Las Aventuras Alicantinas – Part 2: La Hora de Clase

Enforex Spanish school

My flatmates – Giorgio and Veronika – and I left bright and early to start our first day of Spanish school at 8:30. It was a casual fifteen-minute walk downhill to the school, which was on a busy palm-tree-lined avenue and pedestrian promenade on the edge of the marina. The walk took us through town, down La Rambla, a bustling shopping street by day and a lively strip of clubs and bars by night, which was crossed by narrow, winding alleys of the Old Town.

The school was small, yet modern, and as soon as we arrived, we sat a placement test to determine our level of Spanish. The first part was grammar exercises – my strong point, great! The second part was an oral test – my weak point, not so great! Despite slipping in the odd subjunctive in the speaking part, the two tests balanced out to place me at level B1 (the European language proficiency levels being A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2 in ascending order).

Veronika, Giorgio and me on
the beach - for the record,
I no longer own that hat

Classes were to be a demanding five hours every weekday with the first three weeks being from 14:30 until 19:30 and the final three weeks from 09:30 until 14:30, and I found myself in a class taught by Laura, a softly-spoken lady from Argentina, and Pedro, an energetic Spaniard, (both in their late 20s/early 30s). I was put in the same class as my flatmates and eight other students from Germany, Japan, Italy, France, England, Belarus and Russia.

As school was in the afternoon, we had a few hours to explore the city, but after a five-minute stroll, we found the hectic city beach, where we set up camp for the rest of the morning.

Back at school in the afternoon, we started off with talking about Spanish customs and comparing them to our own. It wasn’t just grammar drills we did in class, it was more practical than university classes. We learnt Spanish recipes; Pedro even gave me his family’s paella recipe, which my flatmates and I tried out. Talk about deliciosa.


My class at Enforex - that was only
window in the room so we weren't
distracted by the beach

We learned about Spanish card games, Spanish hand gestures, Spanish idioms and Spanish dances, like the flamenco. It was very culturally oriented – the ideal way to learn a language – and at the end of each day, I’d come home with a sheet of A4’s worth of vocabulary.
 

At the end of the six weeks, I came away with a certificate with my “marks”. Although there weren’t any formal exams, the teachers had naturally been keeping an eye on our progress, and it was quite emotional when I finished at Enforex Alicante to read the certificate with Laura and Pedro’s comments saying how promising Spanish would be for me...

Part 3 will be posted next Wednesday 3^rd October when I discover the city, its castle and the coast.

Las Aventuras Alicantinas – Part 1: Un llegado alicantino

Alicante at night -
the view reminds me of hot coals

When I was a kid in the 90s, summers in Britain were genuinely boiling hot. It’s only in the last decade or so that they have turned into monsoon season. In August 2010, I had the opportunity to escape to southern Spain for some sun, sea, sand and sangria, but this wasn’t just a holiday – it was a linguistic holiday. I set off for six weeks in Alicante, spending five hours every weekday at Enforex – a Spanish language school – and spending the rest of the time enjoying the language and culture of my surroundings.

Just two months after I had left my life in Toulouse, I was back at Cardiff Airport ready for part two of my Year Abroad. It was a beautiful summer Sunday evening and the skies remained clear throughout the flight, which made for a beautiful sunset as we flew further into the darkness.


My home for six weeks -
the tree-lined Calle San Vicente

Once we touched down at Alicante Airport, I watched most people on my flight make their way to various coaches to take them in all directions to their holiday destinations, but as for me, I was on my own, no tour guide or rep. Ten o’clock at night and the heat was still incredible. I took a taxi into town – the first opportunity to practise my two years of Spanish with the taxi driver, but I elected to just enjoy the journey into the eerily quiet city.

Eventually, I did have to speak, but to the gentleman at a hotel who was retaining the keys to the flat I was staying at, and of course he spoke quickly with a thick accent as he gave me directions to my building – not great for my first encounter of Spanish in a native situation. Dragging 20 kg of suitcase behind me, I strolled the dark, humid and breezy streets in the direction that the man had pointed, arriving shortly afterwards at the four-storey building on what was a long deserted street of shop fronts with the shutters down under bright orange street lights.



