Legal translation degree - legal?
May 14, 2015 10:14 AM Subscribe
I came across a distant learning master's programme that I find interesting, but wonder if it's legit and even if it is, if it's the right one for me?
I would like to pursue a graduate degree after all, especially one that allows me some flexibility as to where I live. Since I speak Japanese (which was my undergraduate major) and English, and my native language is German, I thought of becoming a translator. I have done some freelance translation work before, but only small jobs, mostly Japanese to English, sometimes Japanese to German. I have a good friend who's a translator so I do have some insight and do not view the job through rose-coloured glasses.
My boyfriend has come across an online degree programme at Babel University, and both he and I have talked over video phone to a gentleman from the programme, who encouraged me to pusue the degree even though neither English nor Japanese is my native language. I, however, am apprehensive. While I did have professors tell me I could pass for native, and my name sounds pretty international (plus, when I marry my boyfriend, my last name will be Japanese), I have also been declined job opportunities for not being a native speaker. It seems to be a trend in Japan to hire native English speakers as teachers even if they can't differentiate between "its/it's" or seriously type "would of" instead of competent non-natives with experience, so I am very wary about investing time and money into a degree that may not even benefit me in the end. The person I talked to said that in legal translation, which I would be pursuing (with no prior legal knowledge!) and which my translator friend calls pretty recession-proof because people always need contracts etc. translated, since you mostly translate set phrases, native languages don't matter very much, and I'd actually be at an advantage since I'm trilingual. I do wonder how I would study the German part of translating, though...
Has anyone here who translates or knows someone who translates a clue whether
a) the programme is legitimate and
b) if it is, will it benefit me at all?
c) Is translation even still a thing you can earn a living wage with?
Also, if I may ask another somewhat related question, does anyone find their translation work meaningful? Because lately, I have been struggling at work, asking myself if anything I am doing is making even a miniscule change for the better somewhere.
I would like to pursue a graduate degree after all, especially one that allows me some flexibility as to where I live. Since I speak Japanese (which was my undergraduate major) and English, and my native language is German, I thought of becoming a translator. I have done some freelance translation work before, but only small jobs, mostly Japanese to English, sometimes Japanese to German. I have a good friend who's a translator so I do have some insight and do not view the job through rose-coloured glasses.
My boyfriend has come across an online degree programme at Babel University, and both he and I have talked over video phone to a gentleman from the programme, who encouraged me to pusue the degree even though neither English nor Japanese is my native language. I, however, am apprehensive. While I did have professors tell me I could pass for native, and my name sounds pretty international (plus, when I marry my boyfriend, my last name will be Japanese), I have also been declined job opportunities for not being a native speaker. It seems to be a trend in Japan to hire native English speakers as teachers even if they can't differentiate between "its/it's" or seriously type "would of" instead of competent non-natives with experience, so I am very wary about investing time and money into a degree that may not even benefit me in the end. The person I talked to said that in legal translation, which I would be pursuing (with no prior legal knowledge!) and which my translator friend calls pretty recession-proof because people always need contracts etc. translated, since you mostly translate set phrases, native languages don't matter very much, and I'd actually be at an advantage since I'm trilingual. I do wonder how I would study the German part of translating, though...
Has anyone here who translates or knows someone who translates a clue whether
a) the programme is legitimate and
b) if it is, will it benefit me at all?
c) Is translation even still a thing you can earn a living wage with?
Also, if I may ask another somewhat related question, does anyone find their translation work meaningful? Because lately, I have been struggling at work, asking myself if anything I am doing is making even a miniscule change for the better somewhere.
The only thing that would make the program legitimate is if it would provide you with the knowledge and skills to get more work.
>The person I talked to said that in legal translation, which I would be pursuing (with no prior legal knowledge!) and which my translator friend calls pretty recession-proof because people always need contracts etc. translated, since you mostly translate set phrases, native languages don't matter very much,
This is where automation comes in (eg Trados). Will the course explain how to implement automation?
FWIW, none of the legal and patent translators I know have a degree in translation or whatever from Babel U. Instead, they are very, very smart, and are essentially autodidacts.
Some have a paralegal certification, others have law degrees or conventional advanced degrees that give them subject matter expertise.
And they are always focused on being efficient (automation).
Also they typically live near their customers - you can't rely on agencies to provide you with high-paying work. You need to be near the end client. This means they live within 2 hours of central Tokyo. Some live near major clusters of Japanese overseas companies, such as Austin, which is home to car plants and chipmakers.
