| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | Poll: What inspired you to become a translator/interpreter? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "What inspired you to become a translator/interpreter?".
This poll was originally submitted by Richard Levy. View the poll results »
| | | | | | Odile Breuvart 
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:46
Member
English to French
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I used to work in offices, basic admin jobs. Translation was a way for me to become my own boss and get more control over my own life. It is not pay that can matter here; but a choice for quality of life.
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To a student, it seemed like you could earn crazy money (and back then you could)
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| Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member for the following reason: Requested by user. | Muriel Vasconcellos (X)
United States
Local time: 23:46
Spanish to English
+ ...
| Love for languages | May 30, 2016 |
In my first Spanish classes in junior high school I already felt the urge to translate. I decided there and then that that was what I would do with my life.
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Life is full of twists and turns and in one of those translation found me!
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Michael Harris
Germany
Local time: 08:46
Member (2006)
German to English
Julian Holmes wrote:
Chance and fate
Or just slipped into it. Had to do most translation texts in my normal daily activities in the engineering world and it was so much fun that I took the opportunity to go full time when it came and have never turned back.
| | | | neilmac
Spain
Local time: 08:46
Spanish to English
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| Other - most of the above | May 30, 2016 |
I eventually ended up teaching TEFL after I got my degree and later, after several years, started getting into translation, partly inspired by a colleague who works in the English-Spanish-German combination. He would extol the virtues of working from home, not having to deal with the more inept/unsavoury elements found in the quasi-educational environment around here, and this wonderful thing called 'Trados', a sort of philosopher's stone that could pluck money from thin air...
Eventually... See more I eventually ended up teaching TEFL after I got my degree and later, after several years, started getting into translation, partly inspired by a colleague who works in the English-Spanish-German combination. He would extol the virtues of working from home, not having to deal with the more inept/unsavoury elements found in the quasi-educational environment around here, and this wonderful thing called 'Trados', a sort of philosopher's stone that could pluck money from thin air...
Eventually, despite my inability to embrace the big T, due to its cost, complexity and other perceived disadvantages, I started doing translations anyway, most of them through people who had at one point or another been students or colleagues of mine. I gradually began to shed the least lucrative/enjoyable teaching jobs in favour of translation and I haven't done any teaching/training/coaching work for a few years now.
As for ticking the boxes:
√ Love for languages
√ I am a 'have-a-go' speaker of multiple languages
√ Don't mind dealing with people as long as they're not total [insert epithet]
√ Natural fit - alway been a bit of a pedant and like quizzy things
√ My university studies - Degree in French/Russian ▲ Collapse
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None of the other careers I thougt I wanted would have me. And at school I was not, repeat not, going to be a secretary with languages or whatever they liked to call it.
I was interviewed for an in-house translating job with a pharmaceuticals firm in Copenhagen back in the 1980s, but not convinced I really wanted it - and I didn't get it anyway. A couple of months later my husband was offered a job the other side of the country, and a lot of things happened in the next 16 years. ... See more None of the other careers I thougt I wanted would have me. And at school I was not, repeat not, going to be a secretary with languages or whatever they liked to call it.
I was interviewed for an in-house translating job with a pharmaceuticals firm in Copenhagen back in the 1980s, but not convinced I really wanted it - and I didn't get it anyway. A couple of months later my husband was offered a job the other side of the country, and a lot of things happened in the next 16 years.
There are very few jobs in the bay, as we say here in a small town surrounded by the sea.
I spent my evenings at night school and took on any job that would earn me a pay packet. It finally crushed my dreams from schooldays of working in the health services. That involved working with patients hands-on!!
Then out of the blue came this unlikely advert in the paper about an in-house translator with an agency, and I was applying for everything that looked remotely possible. Another interview, and on Friday evening the phone rang. I was furious - I had hoped I could dream about that job over the weekend at least, before they turned me down like everyone else. It took me several minutes to realise the boss was not turning me down, he was offering me the job!
Fate had finally caught up with me. I had to eat humble pie and admit my headmistress was right, as she so often was, that I would do better with languages than in medicine... but it was the best job I ever had, and it set me up for freelancing five years later.
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| | | | Doan Quang
Vietnam
Local time: 13:46
English to Vietnamese
| Other - som of the above | May 30, 2016 |
neilmac wrote:
I eventually ended up teaching TEFL after I got my degree and later, after several years, started getting into translation, partly inspired by a colleague who works in the English-Spanish-German combination. He would extol the virtues of working from home, not having to deal with the more inept/unsavoury elements found in the quasi-educational environment around here, and this wonderful thing called 'Trados', a sort of philosopher's stone that could pluck money from thin air...
Eventually, despite my inability to embrace the big T, due to its cost, complexity and other perceived disadvantages, I started doing translations anyway, most of them through people who had at one point or another been students or colleagues of mine. I gradually began to shed the least lucrative/enjoyable teaching jobs in favour of translation and I haven't done any teaching/training/coaching work for a few years now.
As for ticking the boxes:
√ Love for languages
√ I am a 'have-a-go' speaker of multiple languages
√ Don't mind dealing with people as long as they're not total [insert epithet]
√ Natural fit - alway been a bit of a pedant and like quizzy things
√ My university studies - Degree in French/Russian
- Love for languages
- Love dealing with people
- My university studies - Degree in English - Vietnamese translation
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EvaVer (X)
Local time: 08:46
Czech to French
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| The same and more specifically, hunger | May 30, 2016 |
Chris S wrote:
To a student, it seemed like you could earn crazy money (and back then you could)
I was no longer a student, but my employment was poorly paid and I needed extra money - and very soon, I earned more on the side than as a secretary. I answered "natural fit", because I soon found out that I had a knack for it.
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Love for languages > My university studies (degree in English) > translation
I also teach English in a primary school, but I am close to quitting it. I find translation much more challenging, interesting and enjoyable.
| | | | Kristina Cosumano (X)
Germany
Local time: 08:46
German to English
| We needed the money | May 30, 2016 |
I had been translating for myself and for friends for a couple of years. Then a big source of expected income suddenly vanished, and I turned to translation online to at least help pay expenses until work picked up. I found that I liked it and had a bit of a knack for it, so I kept on going.
But it helped that I was immersed in my source language and had already done a lot of both reading and writing in my target language.
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