |
| Cody |
That’s excellent. I appreciate the insight and thank you so much for taking the time today to speak about your background, your trajectory, localization, your experiences. |
| Priscila |
Of course. Thank you for having me. |
