Not so long ago I received an e-mail asking for some advice and it just got me thinking about the
challenges facing new translators making that jump from student to
professional. The enquiry was along the following lines:
I’m a second year student studying German and
Spanish and hope to work in translation once I graduate. Do you have any advice
on summer jobs or work placements that would help me to improve translation
skills before I head off on my year abroad?
To be honest,
while this student might have expected some information about possible
translation opportunities, my advice was that he should spend the summer
working in a non-translation environment and although that might sound strange,
here's my reasoning.
At this stage
students don’t need to focus so much on language skills. During the year abroad
students develop their language skills more than they can ever imagine possible,
so over the summer it’s enough to keep up their language skills by reading,
watching and listening to stuff in their foreign languages – and by the end of
second year they should be doing that anyway!
Neither do they need to worry about their translation skills. During their 3rd and 4th years their translation technique will get better anyway, helped along by peers and tutors - especially if they do translation classes at university during their 3rd year abroad, because many European T&I courses have a different focus from that of Heriot Watt and they'll have the chance to learn heaps of great stuff related to different translation styles, CAT tools, linguistics and so on.
BUT if they want to work professionally in translation when they graduate they need to specialise! Freelance translators get work because they are subject specialists - they are technical translators or legal translators or specialise in marketing or biotechnology etc. The biggest challenge after leaving university is that students are language specialists but unless they have come from a previous career or have studied another subject in depth, they're not subject specialists, and that’s what makes the transition from student to professional difficult.
Neither do they need to worry about their translation skills. During their 3rd and 4th years their translation technique will get better anyway, helped along by peers and tutors - especially if they do translation classes at university during their 3rd year abroad, because many European T&I courses have a different focus from that of Heriot Watt and they'll have the chance to learn heaps of great stuff related to different translation styles, CAT tools, linguistics and so on.
BUT if they want to work professionally in translation when they graduate they need to specialise! Freelance translators get work because they are subject specialists - they are technical translators or legal translators or specialise in marketing or biotechnology etc. The biggest challenge after leaving university is that students are language specialists but unless they have come from a previous career or have studied another subject in depth, they're not subject specialists, and that’s what makes the transition from student to professional difficult.
That doesn't
mean they need to be a technician or a lawyer or a biochemist but it does mean they
need to know about their chosen speciality - and that's where the summer job
comes in! So students who want to work as translators should start to think
about the type of translation that might interest them professionally (their
specialist subject) and try and get a summer job in that area so that they can
start to build up their specialist knowledge. (The process never really stops
for the professional translator.)
So for
example, if you want to get into technical translation, a summer job working in
an engineering firm's office would be a bonus. It might not have the same
allure as teaching kids at summer camp in the south of France. While it might
seem that you’re wasting the summer making tea and photocopying, you are actually
learning industry-related terminology, finding out how the industry works, who your
clients might be, what sort of documents they might need to translate, you’re learning
about document types, genres and linguistic style, you’re creating networking
opportunities - exactly the things you'll need when working professionally.
For students
in today’s economic climate career planning has to start early, and being a
passionate linguist is only half the battle. You need to take practical steps
that will make you stand out from the crowd so that you are the freelancer of
choice for a particular translation job. Developing a translation specialism is
a step in the right direction and getting the right summer job is a good way to
achieve this.
(This blog post was recently posted on Heriot Watt University's lifeinlincs blog.)