posted 06 March 2001 09:26            

In the last year I have subscribed most of the sites for translators, done quite a few tests for various American and European agencies and passed some of them successfully including those for Uniscape and SDL. Of others I never had a feedback so I do not know if I passed them or not.
I think to be a good translator (I achieved outstanding marks both at university and at the master course) but need experience and it seems to me that the market is not offering much opportunities for those who are little experienced in the job, however good might they be. So I am quite confused and at a loss when reading that
"Uniscape wrote to me and mentioned that their business is moving more towards outsourcing to agencies than individuals (...)"
and that
"the market really is big enough for all of us. (...) There's enough work out there for everybody. It's a huge marketplace and it's growing by 10-20% every year (...)
As to the first quote, I wonder why Uniscape insisted with me (I got quite a few emails inviting me to take the test and have even be paid for it) considering their outsourcing policy.
As regards the second quote, could it be that my pair (English>Italian) is not doing so well? And why is this? Because there is not an interest in translating into Italian or we Italians are so good at English that there is no need for translation?
Luckily I am also a good teacher so I can "bring home the bacon" while waiting for my portion of translation work!

posted 06 March 2001 14:19            

quote:

---

Originally posted by rgtrans:

As to the first quote, I wonder why Uniscape insisted with me (I got quite a few emails inviting me to take the test and have even be paid for it) considering their outsourcing policy.

As regards the second quote, could it be that my pair (English>Italian) is not doing so well? And why is this? Because there is not an interest in translating into Italian or we Italians are so good at English that there is no need for translation?

---

1. Uniscape said that they have mostly large projects now which they outsource to other agencies as a whole. This does not mean that they will not still do some projects in-house. They are "moving towards" this position, but this does not mean that they have reached it. If they paid you for a test, the chances are they still need Italian translators.

2. I have little idea about the state of the Italian translation market. I know that all markets are growing, but I also know that Italian translators are among the worst paid in Europe.

I think this is largely due to competition. So perhaps you are worse off than other languages because of a large number of competitors.