Starting and specialisms
Thread poster: Bronagh McInerney
Bronagh McInerney
Bronagh McInerney  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:46
Member (2020)
Italian to English
+ ...
Nov 28, 2020

Hello I’m starting a masters degree in Translation in January my degree is in Italian and French. I’ve taught for years so education especially special needs would be an obvious specialism. I lived in Italy for years and did some freelancing but I now want to train properly and freelance. I am currently doing a copywriting course and have lots of hobbies/interests like triathlon, fell running, travel, budgeting, mindfulness, parenting but am aware that legal and financial specialisms are the... See more
Hello I’m starting a masters degree in Translation in January my degree is in Italian and French. I’ve taught for years so education especially special needs would be an obvious specialism. I lived in Italy for years and did some freelancing but I now want to train properly and freelance. I am currently doing a copywriting course and have lots of hobbies/interests like triathlon, fell running, travel, budgeting, mindfulness, parenting but am aware that legal and financial specialisms are the most widely sought in my languages. I am on the lookout for a course in these fields but can’t afford one yet. Would it be worth my while doing free online courses like Learn worlds or Pearson in the meantime? Should I look for a mentor or internship? Any tips of advice appreciated.Collapse


 
Rachel Waddington
Rachel Waddington  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:46
Dutch to English
+ ...
Specialisms, etc. Nov 29, 2020

Hi Bronagh,

I don't really know much about your fields, but my take would be that anything that people write about can be a specialism and it's not necessary for every translator to pile into the 'most sought after fields'.

If you go into legal translation you will be competing against translators who have actually practised law or who have law degrees. In your shoes I'd be looking into whether education could be viable as my main specialism and really selling that.... See more
Hi Bronagh,

I don't really know much about your fields, but my take would be that anything that people write about can be a specialism and it's not necessary for every translator to pile into the 'most sought after fields'.

If you go into legal translation you will be competing against translators who have actually practised law or who have law degrees. In your shoes I'd be looking into whether education could be viable as my main specialism and really selling that.

But, yes, free courses are absolutely worth doing, especially as you are in the process of working out what direction you want to take. At least if it isn't useful, you haven't lost anything.

I would recommend joining the ITI too, since you are in the UK, and getting involved in your local network.

Rachel
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Deborah do Carmo
Dan Lucas
Bronagh McInerney
 
Kay-Viktor Stegemann
Kay-Viktor Stegemann
Germany
Local time: 15:46
English to German
In memoriam
Know what you are talking about. Nov 29, 2020

Having a specialism (or better, "subject matter expertise") means that you need to know what you are talking (and writing) about. It means that you can completely understand source content in the special field and rewrite it in the target language. It even means that you can point out factual errors or ambiguities in the source. This kind of expertise cannot be acquired in a few online sessions. In most cases it is the result of working in the field yourself for years, and that's why this expert... See more
Having a specialism (or better, "subject matter expertise") means that you need to know what you are talking (and writing) about. It means that you can completely understand source content in the special field and rewrite it in the target language. It even means that you can point out factual errors or ambiguities in the source. This kind of expertise cannot be acquired in a few online sessions. In most cases it is the result of working in the field yourself for years, and that's why this expertise is so valuable and sought after. Therefore, the education field would be a natural specialism for you, and if I were you, I would look into neighboring fields that might be more attractive for clients but where you still can apply your professional experience. For example, online education, or accessibility apps, just as a blind idea.Collapse


Deborah do Carmo
Angie Garbarino
Rachel Waddington
Ying-Ju Fang
Dan Lucas
Sarah Maidstone
Michele Fauble
 
Bronagh McInerney
Bronagh McInerney  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:46
Member (2020)
Italian to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks for the advice. Nov 30, 2020

That sounds sensible. I would absolutely love to translate subjects that interest me. There is so much to learn when starting out. Hopefully I will get there. After Christmas I will join as a full member and start trying out the software I registered with some agencies to do voluntary work as well.

