I searched the posts for information on this topic, but didn’t find anything, anyway, my apologies if this has already been discussed<>
Hello all:
I’m from the United States and have been a freelance translator in Taipei for the last couple years. Recently, I’ve been considering trying to get some experience doing interpretation work. I’ve done it for friends and family of course, but have no formal experience.
Perhaps I should just concentrate on written translation, which I have already made a little bit of progress establishing myself in, instead of trying to explore a new field where I’ll once again have to face the catch-22 of needing experience to find a job, but jobs requiring experience. But I’ve been feeling very isolated recently doing the written translation, and was thinking this might be a good way to acquire some new skills and get out more.
Any suggestions or recommendations?
Much appreciated,
John Yu
Get licensed/certified; here is an interpreter’s blog post about how/why she chose to do it. My impression is that one doesn’t even have to be fluent in English, but needs the proper credentials.
In Taiwan, if you want to work as an interpreter (meaning doing conference work, not just following businesspeople around) you will need to be accepted by those who are already doing that kind of work. Interpreting in Taiwan is a very closed circle. Unless you have your own personal connections (for example, when I started out, I had connections at AIT, which got me my first interpreting job in Taiwan) you won’t have much chance for work with Taiwanese clients if you don’t have a professional certificate from one of the MA programs (Shita or Fujen) or at a minimum (with good marketing skills, and you will garner ire from your Taiwanese competitors) from one of the buxiban programs like the Shengchanli Zhongxin or Chinese Culture University, both of which run short-term “training programs”.
You will also not be doing yourself any favors starting out in this career without any sort of training. It may look easy, but there are things to learn about taking notes and doing consecutive work, or about how to do simultaneous interpreting. You may not need to do an entire degree program, but for most people the short-term training courses don’t really do much. Without training, you will greatly increase the opportunity to embarrass yourself in a highly public manner, and once your reputation is made (or unmade) in this way, it will be harder and harder for you to get work.
The other point is pricing. If you’re thinking you’ll price low because you’re inexperienced, you’ll find that others who are making their living in this field will not appreciate the lack of support. If you’re good enough to provide the services, you should be good enough to charge market rates. If you insist on working before you’re truly professionally ready, go volunteer somewhere for a worthy cause.
The market is over-saturated in Taiwan for conference work – it was already saturated when I was working there. It has only gotten worse with schools churning out classes every year (particularly Shita, which is obligated to take a minimum number of students regardless of job opporutunities.)
One option you might want to consider would be getting a job TEACHING translation/interpreting, or practicing with interpreting students. In most places, if you’re a native English speaker, you would be more than welcome if you have any idea at all about the field. Better if you actually had the skills, but it might be a direction to look into.
Hmmm…thanks for the advice ironlady.
So, considering what you said Ironlady, I would think that taking your (his) Chinese skills to the Mainland might be a good idea if he is set on translating work?
Just a guess, but I think they have even more people doing it for cheaper over there.
Yep. Given the way the field is moving these days, I would not strongly advise anyone who is an English-A and planning or hoping to make significant money to go into interpreting or translation. The market is shifting rapidly and strongly to cheaper Chinese-A alternatives which are perceived as being of “acceptable” if not professional quality – and “we can always fix the English a little bit.” This work is being palmed off on English-As as “polishing” the substandard English.
I’ve had a great 25 years making my living this way, but I am unsure whether I will be able to rely on T&I solely for my living for the remainder of my time until retirement. I’m actively diversifying.
In Taiwan, you could make a fair living as a translator (written only) going into English, if you’re comfortable working around the NT$3 per word mark. That wouldn’t be the mass market, but there are plenty of clients willing to pay that. You can live on that in Taiwan but not in the States.
Again, looking at my wife’s business, there’s no easy way. Doesn’t matter about qualifications – they simply get you into the marketplace a little bit faster. Maybe. If you’re lucky. My old lady now turns down more jobs than she is offered for interpretation and still has her books filled for the next several years. At around NT$10k minimum per day, up to around NT$30k per day for her current one. But you have to remember that commanding that kind of recompense means you better be bloody well RIGHT ON TOP OF THINGS, on your feet and thinking FAST for up to 4 hours at a time, with 10 hour days commonplace, which means – at least for my wife – MANY hours of preparation. Weeks and weeks, sometimes. So that 30K very quickly becomes a lot less once prep hours are factored in.
And she got there not because of qualifications but because of 15-20 years of hard graft, pressing the flesh and networking (and she doesn’t have anything more than a gmail account and a mobile phone. She doesn’t use ANY of the online interpretation websites – in Taiwan, the people who find hires off those sites are scraping the bottom of the barrel and are desperate, usually because they don’t want to pay the price asked by the names who are known and who get the first calls). It is ALL about networking in Taiwan. Who you know is FAR, FAR more important that what you know. She has not answered an ad for interpreters for at least a decade or more.
And particularly in interpretation, presentation is EVERYTHING. You can’t be too personable, else you take the spotlight off the speaker. Then again, you can’t be a robot, because then it makes the speaker look bad. Its a very fine and vague line to have to draw, and one that you have to draw within the first few minutes on stage. The language is just the language. You can prep for that. Reading the room is a whole other question and is what separates the good from the exceptional.
If you’re already at a professional level, sure. But I wouldn’t throw this kind of statement around on a website like F.com where we get all the “I’ll do a year at Shita and get dead fluent in Mandarin then make lots of money” types coming out of the woodwork the start of every academic year. 
Which, if you think about it, is quite a feat! 