Learn to program for a living or..
Printed From: How-to-learn-any-language.com
Forum Name: Languages & Work
Forum Discription: How foreign languages can be used in your career, to get jobs, as translators, etc...
URL: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=24840
Printed Date: 10 June 2021 at 11:40pm
Posted By: sebngwa3
Subject: Learn to program for a living or..
Date Posted: 20 January 2011 at 5:37am
..hone the languages you already know or learn new languages to try to make a living?
It seems there are much more Software Engineer jobs then translators. But you can also make good living
from translating.
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Replies:
sebngwa3 wrote:
It seems there are much more Software Engineer jobs then translators. But you can also
make good living from translating.
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You are right. There are far more jobs for programmers than translators, and they tend
to offer a much better income. I owned a software company for many years, before
retiring, with clients around the world. None of them demanded that my team spoke the
local language. English is the language of business in the software world. So, if you
can speak English fluently, then being a programmer will usually earn you more than
learning another language.
Splog on 20 January 2011
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I don't see why you can't do both. I also don't think "honing" a language is enough to become a successful translator.
Arekkusu on 20 January 2011
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^
Then what is enough?
sebngwa3 on 20 January 2011
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A handful of threads in the "Languages & Work" section have some good input from professional translators.
I've been looking into the field myself, and was told a very good analogy: if having two languages mastered is like having two hands, then being a good translator is like being a concert pianist...
That is to say, translation has its own skillset outside of linguistic competence. It demands solid writing skills, business skills, and mastery of a specialization (medical, legal, patents, etc).
Ygangerg on 22 January 2011
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If you are interested in programming and foreign languages, why not consider a career in computational linguistics: http://www.coli.uni-saarland.de/~hansu/what_is_cl.html - Computational Linguistics
sebngwa3 wrote:
..hone the languages you already know or learn new languages to try to make a living?
It seems there are much more Software Engineer jobs then translators. But you can also make good living
from translating.
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translator2 on 22 January 2011
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I went the programming route. That allowed me to work in Japan, where I learnt Japanese.
Ichiro on 27 January 2011
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translator2 wrote:
If you are interested in programming and foreign languages, why not consider a career in computational linguistics: http://www.coli.uni-saarland.de/~hansu/what_is_cl.html - Computational Linguistics
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Or localization. There is actually a need for talented localization programmers.
R.
==
hrhenry on 27 January 2011
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Ichiro wrote:
| I went the programming route. That allowed me to work in Japan, where I learnt Japanese. |
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How long did it take you to learn programming?
sebngwa3 on 08 March 2014
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If it's been three years and you still haven't learned it, I think it's best to consider what other practical skills you can learn. I'd say programming is a hard field to break into as an adult. Most seem to start learning it as teenagers.
Serpent on 08 March 2014
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Serpent wrote:
If it's been three years and you still haven't learned it, I think it's best to consider what other
practical skills you can learn. I'd say programming is a hard field to break into as an adult. Most seem to start
learning it as teenagers. |
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Same would apply to translation. You don't just start learning a language as an adult hoping to become a translator
anytime soon.
If you want to code or translate one day and you are starting from scratch, it's possible. But you need to stop talking
about it and start learning. And you better be patient and determined because it will take you several years before
you begin to have any marketable value.
Arekkusu on 08 March 2014
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You can be useful as a coder a lot faster than you can be useful as a translator, but a competent professional level with a reasonable amount of breadth in either does take years. A lot of people need a website or a tool that does some simple calculations, while tasks of similar complexity for internal use can often be done with google translate (that is, if the company needs to understand something; if they put google-translated material out in public, they're severely misguided).
I've met some people who have worked professionally as programmers within 6 months of starting to code, as adults - you can learn a little, but well, in that amount of time. It's not the norm, but it's possible. With translating, I don't think that's possible, unless you already had an extremely high level in two languages, knowledge of a specific subject matter that you'll be translating texts about, strong writing skills, etc, and literally only had to learn how to translate.
Volte on 09 March 2014
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What about learning programming for Android/iOs in order to develop language-learning
tools? Which path would one take?
Expugnator on 10 March 2014
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Expugnator wrote:
What about learning programming for Android/iOs in order to develop language-
learning tools? Which path would one take? |
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That's a clever idea to put passion to work in a practical way.
luke on 10 March 2014
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Expugnator wrote:
| What about learning programming for Android/iOs in order to develop language-learning tools? Which path would one take? |
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There are a couple of relatively easy to use tools for converting Web apps (HTML+Javascript) into Android, Windows and iOS apps. The best-known of these tools is http://phonegap.com/ - Phonegap , which is free.
OTOH, there are already a gazillion language learning apps for smartphones out there...
If you're generally looking to combine your interest in programming languages and natural languages, check out the free Natural Language Toolkit ( http://www.nltk.org/ - NLTK ), which assumes almost no programming skills. (You'll need to be able to install Python and the NLTK files, but that's explained in great detail on the NLTK website and in the accompanying http://www.nltk.org/book/ - NLTK book (Natural Language Processing with Python --- Analyzing Text with the Natural Language Toolkit), which is also free.)
Doitsujin on 10 March 2014
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Expugnator wrote:
What about learning programming for Android/iOs in order to develop
language-learning
tools? Which path would one take? |
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1. Learn to program
2. Learn to program for Android (or iOS)
3. Hack something together
4. ???
5. Profit
Or something like that. Learning about existing "language tools" is the easiest part I
would think.
dampingwire on 10 March 2014
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I'd quite like to try computer programming. But I have no idea if I'd have any interest
in it nor aptitude. Is there any particular code or website that you'd recommend for
someone to 'dip their toe in the water'?
yantai_scot on 08 May 2014
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In a place like Canada we recognize English & French as official languages. You would speak either 1 or the other
depending on the part of the country. There are certain number of jobs that are posted as bilingual even technical
jobs. Part of the reason is that the company deal with customers in Quebec (French-speaking) and the rest of the
country (English-speaking). There are jobs for the federal government in Ottawa or in Sudbury (processing income
tax info) that require applicants to be bilingual. The other reason of posting a job as bilingual is to narrow down the
number of applicants who are qualified for a job. Even when a job doesn't really require you to know 2 languages,
being able to speak both fluently would put your credentials ahead of the monolinguals.
I once worked at a Canada Employment Centre. We used to get job seekers of different nationalities, some are not
very fluent in English. Although the position did not specify that you have to know another language beside English,
I was responsible in translating for the Chinese job seekers while the Romanian lady in the office would talk to the
Italians who had limited English.
shk00design on 09 May 2014
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