| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | Getting Started in Financial Translation Thread poster: S_89
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Hi there,
My question is regarding the requirements for gaining work in the specialist field of financial translation?
I am a native English speaker and fluent German speaker (having spent years living and working in Germany).
I have spent several years working in a bank (mostly dealing with loans and credit cards) and attended professional development courses providing an introduction to other areas of finances, which I intend to expand on through further ... See more Hi there,
My question is regarding the requirements for gaining work in the specialist field of financial translation?
I am a native English speaker and fluent German speaker (having spent years living and working in Germany).
I have spent several years working in a bank (mostly dealing with loans and credit cards) and attended professional development courses providing an introduction to other areas of finances, which I intend to expand on through further courses in my free time.
However, I wanted to check that I am not wasting my time in pursuing this path, given that more formal education may be required to actually stand a chance of making a reliable income in this field.
So I wanted to ask if one requires formal education (i.e. a degree or more formal qualification) in finance to stand a good chance of gaining work in the field of financial translation?
Your thoughts are much appreciated.
Sarah ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:02
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| Don't bother | May 30, 2022 |
My advice to you is: don't bother wasting time and money acquiring formal qualifications. In my (long) experience, the only things that count are your proven ability and professionalism at delivering word-perfect translations, on time.
Get started now. You seem to have all the expertise required, and a niche specialism that will bring work to you. Just make sure your Proz profile is 100% complete; given time, clients will find you
[Edited at 2022-05-30 07:00 GMT... See more My advice to you is: don't bother wasting time and money acquiring formal qualifications. In my (long) experience, the only things that count are your proven ability and professionalism at delivering word-perfect translations, on time.
Get started now. You seem to have all the expertise required, and a niche specialism that will bring work to you. Just make sure your Proz profile is 100% complete; given time, clients will find you
[Edited at 2022-05-30 07:00 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Miranda Drew 
Italy
Local time: 18:02
Member (2009)
Italian to English
| Just a warning | May 30, 2022 |
I agree that you don't necessary need specific qualifications. Just want to warn you that financial translation is one of the fields that is seeing the most use of MT. So be prepared to do a lot of post-editing in your future.
| | | | | Some suggestions | May 30, 2022 |
I would agree that long professional experience in banking combined with years living in Germany may well count for more in the translation marketplace than academic qualifications. Most translators don't start out with a degree in their specialism so it should be possible to get started with what you have and then assess whether you need more training/qualifications in particular areas.
If you are considering a translation qualification, maybe the DipTrans would be something to thi... See more I would agree that long professional experience in banking combined with years living in Germany may well count for more in the translation marketplace than academic qualifications. Most translators don't start out with a degree in their specialism so it should be possible to get started with what you have and then assess whether you need more training/qualifications in particular areas.
If you are considering a translation qualification, maybe the DipTrans would be something to think about (https://www.ciol.org.uk/diptrans).
Also, the ITI runs getting started courses that may interest you (https://www.iti.org.uk/discover/learn-and-develop/training/starting-work-translator-interpreter.html).
Make sure you have some savings as a buffer while you look for work initially - it can take time to get established and you will need to spend money before you start earning. ▲ Collapse
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But your proven hands on experience in the banking sector will stand you in good stead if you can showcase it. You have absolutely nothing in your About me section. Do put all this in that part so clients and agencies will be able to find you plus choose key words carefully for the bottom part. Clients and agencies prefer someone who knows what s/he is talking about.
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:02
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Be of good courage | May 30, 2022 |
I would disagree slightly with Miranda here, possibly because I am working in a different language pair. Certainly, there is a good deal of boilerplate text in finance, and therefore it is unusual for me to get a long run of contiguous text to translate.
My clients go through the documents beforehand and identify repetitions and fuzzy matches before I get the project. So use of a CAT tool is a must and maybe, in future, machine translation as well. None of my clients use MT at the m... See more I would disagree slightly with Miranda here, possibly because I am working in a different language pair. Certainly, there is a good deal of boilerplate text in finance, and therefore it is unusual for me to get a long run of contiguous text to translate.
My clients go through the documents beforehand and identify repetitions and fuzzy matches before I get the project. So use of a CAT tool is a must and maybe, in future, machine translation as well. None of my clients use MT at the moment, despite copious experimentation, but it might improve. Nevertheless, to an extent I'm already post-editing CAT-centric translations.
