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Which language should I major in? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| SlickAs Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5885 days ago 185 posts - 287 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Swedish Studies: Thai, Vietnamese | Message 17 of 19 27 November 2008 at 9:32pm | IP Logged | ||
I hate to state the obvious, but given you are in Canada, and there are millions of Canadians that are fluently and natively bi-lingual in French and English (and probably over a hundred thousand that learned both English and French concurrenlty as their first language between the age of 0 and 2), then how are you going to differentiate yourself as a translator in French / English? If your goal is translation, and you hope to make a living off it without any other degrees (such as an Engineering degree to translate technical documents from English to French and vice-versa for the domestic market), then I would stay well away from French as a major. Most bi-lingual people in Canada on those 2 languages do not need a certificate to prove it. You should learn French anyway since you are Canadian, but major in something more exotic. My 2c. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| victor Tetraglot Moderator United States Joined 7326 days ago 1098 posts - 1056 votes 6 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, FrenchC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 18 of 19 28 November 2008 at 12:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sohcahtoa (why aren't you majoring in math? :P), what I think is that it might be too early to say whether translating is for you. Career paths change all the time, and it's not a good idea to stick to one that you're not exactly too sure about.
Stick with your gut feeling, which I presume is an interest in languages. Almost all universities offer some sort of major combining several languages, for example, an East Asian Languages/Civilization, Romance Languages, or maybe even European studies. Languages take years of study, especially Russian, Chinese, and Arabic. We're not talking about 2 or 3 years of dedicated study. Unless you're living in countries that speak these languages, it will take you much, much longer than that to acquire proficiency to translate professionally. I am not a big fan of the idea that you can make money with languages. If you're not interested, you will end up abandoning it. Why not start with something that you like? As for French, let me add that with the language, there are so many options in Canada besides translation. Most major corporations require bilingual personnel to deal with the Francophone market, and not to mention that the federal government is in desperate need of skilled bilingual civil servants. If you're looking to translate English-French, you should consider getting a degree in translation. I think the University of Ottawa and the University of Moncton offer very good programmes. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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