Translation - salaries

I think this is good advice, but OP should be aware that PM is a whole other beast than translation. Entirely different skill set. If you have both language and PM skill sets, though, you are probably pretty valuable.

It depends what kind of PM though. Localization PM shouldn’t be too hard. But yes, you do need a certain kind of personality, ability to take a big picture view, set timelines, push people, etc. A lot of that stuff, you either have or you don’t. Hard to develop or learn it.

Any other kind of PM… tech, engineering, whatever, you need the same base personality traits and then you also need subject area knowledge.

If I can chime in a bit. I have been doing translation for quite a while from and into English. As stated before, unless you are cut out for this kind of job, it is tedious and unrewarding. Money wise, it pays little and offers are scarce. I use this table for reference occasionally:
https://search.proz.com/employers/rates
simultaneous interpretation pays much higher rates but it is much harder and you get worn out after an hour of speaking.
I still dabble in translation but I wouldn’t stake my future on it. It’s a nice addition to what I make in other jobs, though.
But if you are young and adventurous, give it a go and see how you fare. You might be very successful which I wish everybody with all my heart.

I don’t get why translation is seen as “badly paid”. It’s not - at least compared to any other work you can find in Taiwan. If you can get paid the minimum rate on ProZ of $0.08/character, and do 3,000 characters/day for an average of 22 days a month, then you can earn $5,280/month=NT150,000. This is a very good salary by Taiwan standards!

Of course, the trade off is less job security and worries about being replaced by machines etc., although I think this danger is probably overstated and there is still room for growth in the industry, particularly for languages such as Chinese.

Sorry, had surgery last Monday, haven’t been online.

Yes, it’s that bad in the US. It really is. If I get one more “offer” of US$0.05 per word and “oh, do you have a proofreader who is included in that price?” I’m going to throw up.

Whoever is talking about simultaneous interpreting and saying “you get tired after an hour” knows nothing about simultaneous interpreting. Sorry but it makes all the other attached information questionable when you see really uninformed statements like that. Unless you mean “a person with no training gets tired”, which is what would happen if a person with no training tried to do surgery or draft legal documents or something.

3000 characters a day is IMO not sustainable if you’re doing anything other than social letters or something – not if you’re doing the research required to do a good translation of a specialized document. Most translators figure between 300 and 500 words an hour completed, for reference. You also need time to do paperwork, taxes, and so on within what I’m assuming is your 8-hour workday (not really worth working more than that for that level of return).

I think Taiwan is a little different as people have slightly more tendency to just use the last translator again if there wasn’t any disaster last time, because probably the person was introduced by someone at the company and there is some guanxi operating. On the open market, there is no loyalty in 99% of cases these days. PMs come and go, more often go, and the replacements don’t even look in the database – they just put out an ad.

I know you think I’m overly pessimistic, but I have been inside the major T&I programs in Taiwan for a long time now, and very, very, VERY few graduates stay in T&I. Very few. Especially among the interpreter trainees. Especially if they remain in Taiwan.

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Bleak.