A lot of aspiring translators email me and ask me, “How did you get your start in translation?” or “How did you get your first translation job?”
It’s a smart question to ask. I’m sure they’re hoping the answer will give them a hint for getting their own start as translators, and with someone else, that might be true. But I’m afraid that my answer is just about the least useful one you’ll ever hear!
Nonetheless, to satisfy this curiosity if nothing else, I give you…
This is definitely the #1 most frequent question I get asked by young aspiring translators, so the only reason it wasn’t #1 in my FAQ series is that I’ve always resisted answering it. Why have I resisted answering it? The short answer is that I have no answer–I don’t know what you should major in!
The long answer is that there are all kinds of pros & cons to different majors, and lots of different ways of looking at this decision. After another recent flood of emails about it, I think it’s finally time for me to attempt the long answer. Aspiring translators, I hope this helps. Existing translators, please feel free to add your own thoughts (or refute mine)!
Here we go…
In my previous post, FAQ #3: Did Your Bryn Mawr Education Prepare You For Your Career?, I discussed how a liberal arts education prepared me for a career as a translator. My colleague Frode Aleksandersen, an English/Danish/Swedish/Japanese to Norwegian translator who specializes in technical translation, checked in with me afterwards to offer a contrasting perspective. Since … Read more
Another FAQ!
Much as I love my alma mater, the question “Did your Bryn Mawr education prepare you for your career?” is, I think, actually a bigger one: “Did your liberal arts education prepare you for your career?” Because Bryn Mawr is a liberal arts school, and I think the practical usefulness of the liberal arts is what people are really getting at here.
The short answer: yep, it did.
The long answer: Here’s what a liberal arts education is, and why it’s useful to a translator’s career even though it’s by definition not career-specific.
Time for a couple more frequently asked questions! Two that I get often are about scripts for the anime shows/films that I translate. When you do an anime do they send you a script or do they send you the episode? The short answer to this one is “yes.” Or rather, yes, the licensor sends … Read more
Here’s a truth of my life: I get a lot, lot, lot of emails from aspiring translators with questions. That’s cool, in that aspiring translators should ask questions! That’s a lot of why I wrote So You Wanna Be a Translator etc., which many read before asking. But the thing is, I just can’t personally … Read more