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Originally Posted by Shaelyn
couple of questions -
1. what is the demand for translators for the boring stuff, manuals and whatnot?
2. do you guys know what sort of company would like multi-lingual people? I had learned french in HS, but I'm way out of shape on that...I was thinking about brushing up on it and then taking some more classes. would that help me get into the field at all?
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I've been doing a lot of research for translating/interpreting positions (Chinese-English though, not French), and there are websites where people post "translator wanted" ads. If you google it you'll find them. Might help you get some idea of how great the demand is. You can also look into government positions that require fluency in a foreign language. For example, the Foreign Service Officer positions that come through the U.S. Department of State is one option available to people who are multilingual. If you want to work in U.S. embassies abroad you first have to become a Foreign Service Officer. For this kind of work you need to go through a battery of tests, past background checks and be able to have top secret clearance. Check out
www.usajobs.com as well, it's the U.S. federal government's website for job openings. The U.S. government also has listings of "high need" languages, but I don't think French is one of them. Languages like Arabic, as well as other Middle Eastern languages, and Chinese are the sorts of languages that are classified as "high need."
If you're interested in being an interpreter, you could look into court interpreting. This kind of work is much more demanding than translating. You have to have an extremely high level of fluency, and will also need to learn legal and medical jargon, as well as technical language from other fields (whatever is being used in the courtroom during the case you're interpreting for). It's usually part-time work, working on a "as needed" basis. You're also required to pass the Court Interpreters Exam for whatever state it is you plan to work in. There are actually a lot of hoops you need to jump through to be a court interpreter, but a degree isn't required. People I've contacted about these kind of positions all said that translating and interpreting are different skill sets. People who are good translators aren't necessarily good interpreters, and vice versa.
If all you have is a high level of French, you're probably going to need to do a lot of extra study before you'll be ready to translate, simply to be competitive in the job market if nothing else. If you don't study French in college, or go and live in the country for a few years, your level of French probably isn't going to be high enough for translating either. Also, most countries have an internationally recognized proficiency test that you should consider taking if you're serious about this. You would need to score high on that test and show it to prospective clients, especially if you don't have a degree in the field.
A lot of people who get into this kind of work have a minimum of a Masters Degree. However, the more challenging the language, which means a smaller percentage of people that are able to master it, increases the demand and can in some cases eliminate the need for a high level degree in the subject. But wanting to translate from a language like French, which actually is quite similar to English (compared to Asian languages) will probably mean that you'll need to get at least a Master's degree in the field.
I have friends who translate classical Chinese poetry as well a Buddhist texts from Chinese into English, and they've told me how hard it is to break into the field (in terms of being published). One ugly truth about translating material other than technical manuals is that you have the academic community to deal with, i.e. the university professors and people holding PhD.s in the field. A friend of mine has established himself as a translator despite having only a Bachelors degree, but then again he's been at it a long time. He is also ignored by the academic community, and is seen as a translator for "practitioners," meaning fellow Buddhists, and not "scholars." Academics probably won't take you seriously if you don't have a level of education equal to their own. Experience in translating can help overcome these obstacles, but getting published isn't that easy, especially if you don't have a high level of education in the field. Anyway, I say all this as food for thought for people considering being translators, and it applies to everyone, regardless of the languages you speak.