| Pages in topic: [1 2] > |
Poll: Have you acquired a new working language pair since you began your career? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
|
|---|
This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Have you acquired a new working language pair since you began your career?".
View the poll results »
| | | |
Ty Kendall 
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:55
Hebrew to English
| No and I don't plan to | Jul 23, 2012 |
Quite happy with my source language and the status quo.
I love languages I really do, but I don't know if I have the time, energy or motivation to learn another language now, despite the fact there's one or two languages I'd love to learn.
Any free time I have I'd rather spend on expanding the depth and breadth of my source language knowledge.
| | | |
Diana Coada (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:55
Portuguese to English
+ ...
| I added a new language during my BA | Jul 23, 2012 |
but at the moment it is not one of my working languages.
Will I add it at a later date? One never knows what tomorrow brings...
| | | |
Allison Wright (X)
Portugal
Local time: 09:55
Portuguese, almost four years ago, by way of an accident of destiny. Attempting to master this fascinating language will keep me busy for a long, long time.
| | |
|
|
|
Mike Sadler (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:55
Spanish to English
+ ...
| Sadly, I've lost one | Jul 23, 2012 |
Russian.
No particular regrets over that. Things don't always go according to plan.
| | | |
| Ditched one and added half a one | Jul 23, 2012 |
Very early on I ditched German (just lost interest really) and added Danish (which is pretty much the same as Norwegian written down)
| | | |
Julian Holmes
Japan
Local time: 17:55
Member (2011)
Japanese to English
| No and no plans to, unless... | Jul 23, 2012 |
Ty Kendall wrote:
Any free time I have I'd rather spend on expanding the depth and breadth of my source language knowledge.
Yep, and learning more about technology since I translate mainly tech stuff. My one and only language pair J>E is already a handful and I have plans to delve even deeper by writing and publishing in Japanese.
However, if there was another language very similar to Japanese that I could learn overnight and that would pay double when translated, then I'd might give it a shot.
| | | |
Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 09:55
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
| Spanish? Probably not. | Jul 23, 2012 |
I moved to Spain almost 3 months ago and am learning Spanish furiously. But I'm learning from scratch and as I'm already 56 I doubt I will ever reach the proficiency required for it to be a source language. All I'm aiming for is to be able to get by here without depending on everyone speaking some English or French.
| | |
|
|
|
I'd love to have French as a source language - but the O level French I learnt at school just won't do, and at age 50, with not a lot of free time (i.e. none), I can't see how to improve. The bits and pieces of free time that I do have I try and spend improving my source language, reading the newspaper basically and - my new tip for improving my Portuguese - reading Teen Fiction!!! It's fab and fast to read, and FULL of gripping plot details! Right up my street!!
I have an agency wh... See more I'd love to have French as a source language - but the O level French I learnt at school just won't do, and at age 50, with not a lot of free time (i.e. none), I can't see how to improve. The bits and pieces of free time that I do have I try and spend improving my source language, reading the newspaper basically and - my new tip for improving my Portuguese - reading Teen Fiction!!! It's fab and fast to read, and FULL of gripping plot details! Right up my street!!
I have an agency who always sends their initial email for a job in French, and how I long to be able to reply in French too. Sadly, it is but a dream......... ▲ Collapse
| | | |
Michael Harris
Germany
Local time: 10:55
Member (2006)
German to English
Ty Kendall wrote:
Quite happy with my source language and the status quo.
I love languages I really do, but I don't know if I have the time, energy or motivation to learn another language now, despite the fact there's one or two languages I'd love to learn.
Any free time I have I'd rather spend on expanding the depth and breadth of my source language knowledge.
And I must also admit that I have a workload of 120% and would only find it usful learning another language if you were to go to live in another country or had a lot to do with that culture
| | | |
Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:55
Hebrew to English
| I do this too | Jul 23, 2012 |
Filipa Plant dos Santos wrote:
my new tip for improving my Portuguese - reading Teen Fiction!!! It's fab and fast to read, and FULL of gripping plot details! Right up my street!!
I read some teen (young-adult) fiction in Hebrew occasionally. I find the language more creative and interesting than bog-standard adult themed literature....which sometimes tries too hard to be deep or clever (and fails miserably).
I also read books for very young children, the language is very low level naturally (simple sentences, vocalized text) but it's such a rich source of flowery and poetic language/vocabulary that you just can't find anywhere else in mass-market media (except in song lyrics perhaps).
| | | |
WiebkeN (X)
Germany
Local time: 10:55
| French and Italian | Jul 23, 2012 |
I had been working in the language pair English-German for five years before I decided to prepare for the French exam. I am quite happy to work in three language pairs and I am thinking about adding a fourth.
[Edited at 2012-07-23 18:25 GMT]
[Edited at 2012-07-23 18:25 GMT]
| | |
|
|
|
P.L.F. Persio
Netherlands
Local time: 10:55
Member (2010)
English to Italian
+ ...
| One added, Dutch | Jul 23, 2012 |
Ty Kendall wrote: Filipa Plant dos Santos wrote:
my new tip for improving my Portuguese - reading Teen Fiction!!! It's fab and fast to read, and FULL of gripping plot details! Right up my street!! I read some teen (young-adult) fiction in Hebrew occasionally. I find the language more creative and interesting than bog-standard adult themed literature....which sometimes tries too hard to be deep or clever (and fails miserably). I also read books for very young children, the language is very low level naturally (simple sentences, vocalized text) but it's such a rich source of flowery and poetic language/vocabulary that you just can't find anywhere else in mass-market media (except in song lyrics perhaps).
In 2003, I started learning Dutch, as we wanted to emigrate to the Netherlands. Two years later, we moved here and, in 2006, a very brave Dutch client started sending me Dutch texts for translation. It went pretty well: she's still my client and Dutch currently makes up more than 50% of my workload.
And for that, I have to thank - amongst others - Annie MG Schmidt, a wonderful author, and her Jip en Janneke books, and the translators who work on the subtitling for South Park.
| | | |
Louise Souter (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:55
Spanish to English
+ ...
| I would love to add Portuguese, but I will see what happens | Jul 23, 2012 |
I only started learning it last October so I am a long way from even thinking about adding it as a source language but it might happen.
| | | |
| working towards it | Jul 23, 2012 |
I'm not sure that I specifically intend to translate from either of the other two languages I expect to learn, but if I plan to speak them well enough to generally communicate, and to do so effectively in my area of specialization, then I might just end up doing some translation as well.
In fact, that's the current dilemma ... which language to immerse myself in right now, Spanish or Chinese?
[Edited at 2012-07-23 16:05 GMT]
| | | |
| Pages in topic: [1 2] > |
Login to reply/comment 