Developing relationships with end clients also means you don't have to worry (as much) about your lack of an English-Japanese language pair (sorry, you're not a native speaker of English). Of course EFL schools in Japan won't hire non-native speakers, but who cares anyway?
Anyway, I'm suggesting that Babel U. is not for you, and I would suggest you instead go for a paralegal certification and start networking and talking to other translators. This Facebook group is a good place to start. I would suggest lurking for a month or so.
posted by Nevin at 11:10 AM on May 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
>The person I talked to said that in legal translation, which I would be pursuing (with no prior legal knowledge!) and which my translator friend calls pretty recession-proof because people always need contracts etc. translated, since you mostly translate set phrases, native languages don't matter very much,
This is where automation comes in (eg Trados). Will the course explain how to implement automation?
FWIW, none of the legal and patent translators I know have a degree in translation or whatever from Babel U. Instead, they are very, very smart, and are essentially autodidacts.
Some have a paralegal certification, others have law degrees or conventional advanced degrees that give them subject matter expertise.
And they are always focused on being efficient (automation).
Also they typically live near their customers - you can't rely on agencies to provide you with high-paying work. You need to be near the end client. This means they live within 2 hours of central Tokyo. Some live near major clusters of Japanese overseas companies, such as Austin, which is home to car plants and chipmakers.
Developing relationships with end clients also means you don't have to worry (as much) about your lack of an English-Japanese language pair (sorry, you're not a native speaker of English). Of course EFL schools in Japan won't hire non-native speakers, but who cares anyway?
Anyway, I'm suggesting that Babel U. is not for you, and I would suggest you instead go for a paralegal certification and start networking and talking to other translators. This Facebook group is a good place to start. I would suggest lurking for a month or so.
posted by Nevin at 11:10 AM on May 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
Some have a paralegal certification, others have law degrees or conventional advanced degrees that give them subject matter expertise.
This. I'm imagining translating some of the contracts on my desk right now--there are so many terms of art that appear translatable superficially, and that I could explain to someone in, say, Spanish. But actually doing a translation where the English and Spanish contract meant the same thing would require some pretty specialized language-learning.
In law school we had a courses called "Legal [foreign language]" and "Doing Business in [Country where foreign language is spoken]." I didn't take them but I know the courses had textbooks. Maybe find books specialized to your desired languages/regions and go from there?
posted by resurrexit at 11:57 AM on May 14, 2015
This. I'm imagining translating some of the contracts on my desk right now--there are so many terms of art that appear translatable superficially, and that I could explain to someone in, say, Spanish. But actually doing a translation where the English and Spanish contract meant the same thing would require some pretty specialized language-learning.
In law school we had a courses called "Legal [foreign language]" and "Doing Business in [Country where foreign language is spoken]." I didn't take them but I know the courses had textbooks. Maybe find books specialized to your desired languages/regions and go from there?
posted by resurrexit at 11:57 AM on May 14, 2015
Best answer: I'm a Japanese>English translator.
Babel University is a for-profit school that exists to pipeline you into the Babel translation agency (which also exists). The whole thing seems scammy to me. Translation is definitely a skill apart from competence in two languages, but I'm not sure that Babel U is the best place to learn it. I picked it up in the street, so to speak.
I've known native German speakers who work primarily in Japanese>English translation. I don't see that as a huge obstacle.
I don't consider my work particularly meaningful, and some of it has probably made the world a worse place in some minuscule way. But it's not the way in which I try to make the world a better place.
posted by adamrice at 12:29 PM on May 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
Babel University is a for-profit school that exists to pipeline you into the Babel translation agency (which also exists). The whole thing seems scammy to me. Translation is definitely a skill apart from competence in two languages, but I'm not sure that Babel U is the best place to learn it. I picked it up in the street, so to speak.
I've known native German speakers who work primarily in Japanese>English translation. I don't see that as a huge obstacle.
I don't consider my work particularly meaningful, and some of it has probably made the world a worse place in some minuscule way. But it's not the way in which I try to make the world a better place.
posted by adamrice at 12:29 PM on May 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks, everyone! Yup, I definitely got the feeling that they wanted to get me on board for their agency.
Did you all pass some sort of exam or do people just trust you when you say you're a translator?
posted by LoonyLovegood at 12:56 PM on May 14, 2015
Did you all pass some sort of exam or do people just trust you when you say you're a translator?
posted by LoonyLovegood at 12:56 PM on May 14, 2015
Best answer: does anyone find their translation work meaningful?
I have to say, I agree with adamrice here:
I don't consider my work particularly meaningful, and some of it has probably made the world a worse place in some minuscule way. But it's not the way in which I try to make the world a better place.