On the other hand, I argue that the likelihood that any given document will be allocated to a human translator with a high level of competence and/or a high level of domain-specific knowledge increases proportionately with the seriousness of the consequences in the event that the translator gets it wrong.
Think about it: if somebody makes a mistake translating the menu for a family restaurant in a little Bavarian town that has the occasional English-speaking guest, the consequences are hardly going to be severe. If somebody makes a mistake translating the annual report of a major listed company, the consequences for their public image and other aspects of the business could be considerable.
This is not unique to finance, of course, but it is perhaps uniquely public; the content of medical and legal documents is seldom seen by those not directly involved. Large organizations, whether in the private or the public sector, don't like getting egg on their faces. Ceteris paribus, that should make them more likely to cough up for a decent translator.
The other nice thing about the documents that are the source of financial translation is that much of it is mandated by regulatory requirements, so most of the time it is not what you could call discretionary spending. As translators who specialized in areas such as tourism have found, a nice holiday is not actually a necessity, and spending can and will be reduced in time of need. I do get seasonal peaks and troughs, but the secular trend is one of steady growth in the number of documents that could need to be translated. In a world where corporations are facing increasingly stringent oversight, I don't expect that to change any time soon.
I agree with Tom that formal qualifications are not necessary. Obviously I'm talking my own book here, given that I entered the sector without any such credentials and have relied entirely on my industry-specific knowledge but it has evidently been enough. Other people who have taken the academic route will argue strenuously for the virtues of formal study. By all means consider their arguments, but note that those involved in the industry of academic translation have their own axes to grind.
Another point I want to emphasize is the importance of being able to write well in English, and I don't just mean without spelling mistakes or obvious grammatical errors. I wrote professionally (and was edited professionally) for many years before I started translating in earnest, and I still learned a lot about how little I knew about my own language.
There are many aspects of the language that even competent native writers of English understand intuitively but cannot articulate. It is only when you have to explain to a stubborn client why their proposed "correction" is wrong that you realize that, for example, adjectival order is quite complex. In retrospect, the best use of my money when I started out would have been to find a course on the finer points of written English. I could have learned in a couple of weeks what took me months to figure out.
Also - and we are veering away from the subject of financial translation here - if you want to succeed you will need to treat this for what it is: a business. Hopefully your time in the strait-laced banking industry will have given you an appreciation of the need for professionalism and respect for client confidentiality - and of the importance of being able to say "no" to a disadvantageous proposal.
But those issues have been discussed in dozens of threads in these forums, so browse through them at your leisure. I think there is a future in financial translation, but I would start as a part-timer. If you still have your day job then you will not be so desperate to take on projects with poor conditions, which in turn will mean that you have a better chance of survival over the long term.
It seems to me that most freelancers who struggle do so because they do not have the skill set / domain-specific knowledge to differentiate themselves from other translators, and thus they have little choice but to accept jobs with terrible conditions, which leads to inadequate incomes and lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth in public forums like this one.
Dan ▲ Collapse
| | | | Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 19:02
Member
English to Turkish
| Am I missing something? | May 30, 2022 |
You ask if one requires formal education (i.e. a degree or more formal qualification) in finance to stand a good chance of gaining work and also say that "I have spent several years working in a bank".
How did you manage to land a job in a bank without 'formal education' in finance?
Btw if I were you (and supposing you have sufficient experience in translating financial content) I'd try contacting banks and financial institutions and seek an in-house position rather than working wi... See more You ask if one requires formal education (i.e. a degree or more formal qualification) in finance to stand a good chance of gaining work and also say that "I have spent several years working in a bank".
How did you manage to land a job in a bank without 'formal education' in finance?
Btw if I were you (and supposing you have sufficient experience in translating financial content) I'd try contacting banks and financial institutions and seek an in-house position rather than working with translation agencies.
[Edited at 2022-05-30 09:56 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:02
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Maybe stability isn't the issue | May 30, 2022 |
Baran Keki wrote:
I'd try contacting banks and financial institutions and seek an in-house position rather than working with translation agencies.
Baran, sensible advice, but it may that working in such a firm, with its endlessly morphing rules, politics and hierarchies, is exactly the situation from which she is seeking to escape. It was for me.
Dan
[Edited at 2022-05-30 10:36 GMT]
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Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 19:02
Member
English to Turkish
Dan Lucas wrote:
Baran, sensible advice, but it may that working in such a firm, with its endlessly morphing rules, politics and hierarchies, is exactly the situation from which she is seeking to escape. It was for me.
