translation work (freelance)

80schild

Hi was wondering if anyone could help me. My husband is bilingual (French and English-he's French) and would like to get into freelance translation. He has no experience in translation and a few companies he has tried, want 5 years of experience. He is educated to degree level in France and has lived and worked in England for 8 years so has high standard of English-though I think he is looking at English to French translation rather than French to English.

Anyone know any reputable companies he might try or what might be the best route into this?

clearingout

dig around the general job websites - there are often jobs advertised for people with another language, often through agencies. It is generally accepted that you translate into your own language and out of the foreign one (so you are producing 'perfect' work with practically no margin of error, doesn't matter how good you are in the foreign language, tone, idiom, jokes...can all be very difficult to get right and you don't want to get it wrong when doing it professionally!).

Putting his CV across the HR desk of any business which works in the field your husband currently works in would be sensible - he needs to think about technical language and whether or not he could manage to translate, say, his work's policies and procedures into French without it taking him several weeks to achieve! Many translators specialise - your husband is (obviously!)fluent in every day language but when it comes to discussing why a bridge has just collapsed or what is going to happen during an operation to remove a tumor or why why a tiny bit of an airplane engine just caused it to fall out of the sky he might struggle!

There are qualifications to be had at various levels - community translating upwards to Masters level. A bit of a google should help with that.

Finally - a career change to teaching is a possibility. MFL is still a shortage area and there are bursaries and 'golden hellos' for those who qualify.

welshasiancheapskate

search INTERPRETING AND TRANSLATION AGENCIES in "your area" in the YELLOW PAGES.

CKhalvashi

Although not specifically related to what you are looking for, and one that doesn’t offer work, Interpreting for Europe may be useful for him.

The usefulness of some of the posts that come from the link is amazing!

kiwi07

clearingout wrote: »

dig around the general job websites - there are often jobs advertised for people with another language, often through agencies. It is generally accepted that you translate into your own language and out of the foreign one (so you are producing 'perfect' work with practically no margin of error, doesn't matter how good you are in the foreign language, tone, idiom, jokes...can all be very difficult to get right and you don't want to get it wrong when doing it professionally!).

Putting his CV across the HR desk of any business which works in the field your husband currently works in would be sensible - he needs to think about technical language and whether or not he could manage to translate, say, his work's policies and procedures into French without it taking him several weeks to achieve! Many translators specialise - your husband is (obviously!)fluent in every day language but when it comes to discussing why a bridge has just collapsed or what is going to happen during an operation to remove a tumor or why why a tiny bit of an airplane engine just caused it to fall out of the sky he might struggle!

There are qualifications to be had at various levels - community translating upwards to Masters level. A bit of a google should help with that.

Finally - a career change to teaching is a possibility. MFL is still a shortage area and there are bursaries and 'golden hellos' for those who qualify.

Sorry, what is MFL?

londoner01

lucky18 wrote: »

Sorry, what is MFL?

Modern foreign languages.

I would recommend Proz.com for translations and thetutorpages.com for teaching.

*onlyme*

Years ago I did translations for the airport and several police stations, but I am talking about 15 years ago. The problem is you could get a call any time of the day or night. I am not sure if this has all changed but it might be looking into it.

InsideInsurance

The challenge you have is that there are 150,000 French people registered as living in the UK plus all those not registered (there is no legal requirement for them to register) plus all those from other french speaking countries.

You are right in wanting to translate into your native language but you have a very large number of potential competitors for your service. Given you have no experience of translation work, why should they pick you over the other 150,000 frogs?

My wife is a native (latin) spanish speaker and does do a very small amount of freelance translation work but she has the software and the knowledge to both do subtitles for documentaries/ films plus being able to do more unusual dialects of a language has reduced the amount of competition.