I translate content that I disagree with. I translate crap that's so dumb that I can't for the life of me see why it needs to be made understood in another language. Sometimes if I'm lucky, I translate stuff that's interesting.
For me, it's something I can do to get paid while working from home. I had to quit my office job when I became a mom because the hours were crazy. It was nice being able to make money and stay connected to the outside world while raising my son as a stay-at-home-mom, but that doesn't have anything to do with translating per se.
So I sort of drifted into this line of work. I've never taken translation courses and I'm not certified except for a degree in English from a Canadian university (which, however, seems to do the trick when I have to quickly "prove" to a client that I am in fact fluent in English. That and mentioning that I was raised for the most part in the States. I'm Japanese.)
I also agree with Nevin re living near your client(s). In theory, you can do translation work anywhere so long as you have a computer that's connected online. But realistically, at least for my main source of income which is translating content for films and TV, I've been told I'm often contacted before someone who is based halfway around the world because I live in the same time zone (quick response is crucial... you wouldn't believe how often I'm asked to work on very short notice) and am available to be on-site for checking and editing.
If you're interested in pursuing legal content, have you considered interpreting? I have a good friend who is a court interpreter (Japanese/English/French) and she makes a very comfortable living from it. As you're probably aware though, translating and interpreting are completely different beasts and require vastly different skills. But I think interpreting is something worth taking courses for and definitely more lucrative in the long run.
Apologies for the long-winded comment.
posted by misozaki at 4:41 PM on May 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
I have to say, I agree with adamrice here:
I don't consider my work particularly meaningful, and some of it has probably made the world a worse place in some minuscule way. But it's not the way in which I try to make the world a better place.
I translate content that I disagree with. I translate crap that's so dumb that I can't for the life of me see why it needs to be made understood in another language. Sometimes if I'm lucky, I translate stuff that's interesting.
For me, it's something I can do to get paid while working from home. I had to quit my office job when I became a mom because the hours were crazy. It was nice being able to make money and stay connected to the outside world while raising my son as a stay-at-home-mom, but that doesn't have anything to do with translating per se.
So I sort of drifted into this line of work. I've never taken translation courses and I'm not certified except for a degree in English from a Canadian university (which, however, seems to do the trick when I have to quickly "prove" to a client that I am in fact fluent in English. That and mentioning that I was raised for the most part in the States. I'm Japanese.)
I also agree with Nevin re living near your client(s). In theory, you can do translation work anywhere so long as you have a computer that's connected online. But realistically, at least for my main source of income which is translating content for films and TV, I've been told I'm often contacted before someone who is based halfway around the world because I live in the same time zone (quick response is crucial... you wouldn't believe how often I'm asked to work on very short notice) and am available to be on-site for checking and editing.
If you're interested in pursuing legal content, have you considered interpreting? I have a good friend who is a court interpreter (Japanese/English/French) and she makes a very comfortable living from it. As you're probably aware though, translating and interpreting are completely different beasts and require vastly different skills. But I think interpreting is something worth taking courses for and definitely more lucrative in the long run.
Apologies for the long-winded comment.
posted by misozaki at 4:41 PM on May 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
I can't speak regarding Babel or paralegal interpretation, but to add to the others, about your more general questions:
"Is translation even still a thing you can earn a living wage with?"
Yes, but it depends on the language. Japanese translation is doing fine, but my mom reports that a lot of work is disappearing for French and Spanish translators because improved machine translation means that people are only translating stuff that needs to be highly polished, and are using machine translation for internal documents.
"Does anyone find their translation work meaningful?"
I don't, but it doesn't bother me. However, interestingly, I find that my translation makes me feel a lot more positive about the world at large. Reading MeFi you get the impression that all large companies are totally evil, and that anything they do that appears non-evil is just a facade. But I do mostly internal documentation, stuff that isn't seen by the general public, and I see that, for example, a lot of companies who are changing work regulations or reducing gender inequality or the like are actually really sincere and dedicated to it, not just implementing it to squeeze extra profit or avoid legal repercussions. Ditto with environmental issues. The only translation work I do that depresses me is internal correspondence about advertising. That pretty much perfectly aligns with the MeFite image of companies.
"Did you all pass some sort of exam or do people just trust you when you say you're a translator?"
When I started, I didn't say I was a translator, I said I was a bilingual with IT experience and I wanted to try translation. Different companies gave me very short documents or blurbs to translate, testing my translation ability, and then hired (registered) me (or didn't) based on the quality of my translations. What does involve trust is, after registration and doing work for a while, when a company asks you if you can do translation in a certain specialist field. "Bugbread, we have a 50 page medical document. Can you do medical translation?" For the most part, of course, companies will ask a translator with real-world experience in the field in question, but when their schedules are full, agencies will go around to their regular translators, ask about their confidence in the field, and trust the translator when they say "Sure, I can translate a patent" or "Yes, I can translate an academic paper about linguistics and postmodernism".