Dan
[Edited at 2022-05-30 10:36 GMT]
It could well be true. What I actually meant was that I'd seek direct clients from that industry (freelance or otherwise, but mostly freelance if an in-house position is undesirable) rather than working with translation agencies with their fuzzy matches, TMs, MTPE jobs etc. I'm sure direct clients from the finance industry will pay a lot better rates than agencies in such an important language pair as German to English, considering her previous experience and knowledge in banking.
| | | | | Direct clients | May 30, 2022 |
Baran Keki wrote: Dan Lucas wrote:
Baran, sensible advice, but it may that working in such a firm, with its endlessly morphing rules, politics and hierarchies, is exactly the situation from which she is seeking to escape. It was for me.
Dan
[Edited at 2022-05-30 10:36 GMT] It could well be true. What I actually meant was that I'd seek direct clients from that industry (freelance or otherwise, but mostly freelance if an in-house position is undesirable) rather than working with translation agencies with their fuzzy matches, TMs, MTPE jobs etc. I'm sure direct clients from the finance industry will pay a lot better rates than agencies in such an important language pair as German to English, considering her previous experience and knowledge in banking.
Quite a few direct clients know all about fuzzy matches and TMs in my field (technical translation) and I imagine that may be the case for finance as well. Still, I do agree with you that direct clients may be a better bet than agencies if the OP is willing to put the work in to find them.
| | | | jyuan_us
United States
Local time: 12:02
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
| “Direct clients” has been mentioned a number of times | May 31, 2022 |
I know they pay much better and they might be easier to work with, so everybody loves working with them. But, is it feasible for everybody to work with direct clients? How would you get them?
| | | | Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 19:02
Member
English to Turkish
| It's not feasible for you (or me) | Jun 1, 2022 |
jyuan_us wrote:
But, is it feasible for everybody to work with direct clients? How would you get them?
If you have a certain amount of demonstrable experience and knowledge in a specific profession as in the case of the OP and want to work with Chinese clients and get paid in local currency (and doubtless based on the local living conditions), then by all means go ahead and apply to the Chinese clients (be it banks, hospitals, railroad companies, anything depending on your previous profession). I'm sure at least one of them must be looking for a reliable English to Chinese translator who is willing to work for 2 or 3 times less than what an average US translation agency is offering.
The OP is British, a native English speaker and apparently has a wealth of banking experience from her previous position, and thus she's very likely to get direct clients from the UK simply by sending in her resume.
[Edited at 2022-06-01 10:34 GMT]
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S_89
United Kingdom
TOPIC STARTER | Many thanks for all of your incredibly helpful and insightful replies | Jun 4, 2022 |
They have helped reassure me that a degree is not the only acceptable route to develop a specialism.
I've not started to translate yet but will certainly update my profile here as recommended.
| | | | S_89
United Kingdom
TOPIC STARTER | Many thanks for your advice | Jun 4, 2022 |
Baran Keki wrote:
You ask if one requires formal education (i.e. a degree or more formal qualification) in finance to stand a good chance of gaining work and also say that "I have spent several years working in a bank".
How did you manage to land a job in a bank without 'formal education' in finance?
Btw if I were you (and supposing you have sufficient experience in translating financial content) I'd try contacting banks and financial institutions and seek an in-house position rather than working with translation agencies.
[Edited at 2022-05-30 09:56 GMT]
I worked my way up from entry level positions. My degree is in politics and economics, which had some slight relevance.
I very much appreciate your perspective that it's possible gain direct clients from submitting your resume, even in the financial sector.
| | | | S_89
United Kingdom
TOPIC STARTER | Thank you for the reply and your helpful overview of financial translation as it currently stands | Jun 4, 2022 |
Dan Lucas wrote: Baran Keki wrote:
I'd try contacting banks and financial institutions and seek an in-house position rather than working with translation agencies. Baran, sensible advice, but it may that working in such a firm, with its endlessly morphing rules, politics and hierarchies, is exactly the situation from which she is seeking to escape. It was for me. Dan [Edited at 2022-05-30 10:36 GMT]
Yes, I am looking to move away from banking and ideally in a direction that allows more flexibility, while allowing me to still apply the knowledge that I've gained.
Is it your experience that financial translation is something that may be done freelance once experience is built? Or is work handled predominantly via agencies and institutions themselves?
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