I would like to continue my exploration of Corinne McKay’s book, How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator
“Professional associations are an excellent resource for both beginning and experienced translators and interpreters…. As one agency manager comments, ‘If a person is a member of a professional association, it shows that he or she has a network of colleagues to draw on and is willing to invest time and money in the profession.’” (P.34)
Now, as a Canadian citizen whose language pair is German>English, and who is currently living and working in Japan with a French partner, I am curious to know which associations exist in Canada, Germany, Japan, and France. Can anyone out there supply me with any pertinent information? I’d be most appreciative, of course!
Having scooted off to quickly search the web, I came upon this lovely list from Lexicool, the “directory of bilingual and multilingual dictionaries” (quite a lucky search, indeed!). Nonetheless, I am sure that many of my freelance translator colleagues (yes, I am already referring to myself as one of you - I feel it makes sense to include myself from the outset, as some kind of affirmation… just bear with me) have already gone down this road and I would like to benefit from past research, if I may.
It occurs to me that a new page to compile a giant list of links to useful web resources on a variety of topics related to the field of freelance translation in some way or another would be convenient for me (as an organizational tool for future reference) and for current or future freelance translators. Done. If you missed the tab on the top of the blog, here it is.
(As an aside, I have had two wonderful comments from experienced freelance translators in the past couple of days, comments I hope to respond to in the next day or two. But I wanted to mention here that having looked into the blogs and sites connected to these two women, I came across a wealth of resources that I have hardly begun to explore . The rewards to be had for all in the age of web networking and blogging are truly astounding. It is my intention to continue to add to the resource base and increase the rewards for all who could benefit.)
Before closing this post for today, I want to address one further topic, and a somewhat controversial one at that: translator certification. The controversy stemming from the question of whether a translator should be certified or not. Ms McKay posits that the central issues are (a) whether quality translation work is guaranteed by certification and (b) if there is or could be reliable and uniform certification in the industry as a whole.
At this point, any association or organization could, in theory, offer certification and there is no official regulation. Especially viewed from an international perspective, there is no way to compare the quality standards of the certification systems, nor can clients from target languages be certain as to the quality of the translator strictly based on some certification that was issued in a foreign environment without any international standards.
It seems to me that a certified translator is like a certified ESL/EFL teacher; both have tried to prove that they possess qualifications above and beyond the average person who might try to take a stab at working in his/her respective field and in some cases possession of a somewhat recognized certificate is regarded as an asset by potential clients, whereas in other cases it is considered quite insignificant.
Ms McKay mentions, however that according to an ATA survey, taken prior to the writing of her book, certified translators were earning about $6,000 USD more per annum than non-certified translators. What do you think about that?
On her blog, Thoughts on Translation, which I was more than happy to add to my blogroll as a very useful resource to which to direct freelance translator traffic, McKay takes on some popular FAQs, one of which is the question of whether one need be certified. Find her insights here.