Also, about "living near the work", I think in some cases you need to be actually physically nearby, if you're going to meet with clients, but in other cases (such as my situation), you never meet with clients. Nonetheless, you need to be nearby in terms of time zones and area codes. I live near Tokyo, but the amount of work I get wouldn't change the slightest bit if I moved to Kyushu or even Okinawa. If I moved to Korea or China, I'd lose work because agencies wouldn't want to pay long distance fees to call me, and would only contact me via email, meaning no rush jobs. And I'd lose a ton of work if I moved to, say, the US or Europe, because not only would they not be able to contact me about rush jobs, they wouldn't even be able to contact me about medium-deadline jobs.
posted by Bugbread at 12:56 AM on May 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
"Is translation even still a thing you can earn a living wage with?"
Yes, but it depends on the language. Japanese translation is doing fine, but my mom reports that a lot of work is disappearing for French and Spanish translators because improved machine translation means that people are only translating stuff that needs to be highly polished, and are using machine translation for internal documents.
"Does anyone find their translation work meaningful?"
I don't, but it doesn't bother me. However, interestingly, I find that my translation makes me feel a lot more positive about the world at large. Reading MeFi you get the impression that all large companies are totally evil, and that anything they do that appears non-evil is just a facade. But I do mostly internal documentation, stuff that isn't seen by the general public, and I see that, for example, a lot of companies who are changing work regulations or reducing gender inequality or the like are actually really sincere and dedicated to it, not just implementing it to squeeze extra profit or avoid legal repercussions. Ditto with environmental issues. The only translation work I do that depresses me is internal correspondence about advertising. That pretty much perfectly aligns with the MeFite image of companies.
"Did you all pass some sort of exam or do people just trust you when you say you're a translator?"
When I started, I didn't say I was a translator, I said I was a bilingual with IT experience and I wanted to try translation. Different companies gave me very short documents or blurbs to translate, testing my translation ability, and then hired (registered) me (or didn't) based on the quality of my translations. What does involve trust is, after registration and doing work for a while, when a company asks you if you can do translation in a certain specialist field. "Bugbread, we have a 50 page medical document. Can you do medical translation?" For the most part, of course, companies will ask a translator with real-world experience in the field in question, but when their schedules are full, agencies will go around to their regular translators, ask about their confidence in the field, and trust the translator when they say "Sure, I can translate a patent" or "Yes, I can translate an academic paper about linguistics and postmodernism".
Also, about "living near the work", I think in some cases you need to be actually physically nearby, if you're going to meet with clients, but in other cases (such as my situation), you never meet with clients. Nonetheless, you need to be nearby in terms of time zones and area codes. I live near Tokyo, but the amount of work I get wouldn't change the slightest bit if I moved to Kyushu or even Okinawa. If I moved to Korea or China, I'd lose work because agencies wouldn't want to pay long distance fees to call me, and would only contact me via email, meaning no rush jobs. And I'd lose a ton of work if I moved to, say, the US or Europe, because not only would they not be able to contact me about rush jobs, they wouldn't even be able to contact me about medium-deadline jobs.
posted by Bugbread at 12:56 AM on May 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Seconding Bugbread about earning a living wage with translation – with Romance and Germanic languages (so, not counting Finnish, Estonian, or Hungarian, which are Finno-Ugric, a more complex and less-taught language family, and thus can charge better rates), the market is still tanking. Twenty years ago, as a French-to-English translator, I was able to charge 12 cents/word for regular translations; 14-15/word for technical. Ten years ago, it was hard to find anyone paying more than 9 cents/word for anything. Today, friends and I got an offer from a serious client who gave a price of 4.5 cents/word. As in $0.045/word. By comparison, in the day, I charged 2 cents a word for editing well-done translations, and could get 4 cents a word for in-depth edits of more complex stuff. It is just insane. You can't really live on it unless you have a reliable stable of clients who are still paying you decent rates.
"Does anyone find their translation work meaningful?"
