posted 26 November 2001 10:17            

I'd like to ask your opinion on study. I already have a first degree (although that's not in translation) but if I'd like to make myself marketable to agencies then what your opinion about the options for further study, eg:

an MA in translation & interpreting

a four year degree in translation & interpreting (God, that seems like a long time)

study in a subject such as law /economics /finance / IT / business in order to market yourself as a specialist

the IOL translation diploma

language qualifications

???

The other thing I'd like to ask, is how do people get into interpreting? Does it pay well (-: ? And is it... um... fun?

Looking forward to your opinions.

Regards

posted 26 November 2001 20:43            

Here are my own personal views on the various options you put forward - doesn't mean they're the right ones... Apologies if this is brief, I'm a bit pushed for time!!

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an MA in translation & interpreting

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Worth having. But no big deal if you don't have it - it's a great thing to have, but agencies will still employ you without. I don't have an MA and I don't have any problems getting work.

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a four year degree in translation & interpreting (God, that seems like a long time)

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Not sure about this one? People normally do 4 years in their language combination and follow it up with an MA if they want the translation/interpreting specialisation.

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study in a subject such as law /economics /finance / IT / business in order to market yourself as a specialist

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Possibly worth having. But only if your language skills are demonstrably excellent, e.g. you've lived for several years in the country where your source language is spoken. Mind you, certainly useful if you can get your name on the books of agencies specialising in your chosen subject(s).

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the IOL translation diploma

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Yep, definitely worth having. This is a hard exam to pass, and anyone with this qualification must therefore be quite good at what they do.

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language qualifications

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Useful. Not entirely necessary as long as you have a degree in a specialist subject - but a degree of some description is really a must. See notes on specialist subjects above.

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???

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Experience.... This is really the one thing you could do with. But any combination of the above qualifications you suggested is as good a starting point as any.

Membership of a language/translation body, type ITI, ATA or IOL, is good too - but there are certain criteria which have to be met to get this membership. The sites of the relevant bodies will give you details.

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The other thing I'd like to ask, is how do people get into interpreting?

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Good question! I don't actually know... I know you can do courses in interpreting, but it's not an area I've really looked into in any great detail.

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Does it pay well (-: ?

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Depends on the client!! But yes, generally the money's not too bad. Some clients pay travelling time, for example, while others don't.

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And is it... um... fun?

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And this is where you find the reason for my first answer on interpreting... I personally don't enjoy it much, but I know people who absolutely love it. It depends, I suppose, on how much you like being "put on the spot", how much you enjoy meeting new people, and how much you like talking! If you're happiest slaving away over a hot PC, then translation may be more your "thing". But there's no denying that interpreting is a fascinating job - you get to see all kinds of things, be "there" when news is breaking, that kind of stuff.

Hope all this gives you some guidelines! And as I said at the beginning, these are just my views - I'd love to hear other people's!

Hope it helps, anyway.

All the best

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posted 27 November 2001 09:05            

Regards

posted 27 November 2001 13:59            

an MA in translation & interpreting

I have one of these (MA in T only), and although I can't prove it, I think it does help me get work. The name of the school is well-known in the industry.

study in a subject such as law /economics /finance / IT / business in order to market yourself as a specialist[B]

This is definitely good. I can tell you that it is harder to come at a subject from a language degree and a "pure" translation degree (and my degree was by no means theoretical). This is what I wish I had done and still plan to do, because I believe (others may disagree) that having this specific knowledge pushes you up a notch so that you can work for the better agencies and direct clients.

[B]the IOL translation diploma

I don't know about this one, but the ATA exams in the US are a topic of debate. I personally have not taken them because I have a degree in translation, and I don't see what they will really add to my resume.

language qualifications

I studied language as an undergraduate and also spent time abroad - that is my qualification in this area. Perhaps a subject-specific course or certificate would be more useful than something general. For instance, at school I once took a "Business German" course/exam and received a certificate at the end. Some organization must have courses like this for various subjects/languages.

