What's the difference between intern/internship and trainee/traineeship?

January 28, 2005 2:39 AM

English language question: what is the difference between intern/internship and trainee/traineeship? [+]

I'm creating a short French-English dictionary for my colleagues covering common translation problems related to our work. One of these is the correct translation for the French word "stage", that describes any type of training period in any type of context. For instance, our students have "stages" in farms, enterprises or laboratories. You can be working in a company and be a "stagiaire" in another one for continuing education training. However, the English language seems to have different terms and I can't figure out what term to use in what context (and differences between British and US usage don't help). Also, I can't find how is called the person monitoring your internship/traineeship/training period.

posted by elgilito to Human Relations (17 answers total)

I believe that interns are generally students working for free as a way to gain general work experience in a certain field for their resumes during breaks from school (summer vacation), they often end up doing "busy" work, like filing and other activities not specifically related to the career they are studying for. Trainees are new employees in a "training" period where they are learning how to do a specific job, perhaps at a temporarily reduced salary. However, I don't think that the term trainee is always used the same way.
posted by sic at 4:14 AM on January 28, 2005

I think "supervisor" would be the most common term for the person monitoring the trainee/intern.
posted by sic at 4:16 AM on January 28, 2005

Medical students also do obligatory internships, but in this case it is a much more serious affair, in that they are actually practicing medicine on real patients in a hospital Emergency Room (under the supervision of a doctor). The successful completion of a medical internship, I believe, is necessary to complete a medical degree. I'm not sure if there are other professions that require an internship for the completion of the degree.

In the first example I gave, students are doing internships voluntarily as a way to have some work experience on their resumes when they graduate from university.
posted by sic at 4:30 AM on January 28, 2005

"Internship" is a much closer translation for "stage" (which I'm familiar with from its use in the domain of restaurant work) than "traineeship" or "training period," as is "intern" for "stagiaire". But you might want to include a note to the effect that a translation of stage/stagiaire into English may work best with an extra note to explain the cultural context. So you might say something like "in their third year, our students do a stage, a kind of [intensive? voluntary? your adjective here] training internship in which the stagiaire, or intern..."

I agree that "supervisor" is just the thing for describing the, uh, supervisor.
posted by redfoxtail at 4:39 AM on January 28, 2005

Traineeship? Ça existe?

I agree with sic. Also, traineeship seems like an update of 'apprenticeship," which sounds too blue colar/antiquated (not my opinion)--although post Donald Trump, maybe the word will make a comeback?
posted by ParisParamus at 5:00 AM on January 28, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks for your answers, this is really helpful.
Here are 3 common examples for us:
(1) our 1st year students do a 10-week "stage" in a farm (milking cows etc.)
(2) our 2nd and 3rd year student to a 6-month "stage" in a company or laboratory
(3) we also have people in continuing education (i.e who may be paid by their company and are not "students") who do a "stage" of variable duration and ambition in a company or laboratory
From what I understand, the correct translation for (2) is intern/internship, but I have some trouble calling internship the farm period (2) and in (3) the people are not students.
I agree that adding some extra explanations is probably the only correct way.

Traineeship? Ça existe?
I didn't know the word before looking into the matter, but apparently it's used in Australia and in the UK.
posted by elgilito at 5:14 AM on January 28, 2005

PP, I see the term apprenticeship as a throwback to the days when people slowly learned a craft from a to z at the knee of a master craftsman.The apprentice has long since been replaced by the trainee who is just quickly taught how to do the minimum that s/he needs to know to do a very specific job.

elgilito: in the US, I believe that a "trainingship" would just be referred to simply as "training". Eg. "She is an employee in training" or "he is training to be a security gaurd". This generally implies practical, private sector training for a specific job, an investment by an employer in a specific worker.