Again like Bugbread, most of the time no, but it does give a different, valuable perspective on companies. In my ten years translating, I only had one that was actively evil, as in they seriously went to great lengths to scam free translations out of every agency they could, while giving us stuff to translate that showed they were also actively scamming their clients, and if I said which it was, it would come as a huge surprise to people. (Can't. For several reasons, heh.) Other companies with much less stellar reputations were really doing what they could so that things went well for as many people as possible, clients included. I switched into another profession 10 years ago, and that experience and knowledge has been invaluable in how I approach my career. It has really given me a leg up, because I trust management first (unless given clear, factual, undeniable evidence that convinces me not to, which is rare), and am very careful investigating things before starting to ask questions or raise alerts. I can't say how many times this has saved me.
I've been lucky enough to do a lot of work that's meaningful in translation. I'm something of an idealist and actively went for idealistic translation agencies, plus my work was excellent, so it meant I did some things I am very proud of. But can't share because of non-disclosure agreements :) Still, yes, it does make a difference. I'm doing meaningful work in my new career too. A lot of it is tied to being something of a unicorn, though I do know about three other unicorns. Ceux qui se ressemblent, s'assemblent. ("Birds of a feather flock together.")
Did you all pass some sort of exam or do people just trust you when you say you're a translator?
Excellent rule of thumb to keep: if anyone trusts you just because you say you're a translator, don't work for them. On the other hand, also don't trust clients who send you more than a paragraph or two of unpaid test work (if they pay for it, it's a different story, that would be a good sign). You want clients who ask you to prove your stuff. If you're a beginning translator, that will mean showing you have university-level language education, experience in the fields you want to translate, and doing a translation test. If you're an experienced translator, it's a mix of your resumé/CV, word-of-mouth (this can be VERY strong depending on your language pair), examples you can share, and translation tests.
On the note of word-of-mouth: do everything you can to meet deadlines and deliver good work. I was a freelance editor for a top agency for a while, and we discussed the pool of freelance translators regularly. We knew who had a tendency to forget their work a day or two before holidays, who never sent in anything on time, who made certain types of grammatical errors, who said they were good at [subject] but weren't, etc. and so forth. People who could do what they said, and consistently delivered good work, on time, were more rare than you'd think, and they got the most work, at the best rates.
posted by fraula at 8:20 AM on May 15, 2015
"Does anyone find their translation work meaningful?"
Again like Bugbread, most of the time no, but it does give a different, valuable perspective on companies. In my ten years translating, I only had one that was actively evil, as in they seriously went to great lengths to scam free translations out of every agency they could, while giving us stuff to translate that showed they were also actively scamming their clients, and if I said which it was, it would come as a huge surprise to people. (Can't. For several reasons, heh.) Other companies with much less stellar reputations were really doing what they could so that things went well for as many people as possible, clients included. I switched into another profession 10 years ago, and that experience and knowledge has been invaluable in how I approach my career. It has really given me a leg up, because I trust management first (unless given clear, factual, undeniable evidence that convinces me not to, which is rare), and am very careful investigating things before starting to ask questions or raise alerts. I can't say how many times this has saved me.
I've been lucky enough to do a lot of work that's meaningful in translation. I'm something of an idealist and actively went for idealistic translation agencies, plus my work was excellent, so it meant I did some things I am very proud of. But can't share because of non-disclosure agreements :) Still, yes, it does make a difference. I'm doing meaningful work in my new career too. A lot of it is tied to being something of a unicorn, though I do know about three other unicorns. Ceux qui se ressemblent, s'assemblent. ("Birds of a feather flock together.")
Did you all pass some sort of exam or do people just trust you when you say you're a translator?
Excellent rule of thumb to keep: if anyone trusts you just because you say you're a translator, don't work for them. On the other hand, also don't trust clients who send you more than a paragraph or two of unpaid test work (if they pay for it, it's a different story, that would be a good sign). You want clients who ask you to prove your stuff. If you're a beginning translator, that will mean showing you have university-level language education, experience in the fields you want to translate, and doing a translation test. If you're an experienced translator, it's a mix of your resumé/CV, word-of-mouth (this can be VERY strong depending on your language pair), examples you can share, and translation tests.
On the note of word-of-mouth: do everything you can to meet deadlines and deliver good work. I was a freelance editor for a top agency for a while, and we discussed the pool of freelance translators regularly. We knew who had a tendency to forget their work a day or two before holidays, who never sent in anything on time, who made certain types of grammatical errors, who said they were good at [subject] but weren't, etc. and so forth. People who could do what they said, and consistently delivered good work, on time, were more rare than you'd think, and they got the most work, at the best rates.
posted by fraula at 8:20 AM on May 15, 2015
This thread is closed to new comments.
With translation, I might ask: Is the work one would find in translation limited to giant money-oriented corporations/people? Is there work translating for everyday people with everyday needs?
posted by aniola at 10:54 AM on May 14, 2015