Alright, so I can’t figure out which forum is the most appropriate for this question, but this one seems close enough.
I’m currently a senior in an American university, with a double major in East Asian Studies and Chinese Language, and I’m looking to find a job in Taiwan upon graduation (May 2009). I’ve been to Taiwan three times so far, living in Taipei for a total of about two years. I love the place, and it just seems to make sense to find a job in Taipei after I’m done with school. I’m fluent in Chinese, I’m currently at Beijing Normal University, taking literature classes with native Chinese students for the semester, so I think my Chinese is up to par for translation work. I have done some translation here and there, I interned for the Congressional-Executive Commission on China about two years ago, and I helped out a friend do some translation last year in Taipei. In addition to that, I’ve translated my fair share of Chinese poetry for classwork, although I suppose that’s of limited use in the job market.
Anyway, I was wondering if anyone knew what kind of jobs there are out there for foreigners looking to do English/Chinese translation. This summer while I was at ICLP at NTU I heard conflicting reports concerning the availability and salary of translators, and job search sites are of limited use. Also, how do I go about searching for a job in Taipei while I’m in the US? I’m worried that I may have to take an English teaching job first and start looking for employment once I arrive in Taipei.
Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated.
It won’t be easy to make a viable living from translation alone right off the bat here I don’t think. So much of that kind of work depends on networking and building up a client list. So I’d imagine you’ll be looking at teaching English, at least to begin with.
Most clients are not keen on a translator working into a non-native target language, so I don’t know how easy it will be to find English/Chinese work. The other way around would be a lot easier.
There are several translation agencies in Taiwan that hire westerners but often the quality they expect is worse than westerners can do. So they hire cheaper locals. You can make a living here doing quality editing work though and many of the people on this site do so.
I know that freelance work is probably easier to find than a steady job, but I was looking for something more permanent, because freelance stuff sounds kinda scary as of right now. I suppose finding a full-time job is even more difficult?
By Chinese/English translation I actually meant Chinese/English I guess, that is, Chinese to English, my Chinese writing ability is pretty sufficient although I know better than to say it’s even close to the level of a native.
Thanks! I sent an email to President to ask about job openings. Linguitronics seems to require an Alient Resident Visa as well as a sample translation test, so I’m going to pass on that one for now.
Do you think taking the HSK while I’m in China would help out with the job search?
Thing is, though, you can basically do as crappy a job as you like if you’re working for those companies – NT$1 per word doesn’t buy them very much in the way of skill, so you can really bash them out quickly. Missing words? No problem. Missing sentences? that’s OK. Hell, for that price you can miss out entire pages and they won’t really care. Swahili your first language? That’s OK – swahili’s practically the same as English.
Think about it – real foreign translators working freelance for the larger companies here charge around NT$5 per word. My wife is a local, and mostly does freelance for local publishing houses (notoriously poor payers) but even SHE gets FAR more than NT$1 per word!
[quote=“sandman”]Thing is, though, you can basically do as crappy a job as you like if you’re working for those companies – NT$1 per word doesn’t buy them very much in the way of skill, so you can really bash them out quickly. Missing words? No problem. Missing sentences? that’s OK. Hell, for that price you can miss out entire pages and they won’t really care. Swahili your first language? That’s OK – swahili’s practically the same as English.
Think about it – real foreign translators working freelance for the larger companies here charge around NT$5 per word. My wife is a local, and mostly does freelance for local publishing houses (notoriously poor payers) but even SHE gets FAR more than NT$1 per word![/quote]
this is slightly (but only slightly) over-stating the case…i’ve worked for both the 2 major translation agencies in taipei…you can miss words and translate very sloppily but you can’t get away with missing sentences too much; that will eventually get noticed …oh and NT$1 per word is a high agency rate in taiwan…0.5 is the base!! basically until the clients put their money where their mouth is and pay enough per word to hire foreign translators the situation ain’t gonna change. unfortunately the industry trend at the moment is that whichever bright spark in an office thinks they have shit-hot english “translates” stuff themselves and then hands it off to foreign editors to “polish”…which gets you back to square one or worse; often there isn’t even source text to check the chinglish off since jimmy chen’s gone and written the document directly into english…sigh
You’re KIDDING? Surely? It’s really THAT low? Jesus! Even Jojo’s local book publishers pay more than that, and I thought THEY were the bottom the barrel. My god! Why on earth would anyone even bother?
You’re KIDDING? Surely? It’s really THAT low? Jesus! Even Jojo’s local book publishers pay more than that, and I thought THEY were the bottom the barrel. My god! Why on earth would anyone even bother? [/quote]
well i doubt any native speakers will work at that rate except in special circumstances…but thats the base rate given to local C - E translators
You’re KIDDING? Surely? It’s really THAT low? Jesus! Even Jojo’s local book publishers pay more than that, and I thought THEY were the bottom the barrel. My god! Why on earth would anyone even bother? [/quote]
well i doubt any native speakers will work at that rate except in special circumstances…but thats the base rate given to local C - E translators[/quote]
She’s doing a project for China Steel right now. Chinese to English. Many thousands of words. NT$4.0/word.
STAR is a worldwide translation agency with an office in Taiwan. Check out http://www.star-taiwan.com. For quality work we certainly pay more than 0.5 per word!
We do not need any more full-timers at the moment but that doesn’t mean we won’t need any in the future. Feel free to send me your resume for future reference. I know you said you are not interested in freelance but perhaps its a good place to start.
[quote=“Charlie Phillips”]There’s not much editing work around at the moment because Taiwanese writers have improved so much, they don’t need foreigners to edit their work.
…oh and NT$1 per word is a high agency rate in taiwan…0.5 is the base!! basically until the clients put their money where their mouth is and pay enough per word to hire foreign translators the situation ain’t gonna change. unfortunately the industry trend at the moment is that whichever bright spark in an office thinks they have shit-hot english “translates” stuff themselves and then hands it off to foreign editors to “polish”…which gets you back to square one or worse; often there isn’t even source text to check the chinglish off since jimmy chen’s gone and written the document directly into english…sigh