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Most in demand languages? | ||
Tags: Language Importance | Translation | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Languages & Work |  | |
| kaja Diglot Newbie Australia kajaesperanto.co.ccRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5178 days ago 17 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto | Message 1 of 18 02 October 2010 at 5:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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Which languages are currently most in demand for translation / interpreting services?
Does anyone have any statistics on this? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jon1991 Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5373 days ago 98 posts - 126 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French, Russian | Message 2 of 18 04 October 2010 at 9:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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In Britain the most in demand languages are E.U languages such as French, German, Polish and Spanish but on a wider scale Chinese Mandarin, Arabic, Russian and Japanese are probably in high demand as there are very few Britons who can speak these languages. However, due to the large number of immigrants and asylum seekers in the U.K, languages such as Albanian, Farsi, Pashto, Punjabi, Bengali, Yoruba, Hausa etc are all at some etxtent in demand. My local Doctors surgery (I live in London) has translation services in over 30 languages, most of these being African and Asian.
I'm not sure about Down Under but I'd imagine Indonesian, Flippino, Mandarin, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese and Spanish to be important in Australia as these are the languages spoken in countries closest to Australia. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| CaucusWolf Senior Member United States Joined 5280 days ago 191 posts - 234 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Arabic (Written), Japanese | Message 3 of 18 05 October 2010 at 1:06am | IP Logged | ||
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I urge you to choose a language you're truly interested in both culturally and otherwise. Learning a language for strictly economic gain is simply nonsensical. You'll most likely lose interest in the language. Even if you learn the language the time you're truly fluent in it the luster of it being on top will most likely have faded.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| DesEsseintes Triglot Newbie Ireland Joined 5190 days ago 33 posts - 68 votes Speaks: English, French*, Spanish Studies: Croatian | Message 4 of 18 05 October 2010 at 12:50pm | IP Logged | ||
Exactly. You'll never have a good command of a given language if you don't really like it. Now, what I'd recommend you to learn (at least, if you're interested in the culture of the countries where these languages are spoken) : Turkish, or Croatian. Potential EU members, low level of English, highly-developped tourism, etc... 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| maydayayday Pentaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5227 days ago 564 posts - 839 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2 Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese Studies: Urdu | Message 5 of 18 05 October 2010 at 7:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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As stated repeatedly above and in many other threads: Pick a language and do the best you can with it.
As a general rule, from knowing nothing about a language to being able to take on fairly basic interpreter/translator you are probably looking at using up two years of your life or one year if you can get into an intensive/expensive and therefore probably government funded scheme: in those jobs you don't often get to choose your language. I realise some people have worked as translators after a shorter period but they are the exception. You'll probably only translate into your own native language at least at the beginning. Translation can be very specialised but you have access to dictionaries: Specialised contemporaneous interpretation means you need to be able learn the vocabulary of the specialist subject if it is not already in your vocabulary: I think the best example cited here was for a fishing conference. How many equivalent fish names do you know now in language 2: I know about a dozen in French,Italian and Spanish and thats because I've seen them on menus hundreds of times. :-) in fact in Aus you use different names for some of the fish that I know... International circumstances change, sometime suddenly: at the moment Urdu, Pashto etc interpreters can earn good/decent salaries if you can accept the living conditions but in the 80's the UK government didn't have enough Spanish speakers/listeners on the books. Don't mean to be negative but you can do whatever you put your mind to with enough effort. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| WingSuet Triglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 5359 days ago 169 posts - 211 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, German Studies: Cantonese | Message 6 of 18 19 October 2010 at 4:59pm | IP Logged | ||
Nice to finally hear someone agree! I don't know how many times people have asked me why I don't study Mandarin instead of Cantonese, last time by a study adviser who was supposed to help me choose a career. I think it may be good to choose a language that isn't very common because that will make your skills more special. I know someone who got a job at an English university because of her being native in Swedish. She was very valuable to them so when she wanted to quit they kept raising her salary until she decided to stay. Then again it might be hard to find demand for a language like that :/ 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6590 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 7 of 18 19 October 2010 at 5:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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Is there some sort of failure of the forum system here, because I can't see the post where kaja says (s)he will want to study a language for economic reasons? I only see these two sentences: "Which languages are currently most in demand for translation / interpreting services? Does anyone have any statistics on this?" No mention of choosing a language to study at all. Clearly I'm missing something here. Edited by Ari on 19 October 2010 at 5:55pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6876 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 8 of 18 29 November 2010 at 9:06am | IP Logged | ||
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I think the implication was if Kaja was asking about what languages are in the most demand, they'd choose that one regardless of personal interest. I have no idea of that's what their idea was, though.
In any case I agree with learning a language you care about. If you care about it it'd be easier for you to stick with it and make it work. So many people suggested I learn Spanish, and so I did, but by the time I got any good at it, my interest in it had wilted since I'd always been more interested in other languages. I don't regret learning Spanish, of course, but I also better understand my heart lies elsewhere. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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