 
Peter Shortall
Peter Shortall  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Romanian to English
+ ...
Bear in mind what the market wants Dec 1, 2020

If the offers of work you receive in subject fields that interest you are sufficient for you to make a living, that's great. But there are a couple of other points I would bear in mind.

Any business that a person plans to run - in this case, your translation business - has to offer something that the market wants if it's going to stay financially afloat. When budding translators ask this question about specialisms, the advice I often see given is "do what you enjoy". That makes sens
... See more
If the offers of work you receive in subject fields that interest you are sufficient for you to make a living, that's great. But there are a couple of other points I would bear in mind.

Any business that a person plans to run - in this case, your translation business - has to offer something that the market wants if it's going to stay financially afloat. When budding translators ask this question about specialisms, the advice I often see given is "do what you enjoy". That makes sense on one level, because if you hate what you do, you probably won't do it well. But if what you enjoy most of all is not what is in demand, then you will struggle to keep your business going. So what I would do in your position over the first few months is to keep an eye on the subjects of the documents you are asked by potential clients to translate, and make a note of which fields come up most often. It could be a very good idea to try to find a compromise, if you possibly can, between what you like and what your clients want you to translate. And you might even find that you end up taking an interest in fields you hadn't thought of before. Of course, specialisms cannot be developed overnight, that point cannot be overemphasised. But in the early months and years of your career, you could consider the idea of being guided to some extent by market demand, because this is crucial to the survival of any business.

The second point I would make is that unlike some translators, I don't subscribe to the view that you should only translate documents about a subject if you have worked in that field for X number of years. Texts and language can vary a great deal in their complexity within many fields. For example, I do not call myself a medical translator, yet I have back-translated documents such as questionnaires or patient diaries for patients participating in clinical trials. The language in those was not complex at all, as the documents were aimed at people with no medical knowledge. So I agreed to take that work on, and in the end, I was actually told by my client that my back-translation was better than the original English text that had been translated into the foreign language! Should I have turned that job down because I've never worked as a doctor? I don't think so.

Another example might be a witness statement written for a court case. You might assume that this is a "legal document" because of its purpose, but if the language used by the witness is general and describes events that the person saw or experienced in day-to-day life, you would not need to be a legal expert to understand it.

Another factor to consider is your own talent and research skills. If you have good research skills and the ability to find translations of terms you haven't come across before, then you could consider taking on documents that contain only a little bit of language that is new to you, so that they stretch you a little but not too much. After all, even veterans in a particular field will come across new terms from time to time, as technological advances are made and new research leads to new concepts and ways of thinking. Obviously you have to exercise care and know your limits. Only you know what those are, it's something you simply have to develop a feel for as you go along. Err on the side of caution whenever you're unsure, but also bear in mind that if you turn down everything that contains unfamiliar words or terms forever, you'll never find out what you're capable of and you'll never develop as a translator. What really matters in the end is whether you can produce translations that your clients will be happy with.

So I think the question of developing specialisms can be looked at in a nuanced light, in shades of grey rather than just black and white. As you move forwards in your career and build up a picture of what the translation market in your language pairs is like, you can take a long-term view of what fields you can offer. Look carefully at documents that clients send you and note how much of the language is familiar or unfamiliar to you. If something is within your capabilities or won't stretch you very much, why not take it on?

One final thought. As you may already be aware, the advent of machine translation is having an impact on the market. MT applications tend to work less well with more sophisticated and specialised language, which (good) human translators are better at handling. This is something to bear in mind for the future. Acquiring an in-demand specialism will help you to stay in the market for longer.
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Michele Fauble
Bronagh McInerney
 
Bronagh McInerney
Bronagh McInerney  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:46
Member (2020)
Italian to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
specialisms Dec 1, 2020

Thanks for the advice I see there are online courses on this site as well which might be interesting.

 


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