Alicante the morning after -
the bull ring stands out rather prominently

After two flights of stairs, I entered the spacious but minimalist faux-marble flat to find no signs of life, but two bedrooms (with the doors closed) as well as my own. Like the rest of the flat, my room was simply furnished and naturally the bed was as hard as a rock, but it was only for six weeks. The sheer humidity at what was now around midnight meant I had one of the worst night’s sleep ever.

Waking up the next morning, I looked outside from the balcony to find Alicante transformed into a bright, bustling, palm tree-lined street and was surprised to see the city’s main bullring stadium just a few hundred metres down the street.

I was then greeted by my flatmates, a German girl and an Italian guy, both just a few years older than me and as eager to kick off our ventures in Spain as I was...

Part 2 will be posted next Wednesday 26^th September. Find out how I fared in class.

Mastering without a Master’s – Part 2

Tina Muller

In Part One, three freelance translators told me why they studied for a Master’s in translation and never looked back. We looked at whether the course was too heavily weighted in theoretical elements, if the content is truly relevant in practice and how the course helped get them to where they are today.

In this concluding part, three professional translators without a postgraduate qualification talk to me about why they feel a Master’s is not a prerequisite to get into translation.



Tina Muller (@TinaSMuller) studied Business Administration before proceeding to do a three-year translation and interpreting course at a language institute in Germany that focussed on translation between English and German. She is now a "state-certified translator and interpreter" for the English language.

Lizzie Whiteley (@ditto_languages) studied for a BA in Modern Foreign Languages (French and Italian) at Bristol University and attended the prestigious School of Modern Languages for Translations and Interpreters in Forli, Italy on her year abroad. She now co-runs Ditto Languages in Cardiff.


Lizzie Whiteley

Caroline Lakey has a BSc Hons in International Management and French from University of Bath, which included a 13-month placement in a company in Paris. She also did a short translation course with University of London Institute in Paris. She is now based in Mayenne, northwest France.

Let’s start with what we want to know above all...

What reasons are there for not wanting to pursue a Master’s in translation?

There were multiple reasons identified for going straight into practising translation, but as far as Caroline Lakey is concerned, the two that stand out the most are practicality and value. “I can’t convince myself that I really need one enough to justify the various sacrifices it would entail, both for me and for my family.


A discussion on ProZ (a prominent translators’ forum) convinced me that I wouldn’t be able to make the money/time back that the course would cost me.

 

Caroline Lakey

I was also put off by the fact that most Master’s courses require you to translate in both directions, which is something I would clearly never do on a professional level. Not to mention the fact that, if I’m honest, the theory of translation bores me stupid!”

 

Some, if not most, translators don’t always know that they want to go into translation, so unless they start their Master’s more or less straight after their undergraduate degree, it may be rather impractical in terms of finance, location, family circumstances, the time required and, indeed, interest. Moreover, we must remember the value of our Bachelor’s degree according to Caroline. “Without wishing to sound like a snob, my first degree is actually fairly prestigious, so if I was going to put a Master’s behind it, I would want it to be a top-level one, which means investing time and money, and unfortunately I don’t have enough of either.”

This is a good point. We should not forget that a language degree is very valuable, enhanced even further by the year abroad, which provides the opportunity to apply everything we have learnt since school. The year abroad give us the opportunity to experience foreign cultures and integrate into different societies. But this need not end once our Bachelor’s degree is over.

After Tina Muller had finished her course, she wanted to see how translation was handled in the real world, yet she still wished to experience the society of the language she had studied. “Some of my friends went on to do an MA, but I had had enough of theoretical studies. I was also very eager to move to Britain for a while to immerse myself in the culture and language (and I'm still here after almost 5 years!). So I moved to Britain and after a couple of weeks I already landed a job as an in-house translator.” 

Lizzie Whiteley felt the same. “After I graduated I knew I wanted to return to Italy and break translation, but finding a job from the UK proved difficult. I found out about the Leonardo Da Vinci scheme, which puts students on a short language course and then finds them a 3-month work placement. A translation agency in Florence took me on, where I quickly learnt how a translation agency worked, and after 3 months they offered me a permanent job.  

While I did take some short and distance-learning courses in translation and proofreading, for me this first-hand commercial experience was invaluable and something that could never be replaced with a Master’s. The route I took was also much less costly, plus I was able to live abroad and refine my language skills at the same time.” 

