Okay. So I learn me a language. Turns out, I’m pretty darned good at it. I’ve impressed native speakers with my skills, but I think they were just being nice. Still, I want to make a career, or at least a side job out of it. What’s the best way to go about this?
Specifically: I speak fairly fluent standard German and love the language to death. I’m also learning French and Japanese, but sincerely don’t expect to master the latter. Still, if I feel it’ll be a good job for me to get into, I just might buckle down a bit more. Ditto for interpretation in any of the three already-mentioned languages.
I, for fun and because I’m a nerd with no social life, like to translate German literature for personal use. I’ve done most of Kafka’s Die Hungerkünstler and parts of Faust. I am a high school junior, seeking to major in foreign languages in college. Do I have a snowball’s chance in hell of making it, or should I just major in something else?
Sure you have a chance of making it as a translator. There are definitely jobs out there for translators and someone has to do it so why not you?
The US government is naturally a big employer of translators and you could probably pick on any of dozens of multinational firms to work for. There are also publishing houses that need translators not to mention the movie industry that needs to subtitle foreign films or American films for release overseas.
I would say that German, French and Japanese are very common languages to pick up so you are likely to find more competition for jobs needing those language skills (of course since we do lots and lots of business with those countries there are likely to be more jobs to be had as well). Some languages are not nearly as well picked up by US citizens. IIRC the CIA found themselves in desperate need recently for Farsi(?) translators.
It sounds like you are good at languages but to be a worthwhile translator you need to be able to translate flawlessly in real-time and preferrably do not have an accent when speaking the foreign language. You also probably know that not all words or phrases translate directly into english. Having a strong grounding in the culture of the language you are trying to speak will aid your translation skill. There are some humorous stories out there of badly translated ad slogans and the trouble it can cause. IIRC Pepsi had a slogan to the effect of, “Pepsi brings you to life” but when translated in Chinese it came out as, “Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead”. I think Coca-Cola used Chinese characters that when pronounced sounded like ‘Coca-Cola’ in Chinese but translated into “Bite the Wax Tadpole”. These are funny instances but pray no one makes a translation mistake druing episodes like the Cuban Missile Crisis or some such.
Sounds like you have a very nice gift there. I envy you!
I agree that competition is going to be harder for more widely spoken languages. But it’s still worth trying, especially with the Japanese.
Have you though about teaching English abroad in another country, such as Japan, and becoming native fluent that way? You will then be on-the-spot and a more easy hire for international companies wanting translation services.
As Whack points out - certain languages are very much in demand. There was a huge shortage of native US Arabic translators during the recent war, IIRC.
I would consider looking into Korean and Chinese. It’s easy to find English teaching jobs in both those countries - so you can pick up the language for free - and they are both (or at least the North!) likely to be major players on the world scene, one way or another.
Also: I know very little about this market, but what about technical writing and translation? I am sure we have all experienced completely obscure manuals and product instructions from East Asian companies. Again if you lived in one of those countries, you could tout your skills around.
I meant to point out I am amazed at people who are thoroughly fluent in more than one language (foreign languages are not a skill that came easily to me). The best instance of ‘real-time’ translation I’ve ver witnessed was a Puerto Rican woman I used to work next to. Her teenage children predictably caused her to get angry at them and when she would yell at them (on the phone) for this or that she would slide between English and Spanish…often in the middle of a sentence and back again. I pointed this out to her one day and she was a bit shocked and told me she had no idea she did that…it just came out that way but both languages were so natural to her that she did not have to even try and translate…she just did it.
You will probably have to spend time (several months at least) in a foreign country whose language you are trying to pick-up. Chances are any University with a good language program will probably force a semester or two overseas on you…if they don’t see to it that you do it on your own (summers abroad).
Right now I’m a freshman in high school taking German. I know English and am fluent in Chinese because of my background, but I also want to learn French, Japanese, and Swedish; can you recommend any learning material for me for French and Japanese?
I have a friend, from New Mexico, who worked as a translator at the Mexican Embassy in Paris. She went to college and majored in Spanish and minored in French and German. She now works, as a civilian, for the US Military teaching english to foreign officers who come here for training. She’s now fluent in 8 languages and can get by in 10 others. She suggests that you take as many lanauage classes as you can, but not to skimp on the english classes, and go to a good college that will support this.
Swedish is my mother tongue, so I can’t really help you with that. I don’t think it will cause you any problems though, as you already speak German and English. Swedish is a bit like German with English grammar. Most people with that background, who actually try, learn the basics of the language in no time.
The way I learned French was to take a two-month intensive language course in France, something I can really recommend. I didn’t speak a single word of French when I got there, and two months later I could pretty much keep a conversation. I really believe that the best way to start a language is by total immersion. You have to live in a French-speaking environment, and give up any other language (including your mother tongue) for the duration. It’s really tiring, but from my experience it’s worth it. (I went to CIDEF in Angers - comes highly recommended.)
And then, once you know to speak the language, you can brush up the grammar/vocabulary/style at your own pace, by reading mixed prose. (That’s how I learned English, and it seems to have worked - although I can never get the hang of the use of commas:))
Ok,
I can’t help but bite the hook on this one since many others have come out looking for langauge connections. My wife is Polish, so her side of the family is obviously as well. As my family here is very small and I like her family, it feels pretty important to me to learn this language just so I can really know them before… well anyway, Berlitz is the only place I can find that would teach me Polish. “Can’t your wife teach you??” you say? UH-uh… she’s wired to teach English or other foreigners, but not Polish to Foreigners. Btw, Berlitz is pretty big for those who have the money for this option, they are located pretty widely. The site I recommend is Rosettastone.com they give you one free lesson and I like the way they do it, with spoken language and pictures plus the words… Any Polish Teachers out there willing to take on an fan of this small slavic language? I’d be eternally grateful =) Good luck everybody… just like to say… it really opens your eyes, when you learn another culture and begin to understand how large the world really is… thanks in advance everyone.
