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Best language to combine with English to have a profitable translation business
Thread poster: Inspectress (X)
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 22:47
Member (2005)
English to Spanish
+ ...
Hm... Aug 22, 2010

Inspectress wrote:
Regards Japanese and Mandarin, I just don't have the will to learn these languages unfortunately. I can't explain why but I'm definitely not drawn to them so I'd never have the motivation required to learn them.

We thought your motivation was a profitable translation business!

Mandarin. Seconded.


 
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 22:47
Member (2005)
English to Spanish
+ ...
Exactly Aug 22, 2010

Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL wrote:
Most of the biggest Scandinavian companies write their own literature directly in English these days...

Indeed. My main market is the Nordic region and indeed... most medium-to-large companies write their stuff directly in English! Maybe not a perfect English in some cases, but good enough to produce a reasonable translation into languages other than English.

So Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, or Finnish to English would not be really a big market. You would however have the benefit of very loyal customers and good rates.


 
Inspectress (X)
Inspectress (X)
Ireland
Local time: 21:47
English to Irish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
... Aug 22, 2010

To Tomás- yep making money out of it is important but I need to balance that with a language I really enjoy. I love languages more than money but I'm not getting into this job just to break even! Life has enough challenges without struggling to get by being one of them

So on that note what kind of difference is there between rates for Swedish and German?

(Sorry if I'm sounding like a greedyguts, I'm real
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To Tomás- yep making money out of it is important but I need to balance that with a language I really enjoy. I love languages more than money but I'm not getting into this job just to break even! Life has enough challenges without struggling to get by being one of them

So on that note what kind of difference is there between rates for Swedish and German?

(Sorry if I'm sounding like a greedyguts, I'm really not- I just want to become a professional and earn a good salary for the work and time put in)



[Edited at 2010-08-22 20:48 GMT]
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Soonthon LUPKITARO(Ph.D.)
Soonthon LUPKITARO(Ph.D.)  Identity Verified
Thailand
Local time: 04:47
English to Thai
+ ...
My initial feeling .... Aug 23, 2010

Inspectress wrote:
Regards Japanese and Mandarin, I just don't have the will to learn these languages unfortunately. I can't explain why but I'm definitely not drawn to them so I'd never have the motivation required to learn them.

I had that feeling before I started studying Japanese and Chinese. I found it too complicate and not profitable. But these two language use Kanji or Chinese characters which is extraordinarily challenging. It is not easy to remember but once mastered, I rarely refer to any dictionaries. Their pictographic symbols are not enjoyed in alphabetic languages. I felt like studying an ancient Egyptian language. I also found that Chinese and Japanese histories are very, very long for 5000 or 2000 years. The languages are spoken by about 1500 million people. I had very good mental tours to their cultural features. And of course, I used Proz.com to earn a lot out of these two languages.

Best regards,

Soonthon Lupkitaro


 
Monika Rozwarzewska
Monika Rozwarzewska  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:47
Member (2006)
English to Polish
+ ...
...but English Aug 23, 2010

I am a native Polish speaker and I often have a feeling that it's best to combine any language with any language BUT English...

[Edited at 2010-08-23 01:18 GMT]


 
Amy Duncan (X)
Amy Duncan (X)  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 18:47
Portuguese to English
+ ...
You have to have some interest in a language to want to learn it. Aug 23, 2010

Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:

Inspectress wrote:
Regards Japanese and Mandarin, I just don't have the will to learn these languages unfortunately. I can't explain why but I'm definitely not drawn to them so I'd never have the motivation required to learn them.

We thought your motivation was a profitable translation business!

Mandarin. Seconded.


I agree with Inspectress. You can't just decide to learn some language that doesn't interest you. For instance, you couldn't get me to study German if you held a gun to my head. But I'd love to learn Mandarin or go back to studying Japanese. People have different tastes, that's all, and it makes sense to study a language that you like.


 
Diarmuid Kennan
Diarmuid Kennan
Ireland
Local time: 21:47
Member (2006)
Danish to English
+ ...
Scandinavian Aug 23, 2010

Scandinavian (Swedish/Norwegian/Danish) > English is generally one of the highest paid combinations in the business.
Because of the similarity between the languages, once you master one language, it's not that difficult to move into the others.
Living in Ireland, you have easy access to travel back and forth between Ireland and Scandinavia (e.g. a return ticket Dublin-Stockholm in October costs the same as the rate for translating 200 words, after tax).
There are cultural and h
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Scandinavian (Swedish/Norwegian/Danish) > English is generally one of the highest paid combinations in the business.
Because of the similarity between the languages, once you master one language, it's not that difficult to move into the others.
Living in Ireland, you have easy access to travel back and forth between Ireland and Scandinavia (e.g. a return ticket Dublin-Stockholm in October costs the same as the rate for translating 200 words, after tax).
There are cultural and historical connections between Ireland and Scandinavia that make those languages more accessible than you might think. There are even connections between the Irish language and the Scandinavian languages that English speakers know nothing about (the Irish/Scandinavian for donkey is one example that springs to mind). Besides, the Scandinavian languages may not be easy to speak, but they are easy to read (at least in my opinion).
As for the demand for English from Scandinavia: it's huge. I started as a full-time freelancer 5 years ago. Within 3 months my order-book was full and it has remained full ever since. I literally accept only about 20% of the work offered to me.
My advice? Learn Swedish. Later you can move into Danish and Norwegian. If I had any doubts about the volume of demand, I wouldn't be advising you to become a competitor)
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Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT
Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 22:47
Member (2005)
English to Spanish
+ ...
Some questions Aug 23, 2010

