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Existential questions about translators | ||
Tags: Career | Translation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| audiolang Diglot Senior Member Romania Joined 6330 days ago 108 posts - 109 votes  2 sounds Speaks: Romanian*, English | Message 1 of 3 12 August 2007 at 6:06am | IP Logged |
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I would like to know ,as I know so little about translators,how exactly do you work?
Do you just receive offers from companies ,firms and type at the PC at home/office? I am personally a slow typer ,I'd rather do the translations on paper,but in the modern age that's not a good thing.How much time do you spend in front of a computer? What do you usually translate? And can translators become interpreters? Thank you in advance 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Vlad Trilingual Super Polyglot Senior Member Czechoslovakia foreverastudent.com Joined 6594 days ago 443 posts - 576 votes 2 sounds Speaks: Czech*, Slovak*, Hungarian*, Mandarin, EnglishC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Serbian, French Studies: Persian, Taiwanese, Romanian, Portuguese | Message 2 of 3 12 August 2007 at 6:41am | IP Logged |
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I can tell you the practice in Slovakia:
You either work alone (you have your own legal business) or are employed by someone - which is a bit easier but less rewarding. If you work alone, you usually set up a webpage and wait until someone eventually sends in something, then discuss the price and when it needs to be done and you do the translation. Eventually you start building a client base but the beginnings are very difficult, because nobody knows you. If you work for someone, that person or company sends you translations or calls you in to do interpreting at events or meetings. You are either directly employed by the company (which is good, because you have much less legal and tax paperwork) or..You have your own business and receive translations from the company (which in turn is better for the company, because it doesn't have to care for you as its employee..you're just a business partner). In either case you should have a translator’s proficiency exam. That way certain minimum prices per page apply. Otherwise the clients can push you down to insane numbers. To do translations on paper..that's not a good idea. They give you a word document, they expect it as well in return. Plus.. if you do a translation, most of the time (99% in my experience) it should look like it has been written in the language you are about to translate the document into. So if there is a technical diagram with descriptions..you need to figure out a way how to get those translated descriptions in there. Most of the translations I did were manuals, project documentations, electronic circuit descriptions, operation manuals and so on. These would be impossible to do on a paper. a book translation..maybe. But then someone would have to type it into the computer again and you'd have to pay for that, so you would end up with a very little price per page. plus..translating books..or movies..that is soo rare. There is no way you are going to get to do something like that if you're a beginner and have no connections. In terms of how much time to spend in front of the computer: until it's done. I had a 500 page translation for instance - that would be a couple of weeks non stop. As to the translator/interpreter question. I don't think I saw any translator, who to some extent wouldn't be able to do interpretation and translation both, but it really depends on what the translator specializes in. if someone is good at chemistry, then translating a legal contract would be a little off hand. Not a problem, but it would take longer. Edited by Vlad on 12 August 2007 at 6:42am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Monox D. I-Fly Senior Member Indonesia monoxdifly.iopc.us Joined 5145 days ago 762 posts - 664 votes Speaks: Indonesian* | Message 3 of 3 01 October 2016 at 1:30pm | IP Logged |
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I was a translator during college studies. A typing service hired me to translate some clients' documents. Most of them were only thesis abstracts, though.
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