Can I become an interpreter?

October 24, 2005 11:58 AM

Do those of us who started learning our second language after high school have any hope of becoming interpreters?

Actually, a few questions here. From what I understand, to work as an interpreter/translator, fluency in 3 languages--minimum--is required. This would be an absolutely ideal career for me (with English, Japanese and Korean being the three languages), however, it seems like it would be nearly impossible for somoene who was not born into a household where two languages were being spoken (for example, Mexican immigrants growing up in the US, speaking Spanish at home and English at school). Do you think there is hope?

Is this a goal that will simply require too much time? Im 23 right now. Also, are there any translators out there? How does one even begin to break into the field? Any comments related to interpretation and translation would be welcome, I realize this is sort of a vague question.

posted by dead_ to Writing & Language (10 answers total)

Oh yeah. 23. Totally over the hill. Sorry.

Kidding.

I'm a J-E translator, not interpreter. I've hardly got a level of fluency equivalent to someone who grew up in a bilingual household. My fluency would need to be somewhat better for me to work as an interpreter, but not bilingual-childhood level.

Best as I can tell, people tend to work either as an interpreter or translator, but rarely both. This usually seems to be a choice based on temperament and earning potential: some people can make more in a day translating than interpreting, even though interpreter can make very good rates.

You're apparently in Tokyo, so I'd recommend showing up at one of JAT's monthly meetings, which is how I started getting freelance work. You might also want to plan on attending IJET, which will be around Kobe during Golden Week (I think). That's an excellent networking opportunity.

I don't know much about the K-E side of things. There's a smaller supply of K-E translators and interpreters, but I don't know what the demand is like. Perhaps Stav will have something to say.

Feel free to contact me via direct e-mail, which you can navigate to via my mefi profile.
posted by adamrice at 12:13 PM on October 24, 2005 [1 favorite]

I attend a school (Monterey Institute of International Studies) that also houses a pretty excellent Translation & Interpretation department. I am not in that department, but know a little bit about it. Here is that little bit:

I don't think you need to know 3 languages, I know plenty of people here who only speak 2 -- English and one other, Chinese, German and Korean being especially present here. However, at least to attend here, you need to be very, very good at that language (i.e. approximately a native speaker).

Therefore, I don't think you need to have born into a bilingual household (most of the T & I folks I know around here weren't), but you do need experience with speakers of that language. The students I know here have lived abroad in the area of their interest for periods of 1 year or more.

At your age, if this is a field you want to go into, my recommendation would be to go abroad to either Japan or Korea and teach English there for a year or more. In either country, you can make a living or better doing so, and you'll get the immersion into the language that will help you proceed with your abilities. Then, you'll need to do a graduate program. MIIS and Middlebury have two of the strongest in the country, that I know of, with the disclaimer that I am a MIIS student.
posted by whoshotwho at 12:16 PM on October 24, 2005

Yes, there is hope. I spent last summer in Sweden, and there were several people there studying to be interpretors/translators, and all of them in their 30s. It's hard work, and does take quite a bit of time.

There is a difference between translating and interpreting. Translation deals with the written word, and there's actually a pretty big demand for that, especially in technical fields. The hardest bit is learning all the specialized vocabulary. The learning curve can be steep, so people tend to specialize in one area.

There is also a big demand for interpretors, especially in the legal and medical fields, and you generally have to be certified to work in these fields. However, these are often freelance, on-call positions.

Do you already have near-native fluency (or at least a high-intermediate level) in any language besides English? If you do, why not try it?
posted by luneray at 12:21 PM on October 24, 2005

I've been offered random translating jobs, but never took them. Still, you might be interested in why and how I got the offers: I got them through an organization for Dutch expats in Toronto, and they asked for fluency in both Dutch and English. They contacted the organization, because they knew that would bring them in touch with people who spoke Dutch as first language and (fluent) English as second language. The two I remember were these jobs:
-writing short English versions of longer Dutch news articles for an agency that provides third-party services with news blurbs from around the world (part time job).
-Checking subtitles on DVDs. This was a fulltime job, and I would have taken this instantly if I had time for a whole extra full-time job! It involved: watching English language DVDs that were already subtitled in Dutch by someone else, and checking whether the subtitles made sense before the DVDs were finalized for distribution. The company was in Toronto, and they were looking for local native Dutch speakers.

These job offers, that I got without even looking for a job, were for English language companies that needed people specialized in Dutch. So if you want to do Japanese/Korean translation, your best bet might be to translate for the Japanese/Korean market, with English as your specialty lanaguage. (I would think the DVD translating thing I described above also exists for Japanese DVDs going on the English-language market.)

I've also come across random translating ads on Craigslist, usually in the writing gigs section. Since these are often online, you can look for these jobs on any city-site on Craigslist (not necessarily your own).
posted by easternblot at 12:23 PM on October 24, 2005

Response by poster: Interesting stuff so far. Thanks everyone. As for my fluency, I am at a very, very low level of Korean, and I would say advanced conversational in Japanese, probably about equivalent to the JLPT level 2 test, or maybe slightly below that. But I still need a lot of work, that's for sure.
posted by dead_ at 12:41 PM on October 24, 2005

Not quite on topic, but there was a newspaper article a while back (not the best citation, I know) about the shortage of people in the US qualified to write in Spanish for business purposes.

