| Páginas no tópico: < [1 2] | Poll: How did you become a translator? Tópico cartaz: ProZ.com Staff
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Kathryn Litherland 
Estados Unidos
Local time: 23:15
Membro (2007)
espanhol para inglês
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| needed work, by chance fluent in a language, chose to pursue translation! | Oct 21, 2008 |
I found myself last year in a position where I needed to either find another in-house editing job (or something similar) or pursue a freelance career. I chose freelance and soon branched out into translation, but it is probably rather by chance that I happened to be fluent in Spanish and even had that as an option.
Now the question of how I came to speak Spanish is a really random occurrence--I was enrolling for classes as an anthropology major my first year at university and wante... See more I found myself last year in a position where I needed to either find another in-house editing job (or something similar) or pursue a freelance career. I chose freelance and soon branched out into translation, but it is probably rather by chance that I happened to be fluent in Spanish and even had that as an option.
Now the question of how I came to speak Spanish is a really random occurrence--I was enrolling for classes as an anthropology major my first year at university and wanted to take a "field language." (I'd studied nothing other than two years of French in HS--now is the point where you make fun of provincial 'mericuns and their pathetic language training.) I rather wanted to take Swahili, but it conflicted with another class I really wanted to take, so I chose Quechua instead (and studied Quechua for a few years before I received any formal training in Spanish, though I can barely speak it at a level past "imaynalla kashanki, walleqlla, qanri?"). I fell in love with the Andes, eventually fell in love with a Bolivian whom I married, and the rest...as they say.... ▲ Collapse
| | | | Fabio Descalzi
Uruguai
Local time: 00:15
Membro (2004)
alemão para espanhol
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| Practising a profession in two languages | Oct 21, 2008 |
The new millennium started out at full speed for me: father of Natalia, and working for a German building contractor that wanted to implement knowhow in South America.
In the mid of professional work I felt: "Wow, the part I most like of it all is... being the one that knows both languages".
Some years after that, Internet and ProZ did the rest - and now Natalia knows and understands very well what dad does "all the day sitting in front of the PC" ... See more The new millennium started out at full speed for me: father of Natalia, and working for a German building contractor that wanted to implement knowhow in South America.
In the mid of professional work I felt: "Wow, the part I most like of it all is... being the one that knows both languages".
Some years after that, Internet and ProZ did the rest - and now Natalia knows and understands very well what dad does "all the day sitting in front of the PC" ▲ Collapse
| | | | Marlene Blanshay
Canadá
Local time: 23:15
Membro (2009)
francês para inglês
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| just part of the language game | Oct 21, 2008 |
I worked as a journalist for years in a bilingual environment, and discovered that I was good at translating as well. I'd never really considered it seriously because I thought you had to be accredited. A woman I worked with told me she wasn't accredited but also worked as a translator. I started looking into translation as well as writing but found that I got more translation jobs than writing jobs, and that I liked doing it!
| | | | Christine Andersen
Dinamarca
Local time: 05:15
Membro (2003)
dinamarquês para inglês
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| All of the above... | Oct 22, 2008 |
My father translated among many other things. He loved it, and we were always conscious of language in my childhood homes in Bombay as it was then, and Pune. We spoke UK-English among Indians, Americans, Australians - and those were just the ones I understood!
At school in the UK I loved French, struggled with Latin or the teacher, enjoyed the challenge of German, and tried hard to pick up a Northumbrian burr... but I wanted to read medicine. For better or worse, I did not get into ... See more My father translated among many other things. He loved it, and we were always conscious of language in my childhood homes in Bombay as it was then, and Pune. We spoke UK-English among Indians, Americans, Australians - and those were just the ones I understood!
At school in the UK I loved French, struggled with Latin or the teacher, enjoyed the challenge of German, and tried hard to pick up a Northumbrian burr... but I wanted to read medicine. For better or worse, I did not get into medical school, so I trained as a technical librarian and ended up married to a Dane and living in Denmark.
For the next twenty years I toyed with translating (unpaid), and unskilled jobs, taking a Danish education at night school and in my spare time.
Finally, when I was really about to give up, I found an agency looking for a UK native translator...
I was furious when the director called me on a Friday evening after the interview. I was so used to being turned down for jobs, and I wanted to keep on hoping over the weekend! It took quite some time before he convinced me that he actually wanted to offer me the job!
I still had a lot to learn and needed support to build up my self confidence, but I knew from day one that I had finally ended up on the right shelf as the Danes put it. The company went through an economical crisis and dismissed most of its in-house translators, but it picked up again and is still one of my major clients. ▲ Collapse
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John Cutler
Espanha
Local time: 05:15
espanhol para inglês
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| Right place, right time | Oct 22, 2008 |
Pretty much by chance.
I was a TEFL teacher and not particularly happy with dealing with lazy, unmotivated, resentful students (resentful because the majority had to learn English for professional purposes, not because they truly wanted to.)
I had also made the effort to learn Catalan in addition to Spanish, which not that many foreigners did 20 years ago.
When people heard me speaking Catalan, they started asking me if I could translate different documents... See more Pretty much by chance.
I was a TEFL teacher and not particularly happy with dealing with lazy, unmotivated, resentful students (resentful because the majority had to learn English for professional purposes, not because they truly wanted to.)
