Williamson United Kingdom Local time: 08:24 Flemish to English + ...
In English
Feb 10
@bernd--Well, if you prefer English, I'll answer in English. Note that unless I work together with a native, I don't translate into German. I just took the trouble to answer in the language of the forum.
To summarize my main point: What do you have to sell/offer to get a good price for your service?
Linguistic skills or engineering skills or both?
It is normal that on a forum for translators, translation is glorified as the best profession in the world. Being free to work long hours for peanuts, give reductions and so on.
Where can you make a career with languages? At international institutions, where you only will get a foot between the door if you succeed in one of their open competitions. For the major languages, these competitions attract big crowds of candidates. However, there are only a very limited number of places. Only for niche languages and competitions which takes place every 10 years, such as interpreter with Estonian as A-language at the E.U. the number of candidates is limited and the number of successful candidates is even more limited.
For those who want to give it a try on the normal job-market, where you have 9-5 freelance jobs paid at +50 euros per hours, language skills alone do not suffice.
As a youngster, who wanted to go into another direction, away from this translation jungle, I would most certainly apply at the Big 5 Consulting firms (Ernst&Young, Accenture, Kpmg, Deloitte, McKinsey) even if I earned a bit less. As couple of years a such a consulting firm is a good reference on your CV and your added market-value increases considerably. However, I am afraid that if you apply with a translator degree, your chances of getting a job at such a firm are more limited than those who studied ITC, law, (applied) economics, engineering,....
As I got it, the poster wanted to know if she should pursue an additional education or steer away from translation (nitpicking about mistakes which nobody else cares about) all together.
My point of view : how much is +50 euros *8 hours*5(days)*20 working days a month as a freelance ITC-contractor on a yearly renewable contract at a major German bank and how much work/time must a translator spend to earn the same sum? Up to the poster to decide where she wants to go in life.
[Edited at 2012-02-10 14:49 GMT]
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Bernd Müller Germany Local time: 09:24 German to Romanian + ...
Thanks, Williamson, for these more detailled informations!
Feb 11
For the beginning- please excuse me- I'm not at all used to write in EN!
Now I vcan understand all you've written- and really, I must agree Marcus' opinion, I think that there are very useful informations for young people.
I see, also, at you the same as at me: it seems to be much easier to planify a life when you're a little- or more- elder, that in the youth. Youngsters have an wholly other way to look at life, to think about plannifying or not- in most of cases!
Have a nice weekend!
[Bearbeitet am 2012-02-11 12:23 GMT]
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