Take a look at this legal paragraph for a second and you’ll see (I just plucked it randomly off the internet): If you don’t have some kind of background (either academic or work experience) in the stuff you’re being asked to translate then it’s a good idea to leave it alone. You should only translate content that you have some expertise in There were of course some extra difficulties for me as a speaker of a colloquial Arabic dialect that’s almost never written as I had to invest a bit more time into studying Modern Standard Arabic which in many ways is like a completely separate language.Īs a side note, for anyone considering Arabic translation I can’t recommend enough the book Thinking Arabic Translation – A Course in Translation Method: Arabic to English (James Dickins). Translators are excellent writers first and foremost! While it definitely requires that you have a very advanced level in the language to really capture the nuance of what’s being said in a text, the real skill of a translator is not just in how well they know a language. The point about only translating into your native language is a crucial one – no matter how fluent you are in another language you’ll always make errors if you try translating into it. I was attracted to her lifestyle more than anything and the fact that she could set her own prices and her own schedule, as well being able to take her work anywhere she wanted. Just having a friendly chat with this girl opened my eyes to the fact that translators work from a language that they’re not native in (in my case Arabic) into their mother tongue and not vice-versa. I was in a coffee shop years ago and I started chatting with a translator who ran her own business in French translation (I think she’d set up her “office” in the corner of the cafe).Īt that stage I was already conversationally fluent in Egyptian Arabic and people were always saying to me, “Why don’t you use your Arabic skills to earn some money?” but I had never considered freelance translation as an option because I didn’t fully understand what the job involved. □ At what point did I decide I wanted to do translation work? ![]() ![]() Since I get questions about translation work from time to time I thought it would be a good idea to respond to some of it here. I’ve been fortunate enough to get quite a bit of translation work lately while I’m waiting for my visa to come through for my next big move (it’s been a frustrating wait dealing with annoying red tape since it’s one of the hardest countries in the world to visit but hopefully I won’t have to wait much longer!). However, I also have a few online projects that keep me afloat at times when I’m not teaching – one of which is translation work ( Arabic to English). It also gets me in a social environment every day where I can meet native speakers and most jobs tend to offer accommodation, airfares and medical insurance which makes life a lot easier! I don’t do this because I consider ESL teaching to be a great career choice (on the contrary!) but rather because it provides me with a consistent source of income while I’m away. Update: If you’re really serious about wanting to be a freelance translator then I highly recommend a book like The Translator Training Textbook by Adriana Tassini.Īs many of you know, when I travel and live in a foreign country to learn the local language I usually support myself by teaching English.
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