Investing in yourself as a translator

Translators need to continually invest in themselves. We all know this. Continuous professional development, both on a professional and personal level, enables us to take on new challenges, but also to gain more confidence in our work. It’s no wonder that the ITI encourages us all to keep up with our self-training.

Mastering without a Master’s 

In the past year, I have taken a keen interest in the subject of breaking into the industry and how translators establish themselves in the career, evidenced by a talk I’ll be giving at Newcastle University next week, an upcoming series of interviews with translators (watch this space), and my posts last year on whether a postgraduate qualification is necessary to be a translator. Unfortunately, there is no yes or no answer.

Although it is true many agencies stipulate that their translators must have a Master’s or equivalent in translation, would they turn down someone without this qualification, but who is highly experienced in a specialised area in demand? There is no doubt, however, that a postgraduate qualification would put you in a strong starting position and allow you to cement yourself in the career.

I left university with my BA in Modern Languages desperate to break into the translation industry, but to train on the job rather than study the theory behind it. That was a personal choice, one which I stand by; studying for a Master’s in translation may well be a better choice for others, and I have an enormous amount of respect for translators who have successfully built their careers on their MAs, not to mention those well-established translators who take up a postgraduate qualification later on in their career to give themselves a formal acknowledgement of their authority in an unregulated industry.

Preparing to succeed 

Having worked as a translator for two years, I feel I am entering a good position to accredit my skills with an equivalent qualification. For this reason, I have decided to pursue the Diploma in Translation. As this is an exam only, and as such there is no teaching involved, I will be undertaking a fifteen-week preparatory course for the DipTrans. I will need to learn which techniques are the best to use and build up my specialist terminology base, ready to sit the exam in January 2014.

Of course, this will make me £1,500 lighter overall – a minuscule figure compared to the cost of a Master’s and not one which qualifies for a student loan. Nevertheless, it is still worth contemplating whether the investment is worth it. As the ‘gold standard’ in the translation industry, it is notoriously difficult to pass (reportedly a 30% pass rate), and failing it will result in forking out the money again and waiting another year to re-sit whichever of the three module are not passed).

I will keep you updated as I progress, rather than retrospectively, from starting the course to receiving the results in fourteen months’ time, in an effort to exhibit a first-hand experience of the exam and its preparation, and help others decide if this qualification is suited to them. If you would like to find out more about the DipTrans, visit http://www.iol.org.uk/qualifications/exams_diptrans.asp.