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Language Degrees | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Languages & Work |  | |
| Cheshire Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4647 days ago 23 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese | Message 1 of 8 16 August 2012 at 9:14am | IP Logged | ||
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My current degree in college is psychology but I'm getting very disinterested in it and
considering switching to Romance Languages (French, Spanish, Italian). Does anyone else have a degree in a language and how practical is it in your career? Also, is a language degree recommended? Thanks 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Leurre Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5417 days ago 219 posts - 372 votes  Speaks: French*, English*, Korean, Haitian Creole, SpanishC2 Studies: Japanese | Message 2 of 8 16 August 2012 at 3:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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If this is undergraduate, I'm tempted to tell you that it doesn't really matter what your
degree is in. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5839 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 8 09 January 2013 at 7:50pm | IP Logged | ||
I was a student of Romance Philology (French, Spanish Italian, pedagogics) and I wanted to teach adults in language schools in these languages in Germany. So I can't estimate the job prospects in the United States. In Germany I discovered that almost all language schools for adults were hiring native speakers to teach languages and they were advertising the fact that they had native language teachers. Therefore I didn't see the chance to get enough teaching hours at such commercial language schools to make a living. If you want to teach languages, you will need a pedagogical qualification as well. If you want to translate / interpret languages, it would be better to attend a translation / interpreting school. Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 30 August 2013 at 9:22am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| baskerville Trilingual Triglot Newbie Singapore scribeorigins.com Joined 4238 days ago 39 posts - 43 votes Speaks: English*, Tagalog* Studies: German*, Japanese Studies: Hungarian | Message 4 of 8 07 June 2013 at 5:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi Fasulye. Just a question: are translation/interpreting schools fairly common in your
country? If so, do they have general courses or do they offer more specialized courses depending on your industry (for example, medical translation, legal translation, etc). Sadly, we don't have such schools where I live. If we do, I would enroll right away. I think the language schools sort of work under the assumption that as you attain a high level of proficiency, you can start translating/interpreting in L2. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Theycalme_Jane Diglot Newbie United Kingdom theafrikaanschalleng Joined 4117 days ago 28 posts - 48 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 5 of 8 28 August 2013 at 12:55pm | IP Logged | ||
I hold a bachelor's and a master's degree in translation for English and French into and out of German. The degree comprises "language, culture and translation", to be precise. It basically secured me my spot as a translator in a company, as my studies had a focus on computer sciences and engineering and that was exactly what was needed for their business. I cannot say that all of the people I studied with were that lucky, but it certainly helps. You may not be considering going into translation at all, perhaps teaching is more for you, or whatever else one can do with linguistics. Interpreting is a very straneous job, as far as I've heard and it requires very good linguistic skills. You can be a translator without having studied if you're good. You can try getting some jobs on translatorscafe.com or proz.com. Do try some of this for fun, before you dedicate any more time into making it your full-time job though. I'm currently considering going into psychology, because translation can be a very dull work, when it becomes routine. And, despite working in an office, I often feel isolated and want to communicate with people, rather than just focus on text. On the other hand, I'm currently using some the skills I obtained during my studies for my blog on learning Afrikaans, which is going really well and I'm having a lot of fun doing that, could even imagine doing that for a living entirely. In Germany, there are a couple of good universities to study linguistics and translation. I agree though, that usually businesses and schools look for native speakers to translate into their own language. I am fortunate to be living and working in England so as to actually speak English on a regular basis. Otherwise I would end up using my English, which is now my main language, a very passively. Who'd want that after obtaining a degree in it, really? Edited by Theycalme_Jane on 28 August 2013 at 1:17pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5373 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 6 of 8 28 August 2013 at 3:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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Although I don't know the situation in your country, I doubt a degree in any language would open any doors. You could have an excellent knowledge of any language without such a degree and it gives little ability and experience you can't get elsewhere. And this knowledge would be a lot more important than any degree. Unlike a field like Psychology where you would expect a degree to grant very specific knowledge hardly accessible otherwise.
A degree in Translation or Interpretation (the latter is usually a Masters' degree) is a bit different in that -- here at least -- some government agencies do require such a degree from their employees, but if you don't like in an officially bilingual country, I doubt it would ever matter. When I was younger, I wanted to be a language teacher, a translator or an interpreter. I went into Linguistics because it fascinated me, and then I managed to do all of these things, but most likely because I was very passionate about the subject, NOT because of my degree. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4631 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 7 of 8 28 August 2013 at 3:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have a masters degree in Romance Languages. At the time my plan was to pursue an academic career, but for various reasons (to complicated to explain here) I ended up working for the Government on international co-operation in education and science, and later on went abroad and today work for an international organisation in Human Resources. I would say that my knowledge of languages played an important role in my getting that first job, and not least in getting jobs in international organisations. However, while working I did a couple of years of studies in economics, which at least looks good on my CV, although I have never worked in an economy-related job.
I cannot say anything about the job market for linguists in the USA. The question you will have to ask yourself is what you think you want to do later in life and consider the options. Do you really want to work with languages, as a translator, language teacher or similar? Work internationally as a diplomat or for an international organisation or NGO? Can you combine a language degree with other studies (if you have the time and resources for it)? I guess my advice is: by all means, study languages, but consider combining it with something else to enhance your chances on the job market. I certainly do not regret taking a degree in languages, at the time I could not envisage doing anything else, and I have been lucky enough to get jobs that I highly enjoy. However, it is clear that a degree in law, business, management or similar opens up a much bigger job market. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| meigui2108 Newbie Russian Federation accounts.tsu.ru/Prof Joined 3270 days ago 11 posts - 7 votes | Message 8 of 8 06 December 2015 at 3:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm always interested in foreign languages, especially Chinese, and international
relations. And moving a lot of sites with the universities I stopped at TSU, at the Department of International Relations. There are excellent teachers, excellent training facilities, internships abroad and easy employment after graduation. I can provide you with links to the site http://dir.tsu.ru/, http://www.history.tsu.ru/ On these sites you will find answers to all questions. I would also like to say that the Tomsk State University among the top ten universities in the country. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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