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 Language Learning Forum : Immersion, Schools & Certificates |  | |
| dr_model Newbie New Zealand Joined 5849 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes | Message 1 of 3 25 November 2008 at 3:05pm | IP Logged |
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It has been my dream for a while to become an interpreter, ever since I was a little kid I have always loved languages and I used to buy phrasebooks of languages like Korean and Dutch to teach myself. After watching the movie the interpreter a few years ago I decided I really want to be an interpreter for the UN. or some other organisation like that. a good steady job though. I don't want to just have a boring job where I translate documents for small businesses.
So anyway now I'm about to enter my final year of high school and then I plan to go to university. I want to learn Russian, Spanish, French and Arabic fluently since they're the languages of the UN. I already have a pretty good understanding of Spanish and know some basic French. I want to know what I have to do be an interpreter. Are there specific language schools that offer degrees or do you just go to a normal university and do a Bachelor of Arts and take languages as subjects? I go to New Zealand so I'm a little unsure as to how this all works. I'm willing to go overseas to study though. if anyone can help me I'm be extremely grateful! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| chinmi Pentaglot Newbie Belgium translapolis.org Joined 5974 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, SpanishB2, French, Indonesian Studies: Korean | Message 2 of 3 26 November 2008 at 1:01pm | IP Logged |
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hey, don't forget Chinese! :D
Sorry, I'm no expert on interpreting careers so I can't give you advice. As an outsider to the field though my impression is that they generally just focus on 1 or 2 languages to interpret from/to. I have lots of respect for people who're able to do this kind of stuff, their abilities (not only language wise) need to be pretty flawless. Becoming fluent in a language is one thing, but learning to interpret is something else entirely! Just wanted to reply to your post because dreaming of working for the UN one day rings with me too :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tantrum Triglot Newbie Switzerland Joined 5779 days ago 9 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English*, Swedish, German Studies: French, Russian | Message 3 of 3 03 February 2009 at 9:37am | IP Logged |
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I believe to be an interpreter at the UN you need to have passed some specific exams. If you could find a job you're interested in, then look at the requirements listed to find out. A good site for this is http://unjoblist.org/lists/ which collates job ads from many UN organisations.
I would say however that your skills in the language(s) need to be extremely high. My personal feeling is that if you're not near-native by the time you start uni (i.e. spoke the language intensively as a child and then study or use it at uni), you will find it very difficult to reach the required standard. I very much admire people who can do this work, but it's competitive and there's always a lot of people who grew up speaking both languages who have the advantage over you. Other UN jobs require language skills - maybe you could look at jobs where you get to speak them at not such an intensive and often technical level? French is the most useful, then Spanish. But also the most commonly spoken by staff... so pick the one you're most interested in. Good luck! Edited by tantrum on 03 February 2009 at 9:38am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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