So I’m learning how to read (not so much speak) German.
Once I’ve got it down, I’m curious: Is there work to be found in translating documents from German to English?
-FrL-
Ja sicher, aber man verdient nicht viel Geld in diesem Beruf.
Yes.
I have to add that many Germans learn English as a second language. There are many out there fluent in English and German, so you’ll have to be fairly addept at it. Electronics can do a rough translation, so people hire bilingual for stuff that’s important.
Yes. I’ve an uncle-in-law who makes his living as a translator of German documents. He just bought a new house in Iowa last year, so the money must be OK.
Where do you suppose I can look for leads?
I’m just looking for some side income, so the fact that there’s not much money it isn’t a problem. 
-FrL-
Lesseee… I’m just starting out, and that’s probably why I don’t recognize “sicher” or “beruf.” I’m guessing the translation is, “Sure, but you can’t make much money in this line of work.” Close?
-FrL-
Well, from my experience, it isn’t so easy to get these kinds of jobs. But I imagine that with a lot of time and a lot more German, you could eventually do it for some applications. You obviously wouldn’t be translating Goethe but maybe some other stuff. It’s a difficult thing to do and requires writing skills in your native language. Working from English to German will be impossible unless your mother tongue is also German.
Yup. Good translation.
Yes it is translated correctly I suppose, but that raises a good point about translating. Beruf is generally translated as Job/Career/whatever and you have a choice to make there. Why not choose “career” instead of “line of work?” The literal translation would probably use career here because it’s a pretty close approximate, but it sounds a bit stifled.
I’m a lawyer, and we use interpreters (spoken word) and translators (written word) as needed. Of course, the ones we use need to be court-certified, and we work through agencies to find them. The last case I worked on that needed interpreters (some translators, too, but mostly interpreters), we contacted four or five agencies in LA and got bids from them, and requested sample resumes as part of the bids. We selected one of the agencies, and went through a dozen or so resumes before selecting I believe four acceptable interpreters.
So there is work out there, and based on what we had to pay, it seems pretty decent work. In addition, if you want to go that route, there are agencies that routinely supply interpreters and translators to law firms and businesses as needed. But becoming court certified can be a bit of a pain. Beyond that, I’m not sure how you’d go about picking up work as a non-certified translator.
I did figure Beruf probably was a word having a range of meanings similar to what you describe, so the issue you’ve brough up occured to me as well.
I decided that the casual context called for a translation favoring casual usage.
-FrL-
Thanks for the info. We’ll see how well I end up doing at this whole “German” thing. Then maybe I’ll think about scary sounding things like “court certification.”
-FrL-
Wie pedantisch, Strangelove. It’s a distinction without a difference.
When I was living in Germany, I did a lot of German to English translations. Generally they didn’t pay all that well. However technical manuals were the exception. They paid fairly well, but the work involved was tedious to say the least.
Despite the fact that German can be very specific, when it comes to technical language, it suddenly becomes vague. Sentences can be translated in any number of ways (all of them grammatically correct, but with different meanings) and often I had to go back to the source of the manual and get them to explain exactly what they meant - and just as often, the authors realized that even the original German was not clearly defined.
Another problem with translating technical manuals was the esoteric nature of the vocabulary. Often there were words that were not even listed in dictionaries yet as the technology was so new and you had to try to piece together the meaning and do your best.
Those manuals took forever to translate, but you usually got paid per word versus per page. So yes, you got paid more, but for the time it took, it wasn’t really worth it. I knew many American and British people who did translations and many, like myself, later only did it when we were really, really hard up for money. It was simply too much of a headache for the effort.
I did meet one lucky German who had a full-time job of translating Reader’s Digest from English to German. He would often join us at the bar with a list of questions - usually idioms that he didn’t understand. The guy was pleasantly insane, but he usually bought a few rounds of drinks so we were always quite happy to see him show up and pull out his notepad (and billfold).
So I guess the answer to your question is: yes, there is work out there, but don’t expect to get rich doing it.
Here’s the publication page from the American Translators Association’s Web site. It has resources for translators in case you get serious about this. It takes a lot of work to gain enough knowledge of a language to be able to get really high-paying translation jobs. There’s a helpful brochure on their home page that talks about translation in general and different types of translation.
With a basic knowledge of a language, you’ll be able to do jobs like translate letters from overseas relatives, maybe translate a resume (depends on the complexity of the resume and the field that it’s for) or a basic business letter.
One of the roadblocks I’ve encountered in past translations was my own lack of specialized vocabulary in certain areas. I did a lot of translation in grad school (with a near-native fluency in German) and there were a couple of jobs where I had to get help from others with both the German and the English because they were far more technical than I could comfortably handle at the time. (On preview, I see DMark has addressed this issue more fully.) The other major roadblock is that I’m just not very good at translation. I’m very good at languages; I speak, read and write both Spanish and German fluently, but I don’t have a great talent for transferring information from one language to another.
I got most of my translation jobs through the German Departments I worked in. There are always people calling for language assistance and not necessarily a lot of people interested in doing the translations. (It can take a lot of time.) If you are studying German at a college, try the department office as a source of jobs. (Even if you’re not, they may be willing to keep your contact info on file.)
Good luck!
GT
As the person whose sentence you were translating, I agree.
Sure, but you don’t earn much in this profession.
Yes, but one doesn’t earn a lot in this field.
True, but one doesn’t make much money with this job.
Yep, but ya ain’t gonna earn squat doin’ it.
(Oh, the joy of translating…)
Yes, but you won’t be doing it professionally anytime soon.
I’ve been working in translation/localization for years. You’re going to need near-native fluency in German, including knowledge of specialized terminology, before you can work as a translator. With the exception of very rare languages… say, if someone needed a Lahu to English translator, STAT! … basic/intermediate reading ability is not going to cut it. Certainly not for a common language pair like German-English.
You might want to check out www.proz.com for more information about the industry. You can see jobs posted for bids, other people’s resumes, forums where people ask questions about business practices and possibly more importantly, terminology. You may not realize the complexity of the material you would be asked to deal with until you look through some of these boards.
Many of the freelancers we work with have at least a master’s degree in translation or their chosen source language. Most, if not all of them have a degree related to the material they will be translating.
Perhaps after a few more years of studying German and/or living in Germany/Austria/Switzerland, you could start doing some non-technical translations; maybe start out gratis for a few small companies or individuals so you can get some references and samples. Based on your comments/questions in this thread, I’d say you are not ready at this point to translate anything for pay.
I wouldn’t count on a job as translator. There are few compared to the number of language graduates.
My ex-wife tried for many years to make translation of German pay and never did. She taught German and French. She was able to get part time jobs translating in French, but for just a few months at a time, usually when companies were in the early stages of seeking new business, more as a gesture than anything else. Once the deal was struck, things were dealt with in English, the translation work happening in France or French speakin islands.
Thanks for the advice, everyone. I was just thinking I might pick up a few extra bucks here and there once I get good at it. As I said, we’ll see how it goes.
-Kris