I had also made the effort to learn Catalan in addition to Spanish, which not that many foreigners did 20 years ago.
When people heard me speaking Catalan, they started asking me if I could translate different documents and eventually one thing lead to another and I was able to leave teaching behind and work fulltime as a translator.
It was really a matter of having a natural ability with languages and being in the right place at the right time. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Rolf Kern
Suíça
Local time: 05:15
inglês para alemão
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In memoriam
I was an engineer in an english speaking (Canadian) company in Switzerland and was asked by a friend of mine who worked with a Swiss company representing an US company to do an Englisch-German translation of a one-page leaflet. That was the start.
| | | | Williamson
Reino Unido
Local time: 04:15
flamengo para inglês
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| By birth and chance | Oct 22, 2008 |
Being born in Belgium ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/999709.stm ), means that you are faced with the linguistic intricacies of the country. Whether you like it or not, the other national language always lures around the coner. My first girl-friend was a Walloon girl from Lasne (near Waterloo), who went for a weekend in Knokke LeZoute. (Belgian elitist part of an elitist seaside resort, where at the ti... See more Being born in Belgium ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/999709.stm ), means that you are faced with the linguistic intricacies of the country. Whether you like it or not, the other national language always lures around the coner. My first girl-friend was a Walloon girl from Lasne (near Waterloo), who went for a weekend in Knokke LeZoute. (Belgian elitist part of an elitist seaside resort, where at the time most of its inhabitants spoke French).
At age 20, I had to decide what to study: law or go for translator's degree.
A slick talking director of an institute for translators and interpreters lured me into his school with the argument that their graduates worked at the E.U. The buildings of the E.U. were just around the corner. A traditional argument to lure youngsters into translator schools. Interesting prospective, but...
Only to find out that at graduation that thousands with degrees of all kinds participated in the preselection tests which had nothing to do with translation and only to find out that if you want to be a lawyer-linguist (E.U. nationality required) at the European Court, you needed a degree in law. One the one hand, a degree in translation is useful is you want to learn how to master a language upto a certain level, on the other, outside some Belgian and international institutions, it is a worthless piece of paper and unlike commercial engineer certainly not a basis for a career.
[Edited at 2008-10-22 08:14] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Pure choice since I was a teenager | Oct 22, 2008 |
18-year-olds in Greece are faced with the nightmare of really hard University admission exams, in which they have to prove expert knowledge in several fields (physics, maths, chemistry, ancient Greek, to mention just a few). I liked many things, ok, but nothing so much as to consider that I stood a high chance of doing well enough to be accepted, in the first place, and to do it forever, too. But one thing I was really good at, was languages, so I went for the one university that only demanded e... See more 18-year-olds in Greece are faced with the nightmare of really hard University admission exams, in which they have to prove expert knowledge in several fields (physics, maths, chemistry, ancient Greek, to mention just a few). I liked many things, ok, but nothing so much as to consider that I stood a high chance of doing well enough to be accepted, in the first place, and to do it forever, too. But one thing I was really good at, was languages, so I went for the one university that only demanded exams in languages and whose curriculum combined such a large variety of subjects that students were bound not to get bored. This means that if I hadn't got admitted in the translation university, I wouldn't have gone to any other university, because I simply hadn't applied to any other university! So, that gave me five great years studying translation...
I have been working as a freelancer long before my graduation. I have also done a few other jobs on the side, like secretary, hotel assistant, EFL teacher. Well, they were all terrible! I still have a part-time job as an EFL teacher, purely for personal reasons, but I have promised myself that it's going to be the last year that I do this. I simply feel that this job (like any other job, I think) is stealing from me the energy and time I could put into translation, and, of course, the little free time that I would otherwise have. ▲ Collapse
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| A combination of choice and chance | Oct 23, 2008 |
Shortly after earning my B.S.L. from Georgetown University, having majored in Spanish/Portuguese while work-studying my way through, an opportunity arose to apply for a job as English editor in the secretariat of the Organization of American States, and I was selected. It turned out that the job involved more translating than editing, and that was the beginning of my slippery slide...
| | | | Louise Souter (X)
Reino Unido
Local time: 04:15
espanhol para inglês
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| A question for Neilmac | Oct 25, 2008 |
neilmac wrote:
... after several years doing TEFLA, when I found myself growing dissatisfied with the overall lack of visible results in teaching and increasingly enjoying translating the texts I received from my students or their acquaintances. I (very) occasionally still do some coaching or specific training, but 99% of my work now is translating or interpreting. The freedom being my own boss, with a flexible schedule and not having to drag myself out of bed on cold, wet or dark mornings to make my way through perilous traffic to some poky office makes it all worthwhile - and I earn more, and more regularly, than in TEFL.
After 1 year of TEFL in Spain I am already bored. How exactly did you make the transition from teacher to full-time translator?
| | | | Yamato (X)
Bulgária
Local time: 06:15
russo para espanhol
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I wanted to study Russian, and I discovered I could do it, and have a degree at the same time, studying translation in Barcelona...
Up to that time I had been meaning to study physics or something, but then, all of a sudden, I discovered how much I liked translation.... or, in other words, I started suffering Stockholm's sindrome about translation.
And I still suffer it, so I'm pretty happy!
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