My daughter just finished VCE and got a good ATAR. She has her heart set on becoming a Japanese translator/interpreter. She wants to do a Bachelor of Arts at Melbourne Uni and then go on to do a Masters in the applicable area at Monash.
My concern is that there may not be much work available.
What are people’s thoughts on this? Will that kind of job even exist a few years from now?
Thanks in advance.
Japanese Translator/Interpreter. Is There Any Work in This Field?
Showmethebargains on 04/01/2018 - 10:04
Comments
Yep. And such mediocre jobs are even harder to find here in Australia, where Japanese organisations that hire you will prefer Japanese natives who speak decent English.
What's her second career choice? Someone who has a second hireable skill as well as the language abilities could go far in the right circumstances, but that'll still be in Japan, not here, I'd say.
Over the years I've worked in multinationals that have offices across Asia Pacific. As a GENERAL rule, the Japanese normally are much less likely to speak English well, particularly the older generations. There is still very much a strong need for good translators, normally however we use translators in Japan rather than in Australia.
Computer translations are okay… but not great. If we're producing marketing materials (brochures / advertisements) then we'll normally use our Japanese colleagues to complete the translation for us.
I would argue there would be some part time opportunities available, but full time translation jobs would be pretty damn rare. She would likely have a better chance moving to Japan and becoming an English teacher - plenty of companies in Japan would pay her quite well to do that.
My tennant in NSW is in that line of work. She seems to have no trouble finding work…whether the pay is good, i have no idea.
There's always some out of the box options - for e.g she could get onto translating anime for the online community, these people are practically heroes to the rest of us. And youtube is definitely something you can monetise nowadays. Just a totally random thought
she could get onto translating anime for the online community, these people are practically heroes to the rest of us
It's not a job though, since there's no pay
I'm just saying that there's opportunities out there for people to do things using the power of the internet. The skill is a commodity
Fan-sub maybe. However I would imagine larger distributors would have employed skilled translators to do simulcast translations with very small time frame. Just google something like "crunchyroll translator" yields some job posts in the past.
Pay won't be great though and you have to sit through crappy animes.
When the technologies (Google Translate, speech to text, etc) mature even more, this line of work will become even more rare.
Realistically though, nobody knows how long this will take.
Like "realistic graphics" in games and "real AI" it's a field that seems only somewhat difficult (meaning complex) at first, and initially good progress is made. But the closer you get, the difficulty increases exponentially. All these goals have been "about 10 years away" for decades now; our increased understanding just reveals that the problem is more and more complex than we thought.
I would have thought that Mandarin would be a better choice.
I work for a Japanese organization. Yes, it is true that Japanese (even younger generation) cannot speak English as well as their other Asian counterparts. In saying that, for multinational organisations, they would usually second employees overseas who would learn the respective language better. I think translators as an entire occupation would be difficult in general although I do know someone who has an awesome job getting paid very well to translate Chinese powerpoint presentations for large corporations into English overnight - it works for her as she has a newborn (but these jobs are few and far between). I also know a few English teachers in Japan who enjoy it there - as teachers are much more respected there (although in saying that generally females are not).
In saying that, as a father, I would not necessarily stop them from what they really want to do and she sounds passionate about it. All you can do is guide them. If my daughter wanted to do the same thing I would say fair enough - but I would want them to do something with the language skills as well like if I am going to fund your Japanese language education then you also need to study X. I still remember the story of Tim Cahill who begged his parents to support him in his soccer career and his father? eventually said that they would but if he does not have a role by a certain age then he had to do what he wanted. In saying that, if your daughter has the drive to do all that and achieves it - if she wanted to do something else then she could achieve that.
There will be work both with multinationals and freelance. It might not be around in 50 years but we are still a long way from completely accurate machine translations. Is she Japanese or has your daughter even lived in Japan for an extended time? The big issue that your daughter will probably face is that she doesn't understand the culture. This is a massive part of translating and what makes someone successful in this area.
Yep. Also, if she's not a native Japanese speaker, she probably underestimates how difficult it will be to become a fluent speaker, and how many times more difficult it will be to come close to native level speaking/comprehension (if that's her goal).
The former can't be attained with only a few years of study, unless you are really immersed in the language, in Japan. (Though it might be easier these days to do so in Australia with youtube and on-demand anime and better internet resources and such, I learned almost 20 years ago now). Japanese fluency is an order of magnitude more difficult than Italian or Spanish, which can be "picked up" quicker due to similarity in sentence structure with English.