I used to be a court interpreter (Spanish/English, Dept. of Justice, Office of the Immigration Judge), and worked for a while in project coordination in the translation biz. A few comments:
Your job opportunities depend a lot on what kind of translation you are interested in doing. Technical translation pays the best. It’s very, very difficult to get started as a literary translator. For any field, it really, really helps to have an excellent subject matter understanding of the material you’re working on. Ideally, you should be an educated native speaker of the target language, and be up-to-date on all the latest language shifts in both source and target languages. It’s an absolute must to keep up on your reading of relevant literature in both languages.
Nothing is scarier than a freelance translator who takes on a project that is beyond his abilities. My boss used to have me pick less-than-qualified freelancers sometimes because they were cheap, so she could bid low on a job; one Chinese guy in particular screwed me more than once by insisting that he could handle a technical job, since he had the technical dictionaries, but trust me, a Chinese poet is generally a really bad candidate to translate technical presentations on polymer engineering unless he is also a trained polymer engineer. The result was apparently complete gibberish. The client thought my boss was a complete jackass and never used us again.
If you’re thinking of doing interpreting (spoken word) vs. translation (written word), it’s generally vital to understand fully a variety of accents and dialects in the source language. There’s a big difference in the way an urban, educated Spaniard speaks Spanish vs. the way a rural Guatemalan mountain-dwelling peasant speaks Spanish. Understand your audience and what level of language they can deal with, and render your interpretation accordingly.
Good ways to get experience: volunteering, working for nonprofits. Of course, your opportunities will vary according to language. I can’t think of many nonprofits that would have much use for a German translator, but for Spanish there are zillions. Most social service agencies would love to have someone translate their brochures, and if the result isn’t perfect, it’s still much better than nothing. I got my first interpreting experience working as a receptionist one summer in college for a worker’s compensation law firm with a large Hispanic client base, and eventually parlayed that experience (along with my Spanish degree) into the aforementioned job in Immigration Court. It didn’t pay terribly well, but it was a great learning experience.
The American Translators’ Association used to publish reviews of dictionaries in its newsletter. They are sometimes hard to come by; the last time I bought one (criminal terminology in Spanish), I had to order it directly from the publisher, but that was before Amazon.com. I’ve been out of the field for a while now, though.
Well sure, lots of people learn German, French, and Japanese. But not that many people. I would say of those three french is the most popular followed by German then Japanese, but the true competition in the job would be from native speakers of German AND english. There aren’t so many of those. Just compare that to the number of native English and Spanish speakers! Millions of people with hispanic families speak them both. French is probably less so, but there is the whole thing with montreal.
Now, does a place exist where a large number of German/American or German/English families live? Not really. Most of these cases are people moving on an individual deciscion.
In other words, there’s no German-American or German-British community that will produce perfect speakers of German and English to have the upper hand. Sure, there’s pennsylvania dutch, but that doesn’t really count for these purposes. So I think you’ll do fine if you start as early as you have (its early for an American).
Learning languages is a great thing. If you really like it I would suggest a major in International Relations or Studies. The one thing I know is don’t pidgeonhole yourself too early in life, because you’ll never know what you want to do in 5 years. Especially that early in life.
A native-bilingual person (i.e. someone who grew up with two native languages) doesn’t necessarily make the best translator, especially if he/she doesn’t ever have any formal study of and/or in one of the languages.
Example: there are tons of native Spanish speakers in Chicago, and their spelling and grammar can be abysmal if they haven’t made the effort to learn the language properly. I cringe when I see the misspellings and such on street signs around here, and that’s not even teribly complex language. To be a good translator, you want the solid and well-rounded language skills of someone who has received college-level education at least partially in both languages, and a technical background is even better.
Hear, hear, Eva Luna. The Spanish-language signage and brochures at many of Chicago’s museums is horrendous. Looks like they tapped the first Spanish-sounding surname from the city’s nonprofessional employee directory.
To add to the good advice already offered in this thread, I’d say that being fluent in two languages is not the same as being knowledgeable in two languages. For example, you don’t need to be a lawyer to translate a contract, but you should understand what you’re writing about, writing in typical contract jargon in both languages should come easy to you.
It helps a lot to build up on existing contacts in areas that already interest you, such as through professional associations, etc., and stay on top of that area. If you get an interview with a prospective client, show that you know your stuff and could well be a substantive contributor if you chose. Try to position yourself in a consulting role; think of yourself as a writer, facilitator, trainer, etc., in addition to being “just” a translator.
This has already been said, but don’t take jobs you’re not comfortable with or that you’re not sure you can do well.
I never really meant that anyone who grew up with both languages would automatically be the best candidate for a translator! But taking a given non-native speaker and a native speaker of Spanish, with the same education, the native speaker is much more likely to do better. Obviously some people are better with languages than others, so that is a factor too. I was just trying to be positive by stating that in the English/Spanish field, there is a lot of opportunity for these types of people to arrise, but in the English/German field, it is much less likely to occur.
I have to admit, I’ve often thought of writing to Japanese web sites with really awful English translations and saying “hey, for xx dollars an hour, I can make this not look so dumb to a US (and maybe UK, etc. reader) overnight.”
I have to wonder why medium sized companies aren’t willing to spend a few extra marketing dollars on honest appraisals of the translations.