The gist of the article was that plenty of people speak Spanish (hence the demand for written materials in Spanish), but that the overwhelming majority of those people do not speak it sufficiently correctly and/or could not write correctly in Spanish. They can't spell, their grammar is bad, they don't necessarily know which words are colloquialisms, and which words and colloqualisms vary in their offensiveness, etc.

I'm sure these people who need to produce documents in Spanish would rather have someone who learned it in university and studied it properly, than somoene who didn't know it when their inoffensive Mexican word was deeply offensive to half of South America.

I presume the same is true of people who want Japanese or Korean translaters. Though regional variations might be less important there, the general point should stand.
posted by duck at 12:43 PM on October 24, 2005

I currently teach at a 9 month course for conference interpretation in Spain that's closely tied with the European Commission. All of the students have at least three languages, but almost all of them have (at least) some combination of English, German, French, Italian and Portugese. Unfortunately, so does every interpreter working for the EC. That's why if they successfully finish the course (a tribunal of professional interpreters comes from Brussels at the end to judge them) many go off to live in places like Romania, Slovenia, Poland, etc. to learn the less common languages. Obviously these are people with a great ability to learn languages, but they don't seem to have much problem with starting a new language in their mid twenties. I think the key is to immerse yourself in a culture and learn the language as well as you can, you will generally interpret into your A language, so that is the only one that you have to be truly "fluent" in, your B and C languages need to be understood more than spoken.

As mentioned earlier, interpreting is hard work, and I'll add that it is also extremely stressful, especially simultaneous booth interpreting, and it is really quite different from translating. They use two different skill sets that are often at odds with each other. A translator, like any writer, may spend hours crafting a sentence, whereas an interpreter has to be very quick on his or her feet. With interpreting there is far more pressure and more exposure (to audiences, clients, etc.) and you have to be juggling various balls at once (active listening, speaking, taking notes). Both are rewarding, but for different reasons.

I imagine with your languages you have a huge market open to you, but you need to learn interpreting and translating skills. Caveat: just knowing languages doesn't guarantee that you will be a good interpreter, you really need to be able to multi-task like nobody's business.
posted by sic at 3:54 PM on October 24, 2005

It is possible to become an interpreter learning a language as an adult. I started learning Japanese at 18 and I now volunteer as an interpreter at a local church. There are jobs available for interpreters in the United States, especially for Asian languages where business people are less likely to speak English, languages like Mandarin and Japanese. My boyfriend just returned from working in Japan and is already interviewing with several companies looking for a cultural interpreter and translator. While he only speaks Japanese and English, he is JLPT level 1.

I would say that if you are not in Japan now, be prepared to move there. Immersion is the fastest and best way to learn a language (you probably already know that). However, just teaching English can be a dead end. Try to enroll in a Japanese program in Japan and get a host family. My boyfriend and I attended Nanzan University. It is probably the hardest program available, but it is the best. I learned ~2000 kanji in one semester. I also owe my host mom a lot for spending hours with me everyday just talking and answering questions.

I could only assume that the same advice would apply for Korean.

Don't assume that you must have at least three languages. There are many jobs for Japanese-English speakers, especially if you have a degree in something else. An MBA combined with language skills is highly valued in the business world.
posted by Alison at 9:05 PM on October 24, 2005

I am a freelance translator - French to English - so I can't really tell you much about interpreting, but I can tell you how I got where I am (still quite early stages, but surviving). There are many routes into translation, translation schools being one such route. In most countries (Canada, I think, being an honourable exception) there are no barriers to practicing as a translator - i.e. anyone can announce that they are a translator and look for work. The important things if you are to last in the business are:

1) make sure your skills are up to scratch by whatever means - in my case, a BA in French, MA in Linguistics, and a further distance-learning course in translation, combined with practice and living in France for a year - I wish this could have been a longer period. I don't think there's any reason why you shouldn't be able to replicate this level of knowledge of your languages - if you are prepared to immerse yourself.

2) only ever translate into your native language (duck, someone who writes business documents in bad Spanish is not a professional translator - a pro translator in this case will be a Spanish native speaker who can make sure the problems you outline are avoided)

3) get some kind of specialist subject - if you have worked in a particular field, consider positioning yourself so that you can accept translations in this field.

That's all I can think of for the moment - don't hesitate to email if you need any more info, though I work in different languages.
posted by altolinguistic at 2:43 AM on October 25, 2005

p.s. - you don't necessarily need 3 languages to work as a translator/interpreter, though the big international organisations that recruit such personnel usually demand 3. Most translators/interpreters, I would say, are freelance and can offer what they like.

p.s. also - being brought up in an environment where the language is spoken doesn't have much impact on whether or not you're a good translator - these are separate skills. There are plenty of fully bilingual people out there who have neither the aptitude for nor the skills to translate. French was not spoken in my home when I was a child, and I do OK. Particularly for translation, it's the receptive skills - reading and to a lesser extent listening - that are most important, with speaking and writing playing a lesser role.
posted by altolinguistic at 2:47 AM on October 25, 2005