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Cheshire
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 4674 days ago

23 posts - 26 votes
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese

 
 Message 1 of 8
16 August 2012 at 9:14am | IP Logged 
My current degree in college is psychology but I'm getting very disinterested in it and
considering switching to Romance Languages (French, Spanish, Italian). Does anyone else
have a degree in a language and how practical is it in your career? Also, is a language
degree recommended? Thanks
1 person has voted this message useful



Leurre
Bilingual Pentaglot
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5444 days ago

219 posts - 372 votes 
Speaks: French*, English*, Korean, Haitian Creole, SpanishC2
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 2 of 8
16 August 2012 at 3:56pm | IP Logged 
If this is undergraduate, I'm tempted to tell you that it doesn't really matter what your
degree is in.
3 persons have voted this message useful





Fasulye
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2012
Moderator
Germany
fasulyespolyglotblog
Joined 5866 days ago

5460 posts - 6006 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto
Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 3 of 8
09 January 2013 at 7:50pm | IP Logged 
Cheshire wrote:
My current degree in college is psychology but I'm getting very disinterested in it and
considering switching to Romance Languages (French, Spanish, Italian). Does anyone else have a degree in a language and how practical is it in your career? Also, is a language degree recommended? Thanks


I was a student of Romance Philology (French, Spanish Italian, pedagogics) and I wanted to teach adults in language schools in these languages in Germany. So I can't estimate the job prospects in the United States. In Germany I discovered that almost all language schools for adults were hiring native speakers to teach languages and they were advertising the fact that they had native language teachers.

Therefore I didn't see the chance to get enough teaching hours at such commercial language schools to make a living.

If you want to teach languages, you will need a pedagogical qualification as well. If you want to translate / interpret languages, it would be better to attend a translation / interpreting school.

Fasulye

Edited by Fasulye on 30 August 2013 at 9:22am

4 persons have voted this message useful



baskerville
Trilingual Triglot
Newbie
Singapore
scribeorigins.com
Joined 4265 days ago

39 posts - 43 votes
Speaks: English*, Tagalog*
Studies: German*, Japanese
Studies: Hungarian

 
 Message 4 of 8
07 June 2013 at 5:09pm | IP Logged 
Hi Fasulye. Just a question: are translation/interpreting schools fairly common in your
country? If so, do they have general courses or do they offer more specialized courses
depending on your industry (for example, medical translation, legal translation, etc).

Sadly, we don't have such schools where I live. If we do, I would enroll right away. I
think the language schools sort of work under the assumption that as you attain a high
level of proficiency, you can start translating/interpreting in L2.
1 person has voted this message useful



Theycalme_Jane
Diglot
Newbie
United Kingdom
theafrikaanschalleng
Joined 4144 days ago

28 posts - 48 votes
Speaks: German*, English

 
 Message 5 of 8
28 August 2013 at 12:55pm | IP Logged 
Cheshire wrote:
My current degree in college is psychology but I'm getting very disinterested in it and
considering switching to Romance Languages (French, Spanish, Italian). Does anyone else
have a degree in a language and how practical is it in your career? Also, is a language
degree recommended? Thanks


I hold a bachelor's and a master's degree in translation for English and French into and out of German. The degree comprises "language, culture and translation", to be precise. It basically secured me my spot as a translator in a company, as my studies had a focus on computer sciences and engineering and that was exactly what was needed for their business. I cannot say that all of the people I studied with were that lucky, but it certainly helps. You may not be considering going into translation at all, perhaps teaching is more for you, or whatever else one can do with linguistics. Interpreting is a very straneous job, as far as I've heard and it requires very good linguistic skills. You can be a translator without having studied if you're good. You can try getting some jobs on translatorscafe.com or proz.com. Do try some of this for fun, before you dedicate any more time into making it your full-time job though. I'm currently considering going into psychology, because translation can be a very dull work, when it becomes routine. And, despite working in an office, I often feel isolated and want to communicate with people, rather than just focus on text.

On the other hand, I'm currently using some the skills I obtained during my studies for my blog on learning Afrikaans, which is going really well and I'm having a lot of fun doing that, could even imagine doing that for a living entirely.

In Germany, there are a couple of good universities to study linguistics and translation. I agree though, that usually businesses and schools look for native speakers to translate into their own language. I am fortunate to be living and working in England so as to actually speak English on a regular basis. Otherwise I would end up using my English, which is now my main language, a very passively. Who'd want that after obtaining a degree in it, really?

Edited by Theycalme_Jane on 28 August 2013 at 1:17pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Arekkusu
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Canada
bit.ly/qc_10_lec
Joined 5400 days ago

3971 posts - 7747 votes 
Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto
Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian

 
 Message 6 of 8
28 August 2013 at 3:38pm | IP Logged 
Although I don't know the situation in your country, I doubt a degree in any language would open any doors. You could have an excellent knowledge of any language without such a degree and it gives little ability and experience you can't get elsewhere. And this knowledge would be a lot more important than any degree. Unlike a field like Psychology where you would expect a degree to grant very specific knowledge hardly accessible otherwise.

A degree in Translation or Interpretation (the latter is usually a Masters' degree) is a bit different in that -- here at least -- some government agencies do require such a degree from their employees, but if you don't like in an officially bilingual country, I doubt it would ever matter.

When I was younger, I wanted to be a language teacher, a translator or an interpreter. I went into Linguistics because it fascinated me, and then I managed to do all of these things, but most likely because I was very passionate about the subject, NOT because of my degree.
1 person has voted this message useful



Ogrim
Heptaglot
Senior Member
France
Joined 4658 days ago

991 posts - 1896 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian
Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian

 
 Message 7 of 8
28 August 2013 at 3:41pm | IP Logged 
I have a masters degree in Romance Languages. At the time my plan was to pursue an academic career, but for various reasons (to complicated to explain here) I ended up working for the Government on international co-operation in education and science, and later on went abroad and today work for an international organisation in Human Resources. I would say that my knowledge of languages played an important role in my getting that first job, and not least in getting jobs in international organisations. However, while working I did a couple of years of studies in economics, which at least looks good on my CV, although I have never worked in an economy-related job.

I cannot say anything about the job market for linguists in the USA. The question you will have to ask yourself is what you think you want to do later in life and consider the options. Do you really want to work with languages, as a translator, language teacher or similar? Work internationally as a diplomat or for an international organisation or NGO? Can you combine a language degree with other studies (if you have the time and resources for it)? I guess my advice is: by all means, study languages, but consider combining it with something else to enhance your chances on the job market.

I certainly do not regret taking a degree in languages, at the time I could not envisage doing anything else, and I have been lucky enough to get jobs that I highly enjoy. However, it is clear that a degree in law, business, management or similar opens up a much bigger job market.
1 person has voted this message useful



meigui2108
Newbie
Russian Federation
accounts.tsu.ru/Prof
Joined 3297 days ago

11 posts - 7 votes

 
 Message 8 of 8
06 December 2015 at 3:28pm | IP Logged 
I'm always interested in foreign languages, especially Chinese, and international
relations. And moving a lot of sites with the universities I stopped at TSU, at the
Department of International Relations. There are excellent teachers, excellent training
facilities, internships abroad and easy employment after graduation.
I can provide you with links to the site http://dir.tsu.ru/, http://www.history.tsu.ru/
On these sites you will find answers to all questions.
I would also like to say that the Tomsk State University among the top ten universities
in the country.


1 person has voted this message useful



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