The governments in France and other European countries are very organized in making sure that students receive practical training during the education process. In the US the private sector takes care of this need (universities, businesses and the iniciative of the student). Unfortunately in most parts of Spain, where I live, this is not so well organized. I'm hoping that the European conversion of the Spanish University system will make it as dynamic as that of France, Belgium and other other countries.
posted by sic at 5:27 AM on January 28, 2005

I might call the first a work term, the second an internship and the third a technical exchange or a fellowship if it was particularly academic in nature, but I think that if you want to make this information clear you're going to have to do as redfoxtail suggests and not translate directly but explain. Then internship / intern is probably the best choice of words for what you describe.
posted by jacquilynne at 5:28 AM on January 28, 2005

Bigger challenge: explaining Trump!
posted by ParisParamus at 5:34 AM on January 28, 2005

"intern" is a noun referring to someone undertaking an internship. Basically, one is a noun for the subject, and the other is a noun for the process.
posted by wackybrit at 5:58 AM on January 28, 2005

Here at work we've had interns, they were college students who spend a semester working at a company that they may or may not wish to join after graduation. Confusingly, some have been paid while others have not. We've also had what are called co-ops (cooperative education), which are just like interns but are always paid. Most interns/co-ops are in their 3rd or 4th year of college, which in the US implies they've begun taking classes specific to their major, versus the "basics" like calculus. When I was a student, successful completion of two co-ops blocks was mandatory to graduate.

In my experience, trainees are always paid employees but may be provisional, in that permanent employment is contingent upon successfully completing some course(s). I was a "management trainee" for a pharmacy chain way back in the distant past. Although training was presented as something you could conceivably fail, no one did. It was more a way of testing to see who could handle the low wages, poor conditions and mandatory 50 hour weeks without quitting. Remarkably like modern reality TV without the cameras.
posted by tommasz at 6:00 AM on January 28, 2005

PP, I see the term apprenticeship as a throwback to the days when people slowly learned a craft from a to z at the knee of a master craftsman.The apprentice has long since been replaced by the trainee who is just quickly taught how to do the minimum that s/he needs to know to do a very specific job.

Apprentice is still used in the UK and though their use were in decline the government has started to build them up again. Essentially, apprenticeships are vocationally based 'on-the-job' positions where young people learn a trade. They're a lot more formalised now than they were, with qualifications linked to apprentice development.
Basically, it's an attempt to get more people back into some of the 'hands-on' trades where career entrants were shying away.

Interns are a pretty recent development in the UK, though I suppose we've had people 'on placement' or 'on work experience' for a while. Traineeship doesn't really sound like a student thing though, more a junior company position.
posted by biffa at 6:34 AM on January 28, 2005

There are interns in the White House--did you know that?
posted by ParisParamus at 7:10 AM on January 28, 2005

Response by poster: Hmm, it looks like the conclusion is that there is no general definition of what interns and trainees are and that these definitions, when they exist, are tied to local circumstances, habits, regulations etc. It's going to be of those long entries in my "dictionary" that don't provide a clear answer to people... Differences between languages are still fascinating though.
posted by elgilito at 7:30 AM on January 28, 2005

You can get away with calling the first two internships. For the last portion, you could borrow a term from academic research and call it a fellowship.
posted by desuetude at 7:40 AM on January 28, 2005

I don't have anything to add to your particular question, but for your translation needs, the government of Canada has an excellent set of translation tools exactly addressing your needs called Termium.

The interface is a bit cumbersome: the key is the innocuous top drop-down menu. There are about nine different modules each addressing a specific need: french technical -> english, french conjugation, french and english thesauruses, and so on. The default mode is a concordance dictionary. Termium separates by subject field and recommends the most common usage in each field. It's a great resource.

To answer your specific question, the senses in which you want for "stage", in english:

Field work, probationary (or trial or assessment) period, practical training, residential school, practicum, placement, apprenticeship, article of service, internship, job placement. You'll need to look at individual definitions (given on the page) to decide which is appropriate.

If you need a hand with using it, drop me a line. My mail is in my profile.
posted by bonehead at 8:02 AM on January 28, 2005

I think that if you wish to become a certified plumber or electrician, you must spend at least N years as an apprentice before you're even eligible to take the certification test. So apprenticeships in name are alive and well.
posted by breath at 11:51 AM on January 28, 2005