As a Turkish High School student, I have a high ambition in learning languages and translation and will probably pursue Translation Studies in college. My English level is C1, and I am currently learning Japanese, but I plan to learn other languages as well. My question is that would i be able to move to japan and work as a professional translator/interpetor? (Basically is there a place for me in the market?)
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**Would I be able to go to Japan and find a professional translation job with a translation studies degree?**
As a Turkish High School student, I have a high ambition in learning languages and translation and will probably pursue Translation Studies in college. My English level is C1, and I am currently learning Japanese, but I plan to learn other languages as well. My question is that would i be able to move to japan and work as a professional translator/interpetor? (Basically is there a place for me in the market?)
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The vast majority of translator/interceptor jobs in Japan have gone to a freelance basis. This means there very, VERY few work visas bing issued for translators.
If you have already have a visa to live in Japan such as a spouse visa, there are poorly-paying freelance translator jobs.
Finding better paying translator jobs takes a lot connections and years of *nemawashi*/groundwork as well as a technical speciality. Additionally, you are not a native speaker of any of the target languages, Japanese and English, Chinese, Korean, etc.
>Basically is there a place for me in the market?
There always hope but your odds are are very poor on making it to Japan as a translator without attending a Japanese university in Japanese…and even then finding work starting out will be a painful struggle.
It’s an extremely saturated market.
If you absolutely want to pursue this line of work, you will have the best chances by reaching a fluency in Japanese likely higher than even the average Japanese person.
You might also want to focus on a specific field such as Medical translations, or Technical, or whatever that will require an advanced jargon specific to that industry.
You will be competing with native Japanese speakers who have been learning English from the time they are about 10 years old.
As someone who hires professional translators every week, I unfortunately have to tell you that your chances are effectively nonexistant.
First, like u/YuumiK mentioned: Translators are almost exclusively freelancers/contractors these days. The translators my company hires are not direct employees. They’re contractors hired on a per-project basis. And none of them work for translation companies that would offer them full time employment.
Second: You are not a native speaker of either of the two most commonly translated languages on the market (English and Japanese). When I’m hiring translators I exclusively look for people who are native speakers of either the source or target language. Usually both, because my projects require teams of translators. So I’ll hire native English speakers who are highly fluent in Japanese and also native Japanese speakers who are highly fluent in English. I would never consider hiring someone who is a non-native speaker of both.
You could, in theory, look for a job translating to/from Turkish, but… Honestly demand is going to be so low that there’s basically zero chance of there being full time positions available.
The one possible niche for you would be real-time interpretation. Raw language ability is not as critical for interpretation. What’s import is *speed* and relative accuracy. Interpretation is a ***very*** different skill set than translation. You’d still be at a disadvantage due to being a non-native speaker, but less so than for translation work.