Inspectress wrote:
To Tomás- yep making money out of it is important but I need to balance that with a language I really enjoy. I love languages more than money but I'm not getting into this job just to break even! Life has enough challenges without struggling to get by being one of them

I entirely agree. Although I see Mandarin as a solid choice for the future, I am much more interested in Nordic languages and would love to learn Finnish or Swedish if I had the time and a teacher of any of these languages in my [rather small] city.

Since this conversation started I am wondering:
A) Whether you already speak some language other than English (apart from Irish, which I consider to be your mother tongue to a certain extent).

B) Whether for family reasons, country(ies) of residence when you were a child, or other reasons, you are already related to the area of influence of another language and already speak a some other language to an informal level. Is any of your parents a national of another country or have you lived in another country?

C) Why Switzerland raises so much interest. (OK, I have lived in Switzerland for a year and have been there several times after that, and indeed it is a beautiful, safe, orderly country... although with an appalling weather most of the year).

The reason I ask A) and B) is that, from my experience, it takes native speakers of English quite an effort to learn a language properly from scratch. Also, a multilingual background will certainly widen your horizons when it comes to learning a new language.


 
Christine Andersen
Christine Andersen  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 22:47
Member (2003)
Danish to English
+ ...
A Scandinavian language and be willing to proofread Aug 23, 2010


Most of the biggest Scandinavian companies write their own literature directly in English these days...


They do this for a variety of reasons, one being that there are simply not too many translators around.

The standard of English they write covers the entire scale, from excellent to incomprehensible, and many of them overestimate their English. As Madeleine describes, a lot of it is Danglish or Swenglish or Norwenglish. Somehow not grammatically incorrect, but not at all idiomatic, and often difficult to understand or ambiguous, though the meaning is obvious if you understand the underlying Scandinavian. Many use native English proofreaders, and you can learn a lot that way.

You need to specialise in a subject field, and REALLY specialise in the technical language and terminology. Then you can offer your services where it is critical to have the text in professional quality, and Scandinavians who can negotiate verbally and attend conferences in five or six languages know they need a professional to do the written work.

If I were young today, I think I would go for Polish or Czech - I have always had a soft spot for them, don´t ask me why. Marie Curie was one of my childhood heroines, and I think in the years to come the economies in that area will blossom up and they will need translators for trade.

Best of luck!


 
Inspectress (X)
Inspectress (X)
Ireland
Local time: 21:47
English to Irish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Swedish it is! Aug 23, 2010

Diarmuid Kennan wrote:

Scandinavian (Swedish/Norwegian/Danish) > English is generally one of the highest paid combinations in the business.
Because of the similarity between the languages, once you master one language, it's not that difficult to move into the others.
Living in Ireland, you have easy access to travel back and forth between Ireland and Scandinavia (e.g. a return ticket Dublin-Stockholm in October costs the same as the rate for translating 200 words, after tax).
There are cultural and historical connections between Ireland and Scandinavia that make those languages more accessible than you might think. There are even connections between the Irish language and the Scandinavian languages that English speakers know nothing about (the Irish/Scandinavian for donkey is one example that springs to mind). Besides, the Scandinavian languages may not be easy to speak, but they are easy to read (at least in my opinion).
As for the demand for English from Scandinavia: it's huge. I started as a full-time freelancer 5 years ago. Within 3 months my order-book was full and it has remained full ever since. I literally accept only about 20% of the work offered to me.
My advice? Learn Swedish. Later you can move into Danish and Norwegian. If I had any doubts about the volume of demand, I wouldn't be advising you to become a competitor)


Thanks so much Diarmuid. This has sealed the deal! Between yourself and Peter ye have convinced me to go with Swedish. I did take Peter's advice and I listened to both languages and while I do prefer the sound of Norwegian as it is that bit more rough around the edges and gutteral sounding (to my ear) I'm happy to move on to that at a later stage and go with Swedish first and foremost. I just started last night with the FSI online course and noticed the word 'bord' for 'table' which is the same as in Irish so that did take me aback! And it's going to make it even more fascinating for me. Amazing how little we learn in school!! No mention of this relationship with the Scandanavian languages! Aaarrrgh


 
Inspectress (X)
Inspectress (X)
Ireland
Local time: 21:47
English to Irish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
in reply to Tomás Aug 23, 2010

[quote]Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:

Inspectress wrote:
To Tomás- yep making money out of it is important but I need to balance that with a language I really enjoy. I love languages more than money but I'm not getting into this job just to break even! Life has enough challenges without struggling to get by being one of them

I entirely agree. Although I see Mandarin as a solid choice for the future, I am much more interested in Nordic languages and would love to learn Finnish or Swedish if I had the time and a teacher of any of these languages in my
small] city.