The other thing I'd like to ask, is how do people get into interpreting? Does it pay well (-: ? And is it... um... fun?

I opted out of interpreting the second year of my MA - I could do it, but felt far too stressed out for my own good. I also didn't relish the thought of all the travel involved in pursuing this field in the USA (as you can imagine). That said, all of my professors were working interpreters as well as teachers of interpreting who loved their jobs and did pretty well with it. If you would like some contacts to perhaps answer your questions, I can send you their names. That is one area where I think professional training of some kind might be a good idea for your own peace of mind - it might be expensive, but the point of training is that you don't have to reinvent the wheel, and the contacts you could make in the industry would be invaluable!

Good luck to you, slug!

posted 28 November 2001 11:48            

It's extremely useful to have the views of people who are already working as translators... because, as you can imagine, I don't want to shell out the cash and time for study, only to find out that I should have studied something else... for one thing, I don't have the brain cells to spare!

When you have a moment, I'd be curious to know what the controversy surrounding the ATA exams in America is?

Oh and if anyone reading this has had the pleasure (; of taking the IOL diploma and would like to share their experiences with us, I'd love to hear about them... hey, it may even be cathartic (:

(are these smilies the coolest things or wot?!)

posted 30 November 2001 00:20            

So if you can get going at all...

I think your time would be better spent working at your translation business (could be part time), rather than at college.

I know there are people out there who disagree with me on this one. But wouldn't the world be boring if we all agreed heh

Just think about the bottom line...

1-4 years spending money at college, or 1-4 years earning money translating part time and holding down another job also.

At the end of the day, you've got to do what YOU feel you want to do. And of course, I don't know how good your translation skills are.

But we didn't know how good ours were until we just started doing it! It's just possible that we weren't so hot in the beginning...

but we're still here to tell the tale

Quite a lot of people just "fall into" translating. It helps if you've had other life experience or career first though.

posted 30 November 2001 10:04            

I guess the upshot of your post is 'just get on with it' and that makes perfect sense. I'm inclined to agree that you learn by doing... plus I'm a bit too old to spend another four years at college... and I'm probably 'educated stupid', as we say at home, already...

However, we might want to protect potential clients and even the repute of the profession from the havoc that I might wreck without good language/translation/business skills.

Having said that, I'm just about to turn my back on a dazzling secretarial career to do exactly what you advise - part time work and 'just get on with it'.

I think to some extent, my worry about qualification is really a worry about whether I can market myself... but then there's lots of ideas about that on this sit.(+ Tranmail )

On the other hand, if machine translation changes the game over the next couple of decades, then it may be that the best way to survive and thrive is to become a kind of bilingual editor with specialist knowledge in a given field.

posted 30 November 2001 15:37            

Interesting discussion. First of all, back to Slug's question to me: I have heard various opinions about the ATA exams. Some people are thrilled with this qualification -they feel that it gave them an edge. I personally feel that my MA is enough and that I don't need to spend lots of extra $$$ to get a qualification that doesn't add much to my resume. Also, it is taken, as I understand, under somewhat unrealistic conditions (like my MA exams were, now that I think of it!) - you have to write it out by hand and may get texts out of your specialization.

Regarding the issue of experience vs. degree, I think both are valid paths and both produce excellent translators under the right conditions, you just have to choose what you want to do.

Experience/"just do it" method -
PRO: Working at another job while you are starting out could give you an excellent starting point for a specialization like law or IT.
CON: You could be brilliant at translation from the very start, or you might have to learn the pitfalls the hard way.

Degree in translation method -
PRO: In school you benefit from the experience of others and make excellent networking contacts in the business. At a place like MIIS where I went, we learned at least something about the practical aspects of the industry, like freelancing, localization, MT/TM, terminology management, etc.
CON: You get the translation training, but have to acquire specialist knowledge on your own. (This might be different in Europe than in the US - my program was only 2 years, not nearly enough time for everything.)