The latter is difficult even for very motivated, intelligent students, even after years in Japan. I came nowhere near it after several years in high school and 2 full years conversing daily in Japan (and I know hundreds of other learners, some of whom were graduated-uni-at-17 geniuses, who didn't either).
look for jobs at the japanese consulate in australia, or any local goverment positions. the Japanese invest in australian agriculture (fishing, beef, and soon watermelons and other food products) so research japanese companies that operate in australia and go to the directly with a position you can fulfil for them.
if she has the interpreter skills, go for a job in Japan. the job market is really good at the moment, living is cheaper and health care is incredible (wisdom tooth removed for $45 recently). I'd recommend looking for jobs anywhere but tokyo, as big mega cities anywhere are a drain and excessive. Hokkaido has a lot of agricultural jobs, and pretty soon they will be 1. connecting trade with europe for farm equipment and importing european dairy and 2. finish building a railway that connects hokkaido to russia, effectively completing a train from japan to moscow. Lots of jobs will be created in this.Dont waste holding on to a prospective interpreter job in australia. Im working with plenty of Japanese people in Japan who want those jobs too.
Thank you all for your input. I think we need to have more discussions with her about her future. Maybe some compromises need to be made.
Even after what I previously posted. I would encourage her to follow her passion, you never know where it might end up. Personally, I trained as a geologist but have taught Maths my entire career. I don't regret my decision even if my qualifications didn't directly get me work.
Japans population is in decline, their economy has peaked, many indicators highlight stiff competition from other asian nations looking to de-throne japan as a technological power house, so nothing is in Japans favour as being a land of opportunity where communication challenges may increase in the future and need to be catered for. Can I ask where she got the idea that she will create a future on simply translating Japanese? I would consider this more of a part-time hobby than an actual career worth undertaking massive amounts of debt for. She will take the better part of a decade to pay off the debt, if at all, given it's unlikely she will find stable income to cross the threshold.
However, I would like to add. I have seen truly passionate people excel greatly (and financially) in their respective fields no matter how silly/bizarre/stupid they sounded initially, so who knows.
My daughter studied Japanese all through high school and loved it. She enjoyed learning both the language and the culture. I don’t think she is looking at this from a practical, career driven view point, it is more about her passion for the subject.
Her English language skills are extremely good and we would prefer her to head more in that direction with her studies.
I am quite experienced in this area.
This is DEFINATELY not a good idea. Translater ia a very shitty job which usually goes to the cheapest person. Even for importantt work - the jobs that maybe pop up a few times a year - the amount of time invested to get there means the return is negligible.
Being a bilingual person who can actually do something is however extremely useful.
Tell her to get a practical degree and then sign up for the jet program. At least she'll get paid to teach and learn the language.
Hi, current accredited translator and interpreter here. I get paid extra at my government job due to my accreditation.
For one to work as a translator or interpreter in Australia, you must be accredited (now called certified) by NAATI. Note you will need separate certification for translating and interpreting as they are deemed to be different skills.
Not all certified translators are interpreters, and vice versa.
You can obtain certification either via doing an approved course (check the NAATI website), or if your daughter is confident enough, do a test directly with NAATI. From memory you’d need a pass rate of 70% across all sections of the test.
You may not need to do a whole degree if you can just pass the test.
If your daughter passes the test and get certification, then she can work as interpret/translator while studying for another degree in a field that shed interested in.
My pathway:
studied Advanced dip in interpreting at RMIT, got my NAATI accreditation in interpreting.
Then studied Adv Dip in translating, also at RMIT, and receive my NAATI accreditation in translating.
Both were 6-month courses
All the while also doing my Arts degree via off campus mode at DeakinHowever if your daughter just wants to use her language skills to enhance her future career, and not do actual translating and interpreting jobs, then she won’t need to be certified.
I would definitely say that there are more job opportunities for interpreting than translating, as someone said above, translating jobs normally go to whoever is the cheapest. HOWEVER, in say that, translating books, manuscripts, legal documents etc, can be lucrative, especially if you could market yourself as having native English and LOTE proficiency. A lot of the translators in the industry are not native or near native English speakers, and it shows in their work. So if your daughter has her own website with a few examples of her language skills, then she would have a much higher advantage than ones who are not native English speakers with high English proficiency.
Best of luck to your daughter’s studies!
Thankyou yumdumpring for such a comprehensive reply. Very helpful.
I have a friend who wanted to do something similar. She did an exchange to Japan in high school and finished her degree in Japan (funded by the Japanese government). As a fluent Japanese speaker she got work in hospitality but the reality was her language skills just let her be a glorified receptionist.