Since this conversation started I am wondering:
A) Whether you already speak some language other than English (apart from Irish, which I consider to be your mother tongue to a certain extent).

B) Whether for family reasons, country(ies) of residence when you were a child, or other reasons, you are already related to the area of influence of another language and already speak a some other language to an informal level. Is any of your parents a national of another country or have you lived in another country?

C) Why Switzerland raises so much interest. (OK, I have lived in Switzerland for a year and have been there several times after that, and indeed it is a beautiful, safe, orderly country... although with an appalling weather most of the year).

The reason I ask A) and B) is that, from my experience, it takes native speakers of English quite an effort to learn a language properly from scratch. Also, a multilingual background will certainly widen your horizons when it comes to learning a new language.


Ah yes I know what you mean and to a certain extent I'd like to think Irish is my mother tongue but it's not. I am not a native speaker, even though I had more exposure than most to it growing up. My father and uncle and some cousins speak it fluently and we do get exposed to it from an early age in national school and it is 'taught' at 2nd level too so all of that helps but sadly none of us are true native speakers in my family. But I've applied myself in a big big way to Irish over the years since leaving school and more so in the past year and a half I gave myself up completely to the language and it's only now I'm even rediscovering English. So I have near native fluency now in Irish, with a bit to go to be top tier near native fluent hence why I am not confident to apply straight away for translation jobs in English-Irish. If it were Irish-English I would be away with it though, but there is zilch in that combination obviously.

I have some French but again though I loved it once and learning it showed me I was good at learning languages it doesn't have the hook I need. Switzerland just seems like a bit of utopia on earth and I love cold weather! It just goes to show the relationship between heat tolerance and languages eh


 
Williamson
Williamson  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:47
Flemish to English
+ ...
When I was young Aug 23, 2010

and foolish, I practise 6 hours of karate a day and was fascinated by Japanese/Chinese language, martial arts and culture.
However, to choose Chinese/Japanese back then seemed a bit far-fetched. Airline tickets to those country were very expensive, there was no internet, no email, I remember paying the equivalent of 100 euros telephone bill for calling to Japan for 10 minutes and with regard to a job, it only made sense to choose Japanese
Still wonder why I chose Spanish. After 5 ye
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and foolish, I practise 6 hours of karate a day and was fascinated by Japanese/Chinese language, martial arts and culture.
However, to choose Chinese/Japanese back then seemed a bit far-fetched. Airline tickets to those country were very expensive, there was no internet, no email, I remember paying the equivalent of 100 euros telephone bill for calling to Japan for 10 minutes and with regard to a job, it only made sense to choose Japanese
Still wonder why I chose Spanish. After 5 years of Spanish and a yearly pilgrimage to the universidad de Salamanca, I felt a bit like Don Quichote, because I had learned a world-language, but to what use. Back then, Spain was just coming out the Franco era and was not so modern as it is today.

I recently registered for an evening course in Chinese, not for translation purpose, but to get around. Hope I can combine it with translation.

But the question was: best langauge to combine English to a profitable translation business. If you don't want to spend time learning Hiragana/Katakana/Kanji (Japanese) or Chinese characters which can be interpreted in 4 different ways accourding to tone, I would opt for Nordic languages. Romanic and Slavonic into English don't pay that much.
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Alexandre Chetrite
Alexandre Chetrite
France
Local time: 22:47
English to French
About combining a new language with French? Sep 4, 2010

Hello,

I know I am off-topic with this question, but I really want to ask

What do you think would be a good additional language for a French speaker?

For an English speaker you said learning a Scandinavian language might be a good choice. So for the French ,learning Chinese(Mandarin) would be a good choice since so few French speaking people speak Chinese (Mandarin)?

There is no doubt that Mandarin usage will continue to rise in the next decade
... See more
Hello,

I know I am off-topic with this question, but I really want to ask

What do you think would be a good additional language for a French speaker?

For an English speaker you said learning a Scandinavian language might be a good choice. So for the French ,learning Chinese(Mandarin) would be a good choice since so few French speaking people speak Chinese (Mandarin)?

There is no doubt that Mandarin usage will continue to rise in the next decade for business relationships and trade. So that is a guaranteed investment I guess.
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