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Being a translator and studying more L2s | ||
Tags: Professionals | Translation | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Languages & Work |  | |
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6870 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 1 of 31 10 September 2012 at 5:07am | IP Logged | ||
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This is a question for the translators here: Do you have time to learn more foreign languages, or are you limited to just working with the language(s) you use for translating? In other words, in this career, is there time to pursue other languages at all, or is it all-consuming?
I've given serious thought to becoming a translator, but one thing that has given me pause is the fear that I won't have time to continue my love of studying more languages. Is this a reasonable concern? Thanks! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5132 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 2 of 31 10 September 2012 at 5:14am | IP Logged | ||
It's like any other job. You put in your hours, either with an agency or company, or as a freelancer, and when your shift is over you have your own time. You would still try to find time to study another language if you worked in, say, an office or restaurant, wouldn't you? If you plan on starting out as a freelancer, it can be difficult to figure out how many hours is "enough", but you'll quickly learn when to say "no" (and when to say "yes".) R. == 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Majka Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic kofoholici.wordpress Joined 4659 days ago 307 posts - 755 votes Speaks: Czech*, German, English Studies: French Studies: Russian | Message 3 of 31 10 September 2012 at 10:13am | IP Logged | ||
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It is exactly the same as any other job. I abandoned my "other" languages for a time not because I worked as translator but because I decided so. My private life and other hobbies had taken over. It would be the same if I had another job.
Still working as translator, I started to re-activating my other languages and learning French from beginning (at one time, I was already at B2 level) because I learned it very fast and 20 years of pause were a bit too long :) And I have other languages on my plan. As for time - somehow, when I am already busy, I can squeeze even more in my already busy schedule. For years, I have been spending very lazy weekends - nothing gets really done then, this time is for my family and relaxing. But on workdays, when I am running from job to "home" job, I am able to find time to learn languages, to sew clothes for my nieces, to bake and decorate cakes in the evenings... And yes, there are times where I have to put everything including sleep on hold and translate during a weekend or work 18 hours a day on rush job, even if it means that I will need next 3 days to recover and to get in my normal tempo. It doesn't happen as often as it used too - I have learned to say no - but a rush job from time to time brings not only more money, but a certain confirmation of my skills. There is one risk when working as translator and even bigger when working as interpretor - you will get the feeling that your "working" language should be better (sometimes even much better) than it is. Be assured that this feeling won't leave, and you will feel from time to time inadequate in your native language. This is a very normal feeling, we all are continuing to work on our main languages. But it shouldn't mean that you abandon everything else... including other languages. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4861 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish | Message 4 of 31 10 September 2012 at 2:07pm | IP Logged | ||
What I'm afraid of (since my faculties are designated to teach future translators too - at least in theory) is that I would have enough of foreign languages at all, because it wouldn't be already fun - it would be just a tiresome activity to gain money.
It's kinda interesting that so many people abandon their interest in languages after starting a family. I have a friend who's more or less fluent in 4 foreign languages and know something in 3 others; besides, even if he's 40 now, he still has an amazing memory, I wish I had such kind of memory at my age - but currently he does virtually nothing (his excuse is: "family, work, bla bla bla...") and I can't fight the feeling that he's definitely spoiling his talent. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Iwwersetzerin Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member Luxembourg Joined 5671 days ago 259 posts - 513 votes Speaks: French*, Luxembourgish*, GermanC2, EnglishC2, SpanishC2, DutchC1, ItalianC1 Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 5 of 31 10 September 2012 at 6:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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I can only confirm what hrhenry and Majka have said above. It's not much different from other jobs. Granted, if you work freelance, you tend to work more than 8 hours a day and on weekends very often, but you will indeed learn to say "no" and find the right work-life balance eventually (with the odd stressful period which can't be totally avoided). If you are freelance and overworked, you only have yourself to blame and the only solution is to slow down and look for better paying clients, so you can earn the same while working less (not an easy task but not impossible either).
I often think that I work too much and would love to have more time for language learning, but I don't think it would be any better if I had an office job (I'm freelance), on the contrary, I would loose time sitting in traffic and would certainly be more stressed than I am working from home. This way, I gain time that I can spend on language learning and I feel definitely more relaxed and able to concentrate on language learning in the evening than many people I know who work in offices and only want to switch their brain off and watch TV in the evening. I think that you have to be flexible and accept that you may not be able to have a regular schedule for studying, one week work may be slow and you have lots of time for language learning and the next may be superbusy with zero free time. That's pretty much inevitable and you just have to learn to make the best of it and try to organize your time well. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5383 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 6 of 31 10 September 2012 at 10:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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In the beginning, it was indeed rather time consuming, but now after years of experience, I no longer "actively" work on my L2. So I do have some time for L3, L4, L5 and L6, but never enough, of course, due to having a wife, kids and multiple other side projects.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6599 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 7 of 31 11 September 2012 at 12:06am | IP Logged | ||
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That's one of the reasons why I wouldn't want to be a translator/interpreter. In other spheres you don't need such a high level in your L2, for example in tourism. It will take years before any new language will be useful for your job as a translator.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4641 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 8 of 31 11 September 2012 at 9:49am | IP Logged | ||
It is true that you have to learn the language to a high level. However, it also depends on what type of texts you want to work with. For literary translation, the most important thing is actually to know and be able to write your mother tongue well. The Norwegian translator couple Kari and Kjell Risvik translate literature from Catalan, English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish into Norwegian. I do not know how well they speak all these languages, but I suspect that, since five of the eight languages belong to the Romance group, they have above all a good passive grasp of most of them. Interpretation is a totally different matter, and requires very different skills. You will not find many professional interpreters who can work to and from more than two languages (including their mother tongue). Edited by Ogrim on 11 September 2012 at 9:50am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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