GermanLinx :: German and Careers

Caroline Coyle

Caroline Coyle I work for Miele Australia Pty. Ltd. It is a German company that manufactures a wide range of domestic and commercial appliances and the Australian head office is in Knoxfield. I work in the Service department and I'm responsible for technical translations and general correspondence in German. A lot of information about updates and product changes is received in German, so it's important that everyone at the company has access to translations.

I've occupied myself with the German language for a long time. I learnt German at school for six years (my parents kept saying it was good to have a second language.), and then studied it up to Honours level at Monash University. Following university, I did some evening courses at the Goethe Institute in Melbourne to keep up my language skills. After all those years of learning German, I wanted to try it all out so I went on an exchange program to Germany as a language assistant for English. After the exchange program finished, I found a job at a private language school teaching English and took part in some German seminars at the university. The ten months I planned to be away ended up being almost five years.

Those years in Germany gave me lots of practice speaking the language and learning the odd slang word or two. It was a fantastic opportunity to meet German people and learn all about different aspects of the culture. I also had the chance to meet people from many other countries as well. Now I have wonderful friends scattered all around the world.

I guess my advice to anyone considering taking up or continuing a foreign language is to do it! It's not easy, but there are so many opportunities out there and it's a great help when travelling too. We can't always hope for or expect everyone to speak English!

If you have any questions you want to ask me, just email me at: ccoyle@miele.com.au

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