Hi everyone. Do you need a work permit to do freelance translation work in Taiwan? Is there a market for this for native English speakers fluent in Chinese? with limited experience can one do this? (i.e.haven’t done it professionally, won a few undergrad translation contests, did some working at an NGO, for school administration at Shandong university…)
I’d like to do this to supplement my work/salary as a buxiban teacher. Can a person pretty easily pick up a second job like translation or modeling to supplement buxiban work?
Can do. But if you’re on a work permit-based ARC, make sure you get a local ren-tou (a local who will sign for you for any work you do) otherwise you might get screwed when tax time comes around.
There are plenty of translation agencies in Taiwan, look around. Or if you have the right contacts you should be able to find your own cases directly. Or a mix of the two.
I’d recommend trying to get cases from overseas as well, as most jobs in Taiwan are quite low paid because there are plenty of English grads who ‘translate’ willing to do it for a pittance.
[quote=“tsukinodeynatsu”]The translation contests should help somewhat!
There are plenty of translation agencies in Taiwan, look around. Or if you have the right contacts you should be able to find your own cases directly. Or a mix of the two.
I’d recommend trying to get cases from overseas as well, as most jobs in Taiwan are quite low paid because there are plenty of English grads who ‘translate’ willing to do it for a pittance.[/quote]
Thanks for the info! It’s encouraging. I’m willing to do it for really cheap. Esp seeing as how buxiban jobs only offer 14-20 hours a week on average – I’ll have lots of spare time!
[quote=“Jialin”][quote=“tsukinodeynatsu”]The translation contests should help somewhat!
There are plenty of translation agencies in Taiwan, look around. Or if you have the right contacts you should be able to find your own cases directly. Or a mix of the two.
I’d recommend trying to get cases from overseas as well, as most jobs in Taiwan are quite low paid because there are plenty of English grads who ‘translate’ willing to do it for a pittance.[/quote]
Thanks for the info! It’s encouraging. I’m willing to do it for really cheap. Esp seeing as how buxiban jobs only offer 14-20 hours a week on average – I’ll have lots of spare time![/quote]
Please don’t do it for really cheap if you’ve got a quality product. You’ll be dragging down prices for the rest of us and fucking yourself over if you ever want to do it full time further down the line.
Since English is your native language, do Chinese-to-English translation only.
Charge by the Chinese character, not the English word.
You’re inexperienced, but don’t do it for “super cheap”. You’ll harm yourself and the industry (which has seen enough harm from cheapskates hiring native Chinese speakers translating into English for pennies, resulting in horrendous Chinglish).
Insist on checking the final draft, because the Big Boss will make his own changes, messing up your work.
If you are good enough to translate for money, you are professional. If you are professional, you are member of our industry, and if that is true, you should care enough to build our industry, not cut it down. That includes not undercutting people who translate for a living. We do not take kindly to that sort of behavior. Everyone is free to set his own price, but those who seriously undercut are generally not welcomed. This is particularly true in translation because, even with “computer assisted translation” tools available, there is often not a significant savings in time or brain energy in using them. Translation still takes approximately the same amount of time, so it is difficult to discount. And, as I said, if you are good enough to do this professionally, you are good enough to be paid a professional wage. If not, it’s time to get more volunteer experience (not necessarily in Taiwan – perhaps via the Internet).
You need to be asking yourself whether you can write English in all the styles and registers required for the document you are handling, and whether you can completely comprehend Chinese for those documents and registers. If the answer is no, I’d consider private English students instead…er, I mean, I’d make some friends, help them with their English from time to time in a non-formal manner, and occasionally accept cash tokens of their appreciation.
Most clients here are perfectly happy with Chinglish. The ones who aren’t won’t hire you without seeing credentials, so I wouldn’t worry about dragging down prices. The people who pay silly money generally would not be interested in hiring a true professional, while the serious ones will be quite happy to pay a premium – as long as you show you can deliver.
Thanks for the info. I apologize for the misunderstanding. I did not put two and two together and realize what accepting low pay meant.
I’d be far more interested in doing this kind of work that tutoring English - I’ll already be doing that in the buxiban. And really, I want to go to Taiwan to be more immersed in the language and have exposure to the language.
How much should newbies charge? And what companies are good? I’ve found Elite Translations for Asia through a google search, but their job application requires filling out how much you charge per word in USD$. I’d love to get into this field. I always loved getting homework in my Chinese classes that involved translating, especially my classical chinese class. What books would you recommend for translation work? I have a grammar book that I just bought but I don’t know what else I might need.
I’m starting to translate a book I have just for practice as well as translating online articles and hope to actually apply for some translation work at the end of the buxiban school semester.
Translation is one of those things that is difficult to teach.
It really has to do more (IMO) with two separate processes: reading and comprehending a Chinese text, and being able to state that meaning in English in a way that is not overly tied to the Chinese original in structure. Most people never get the point where they are able to separate the meaning from the structure of the original, which means very awkward translations.
Of course, in Taiwan if you do write native-sounding English, many times whoever “reviews” the work will claim the English is poor, because it is not what they would have written in Chinglish.
Books on translation tend either to flog theories (which are not really very useful in commercial translation, where we don’t have weeks to agonize over a single word – that job has to go out) or provide enormous lists of “equivalents” which can be useful sometimes, but are available for free on the Internet if you have reasonable translation-oriented research skills. I translated professionally for 15 years before ever taking a class in translation theory, and I can say that taking that class did not change my workflow or philosophy of translation one bit in the 10 years since I took it.
Which is another facet – research skills are really important, particularly the ability to Google efficiently to find term equivalents and source documents that will help with a translation.
As for pricing – no man is an island. If you want to become a translator (as opposed to an occasional dabbler), meet some translators. Join professional organizations. Do informational interviews with translators. It’s not just about filling out an Internet form, as much as the agencies would like to promote that idea.
Native English speaker into English in Taiwan (competent translator)? More like NT$2 per word, with clients going up to NT$3-4 depending on their pockets and sponsorship.
Anything under NT$1 is definitely for the non-native speaking college crowd or wannabes. Might as well run it through Google Translate and then spell-check it for that price, because that’s what the end user will probably expect (and possibly even like )
I am someone who would way prefer to do some translation work than tutoring English…looks like it will be an interesting and maybe, at times, frustrating experience “dabbling” in the world of translation in Taiwan. we’ll see!
I worked at Elite back in the day, next to a couple of older foreign dudes who barely glanced up when I would come in. I was probably sitting right next to a couple of Forumosans and didn’t even know it. The “editor” was an older Chinese or Taiwanese guy who had lived in the US and come back. Their clients were all serious companies, many of them public. I did a lot of financial reports, speeches, and contracts.
I didn’t submit anything online. Who had access to the Internet or a computer in the 90s? I just walked in and asked for a job.
I was good compared to language school kids but probably not good enough to be a translator professionally. I made it work. Probably took me twice as long to translate since I had to look up so many words. But for me I was willing to do it because it was like being paid to study Mandarin, which I was already doing for free! I don’t know if I was underpaid. I just took what they offered me. Sorry ironlady!
At least Elite seemed to understand the value of a native speaker doing Chinese to English. I had various agencies calling me who didn’t seem to understand the difference.
But it’s pretty grueling if you do it full time and your Mandarin is good but not amazing. Requires a lot of concentration. For me, I preferred doing it part time. For me, it was like practicing and studying Mandarin for 3-4 hours straight.
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