How does one become a translator?

9 comments

1. I signed up on translator.jp and put my profile up. From there several companies contacted me. I’d take translation tests and I guess pass them. They start me off small with smaller projects, and after proving my ability I get larger projects from there.

2. Just to be clear, you are interested in document translation, not intepretation, right? Those are two different paths.

   Document translators – the vast majority of the labor pool – don’t need much. You need to be able to translate. You can sort of “hang a shingle” if you think you are qualified. To work at a company, they may screen you out if you don’t have a 4-year degree, but maybe not. My wife was a translator without a degree at a mega company.

   You can do freelance. You can do corporate -although I understand many companies use a provider to source translators – and you can make yourself available to translation companies like Lionbridge, Transperfect, etc. They’ll test you. I suppose some sort of certified scores on a test might help too. You should probably go to one of the larger company sites and check out their requirements.

3. Do you think people would pay for X years of university education if it those skills were as simple as speaking a couple of languages fluently?

   To translate, you need to be a writer. Your grammar and vocabulary need to be extremely sharp and always updated. You need to know where to search when you have doubts (surprise, when you translate most of your doubts will come from your native language). You need to be able to adapt to a different registry and different audiences constantly. This is something some people is naturally gifted to do so, in my experience that kind of people are usually avid readers and they learned through that.

   The others are people who spent those whatever years at the university writing texts all over again. You have different classes in which they teach you how to adapt to each type of translation. Usually you suck at many, you are good at a few. After training you become acceptable in mostly, and you really thrive in certain types of translations – that’s how you usually choose what type of translation you want to devote to.

   Then there is a third group of people who is quite okay at writing and have an expertise in the area they translate (engineering, legal, etc). That works fine for non-creative translation.

   In Japan, it seems very normal to hire people just because they speak two languages (I don’t want to get banned so I won’t give my opinion on that). It works to find a job here? Sure. You’ll be respected by fellow colleagues? Only if you prove yourself to be one of those rare cases of naturally gifted people who make an outstanding job.

4. Not that hard to get into. The bigger issue is that the golden years are over. There is still money to be made, but it is a career without a long-term future.

5. Decide what field you want to be in and go from there. If you want to get into manga translation, starting with technician stuff wouldn’t make much sense. The field will also determine the qualifications in most cases.

   I don’t consider it to be that cutthroat to find work, but it may be hard to find a good company/agency that understands good translation.

6. Unless you’re extremely confident in your Japanese reading comprehension and English writing ability, and you have a field of specialisation, I wouldn’t bother at this point.

   I’ve been translating for over a decade. The majority of my income is from translation and it’s been a lucrative and interesting profession. If I could, I’d do this job for the rest of my life.

   But, machine translation (MT) and AI, in general, is getting insanely good. Honestly, I’d be surprised if translation will be viable as a career in ten years. Not because AI is good enough to replace human translators yet, but because it’s getting good enough for businesses to incorporate in their workflows and then ask for discounts for “checking” MT documents. Essentially, it’s going to drive down unit prices.

   So, unless you’re already good enough to jump straight in and start translating, by the time you acquire the skills you need it may be too late, anyway.

   My advice: Don’t bother. Find a career that is human-facing, hard to automate, and that has a future.

   As for me? I’m already studying for a new career at university and I have a cushy backup job that I keep doing just in case shit hits the fan.

7. Off topic but to the translators out there in Japan: what common types of discrimination can you run into while trying to land a translation job? Age or education, for example?

8. Don’t know why OP is getting downvoted to oblivion asking for a legit career advice.

9. I think there is a certain degree of luck involved. Knowing the right people or being in the right place at the right time. Getting those first paid gigs is hard because no one trusts someone without experience…but once you do, then things get easier.

   I agree and disagree with the people who say translation won’t be a viable career 10 years from now. I think translation as we know it today will no longer be viable…but it will still be needed in some form. AI will simplify and streamline the process, but at the same time I imagine the demand for materials to be translated will also increase so translation professionals will still be needed in some capacity…it likely will not be the job it is now, though…

   I don’t know if I would start studying Japanese right now to become a translator, unless you are studying it anyway. If you already speak Japanese relatively well (doesn’t need to be perfect for written translation…looking things up is part of your work) then I wouldn’t hesitant to be on the lookout for opportunities and snatch one up if/when it arises…