As far as MT goes, it already works for some specific applications like manuals written with a simplified sentence structure and limited vocabulary. I guess the classic example I have seen mentioned in a lot of places is FR>EN>FR weather reports in Quebec. But you've probably also seen the "humorous" examples of MT's Shakespeare, etc. There are some things it will never do. Let's just hope that it takes all of the tedious stuff off of our hands so that we humans get the interesting, creative work!

posted 30 November 2001 16:54            

1) A 4 year course is best when this is your first degree, you are young and have no previous experience in any fields you can build upon (e.g. you are not an engineer turn translator). If you believe that the art of translation can be taught, a course will introduce you to the workings of language, to new technologies and filelds of knowledge, but it will not give you your translation experience in a plate. You have to work hard for it.

2) When I left uni, I had a good knowledge of linguistics and the "theory of translating" but no knowldedge of the subject I was going to translate into. So I did and MA in Business. I didn't learn everything, but I came out of it a better translator.

3) I did not bother with IOL. I studied hard for 4 years, I am proud of my scholar achievements and I decided that IOL was not for me.

4) However, I did join the ITI as a student member (back then). And this was a good experience because I had the opportunity to attend different forums they would organise, and do quite a bit of networking.

So over those years I tried to
a) improve my knowledge of both source and target languages
b) get a feel of my main subject
c) meet people and find out how to become a professional (uni doesn't prepare you for this)

posted 09 December 2001 13:05            

As regards qualifications, if I had to choose between a translator with 6 months' professional experience but an MA in translation, or a translator with 6 years' experience but no MA, the translator with the 6 years' experience would get the job every time. There are some things which the degree will help you with and teach you to look out for, but at the end of the day the most valuable lessons are learnt by making mistakes. That's what makes Translatortips so useful - other people make mistakes and tell us all about them so that we can all learn.

I think that if you're confident in your knowledge of your source language(s) and can write well in your own language, you should just get on with it - it's fantastic if you happen to be a trained auto engineer or whatever, but in fact there's heaps of non-specialised work out there. You can always specialise later - study part-time or whatever. People will still need letters, websites, newspaper articles etc. translated. Many companies have things translated for information - articles on their company in other countries, for example.

The important thing to remember - and this is hard sometimes when you have no work to do! - is only to take on stuff you're happy with doing. We've all bitten off more than we can chew and subsequently regretted it. But you learn as you go.

As far as MT is concerned, I doubt it'll pose a major threat in the near future. There are some things computers just can't do yet. Sure, the repetitive, manual-type translations are becoming less common to some extent on account of CAT packages which allow databases of previous translations to be built up. But at the end of the day, MT can only give an idea of what a text says and can't be used for commercial purposes no matter what anyone says. And that's where we translators come in.

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I will also quote the advice a translator gave me: "offer your services for free, get your experience and then you can claim that you can be a paid translator". The point here is: get experience from anywhere you can, choose a field you are interested in, and know as much as possible about it. Specialised knowledge shows and it is not just terminology.

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I agree completely. Get the experience first. You can always pick up some additional qualifications as you go if you feel you need them. Without experience, most agencies won't even consider using your services. Studying as you go will then broaden your range while still allowing you to make a living on the basis of the experience you've gained.

But not having an MA or IOL Diploma hasn't caused me any problems whatsoever - and I know many, many colleagues who are in the same boat. But all of us do have translation experience, and that's the important bit.

All the best

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posted 14 December 2001 12:51            

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Originally posted by Daina:
I personally feel that my MA is enough and that I don't need to spend lots of extra $$$ to get a qualification that doesn't add much to my resume. Also, it is taken, as I understand, under somewhat unrealistic conditions (like my MA exams were, now that I think of it!) - you have to write it out by hand and may get texts out of your specialization.

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Hi Daina

I'm sure you're absolutely right about the MA... if I had a degree in translation, I wouldn't worry about ATA or IOL diplomas either.

Good point about the conditions too... apparently at some examining centres for the IOL diploma, you do use computers... but not, funnily enough, at their own exam centre in London.

I guess it's still going to take a few years before examining bodies upgrade their facilities to 'real world' standards .

Thanks for the pros & cons especially!

slug