In such a prestigious industry, it is vital to have a means to enter this career for those who are not attracted to the idea of a postgraduate course. Naturally, it would be unacceptable to practise as a translator without any formal training, but fortunately this is largely recognised by those without a Master’s, who proceed to acquire experience in relevant fields, such as working in-house and studying on a short translation course.

How can translators break into the industry without a Master’s?

One issue is being recognised by clients as a professional translator without a postgraduate qualification, but Tina has never encountered any problems. “I have never been asked the question if I have an MA, nor has it ever hindered my success to get the job I wanted.

I worked in an agency as a project manager but only lasted 3 months there and then I went freelance. I stayed on good terms with my previous employer, so I started out as a freelancer with one client in the bag already. I marketed myself to selected translation agencies and built up a client network relatively swiftly. To this day I still work with most of those initial clients, so I do not look for more very often.”

Caroline took more time to build up experience before going freelance: “I had worked for 12 years in bilingual corporate environments, translating and interpreting (albeit informally) on a daily basis, before I went freelance. Also, having studied business and worked in large companies, I perhaps had more of an idea how to market myself than people with different experiences might.”

Our translators had clearly planned their transition to freelance meticulously, after having learnt how to market themselves. As freelancers know too well, work does not come flooding in automatically. Postgrad or not, freelance translators must market themselves as much as any local business you see in your town or city, certainly even more so without a physical presence that a bakery or florist will have.

Do translators without a Master’s learn more through experience rather than through additional qualification?

There is also the matter of the quality of translations – do postgraduate translators produce better translations? Tina is convinced that the route she took was the right one. “I don't think an MA would have done me any harm, but I feel that my education at the language institute was so comprehensive that there was no need to study further before starting out as a professional translator. As with every other job, a translator learns most things through experience and an MA cannot replace that.”

And Caroline completely agrees. “Without a doubt. I’m sure a Master’s gives you an excellent theoretical knowledge of translation, but I’m not convinced that it teaches you how to manage customer expectations and produce decent translations under pressure with limited access to relevant information! At the end of the day, I see myself running a translation business rather than “just” producing translations.”

This is the most convincing argument, as far as I’m concerned, about not studying for a Master’s in translation. The objective of producing good-quality translations is a given. What many unfamiliar with the translation industry don’t realise is that freelancers are running a business. They are their own accountant, secretary, IT support, PA, account manager, business development manager and project manager too, skills a Master’s can’t provide, such that postgraduates are not ready to set off as freelancers as soon as they graduate.

So, would our freelancers turn back the clock and take up a postgraduate course instead?

Tina certainly wouldn’t. “I don't think that an MA, especially straight after graduation, would have given me any more insight into the world of translation nor can it replace any experience I've gathered in the field so far. As a freelancer I also think very much in business terms: will it literally pay off to do an MA? My clear answer to that is no. You will not be able to achieve higher prices for your work than without an MA – I'd rather invest in a course on how to market yourself as a freelance translator.”

Lizzie sees commercial experience as what made her a better translator. “I don’t regret taking the route I did, I’ve never been refused for a job because I don’t have a Master’s.  Now, when I recruit translators, I look for many things, but would choose a translator with real business experience in a particular specialist field over a translator with a Master’s. In my experience this is what makes a well-rounded, more resourceful, more punctual linguist.”

In many fields, qualifications are reflected in a pay slip, but it seems that it doesn't work like that in translation, and those without a Master’s would do well to invest the money typically spent on an MA into technology and resources, and self-development and specialisation.

Conclusion

Is it better for a translator to have a Master’s or to have richer practical experience? Unfortunately, the answer to this will always remain subjective. We have seen compelling arguments from both sides, but it will depend on personality. What’s important is that all six of our translators are happy with the route they took.

Certainly, there is nothing to suggest that it is not worth following a Master’s course at all. For those looking to break into the industry but who perhaps lack direction, this is probably the best route. It provides a solid theoretical base, with the benefit of receiving feedback on translations from academic professionals, and empowers its holders with confidence in their career.

Equally, there is nothing to indicate that entering the industry directly is not appropriate. Our translators said they have never experienced any hindrances without the Master’s. Most agencies require a minimum 5 years’ experience in practising translation; this is something that both postgraduates and non-postgraduates will face. What a Master’s doesn’t give you is commercial experience, so crucially, it may be tricky to find ones feet for postgraduates who wish to go freelance as soon as they graduate.