FAQ – Hours

I receive a lot of emails from people looking to get into translation and many of the questions I’m asked are common. So occasionally I try to answer them here.

One that I get asked is how long the hours are. This is one of the hardest questions to answer, because it depends. How many hours you work depends on how much work you get asked to do, how much work you want to do, what type of projects you take on, and how much time and energy each assignment requires.

You could take on one short translation job each month or you could work more than full-time as a translator.

Personally, I’ve been at both extremes, and it’s depended on my circumstances (i.e. how dependent I am on the income from translation and what other jobs I have). You can fairly easily build up a career as a freelance non-fiction translator, but to work full-time as a literary translator is generally harder.

How many hours a week do other translators work?

Path to a PhD

I get a lot of emails from people asking me whether they should get a PhD in translation studies and, if so, what they should research for their dissertations. I’ve already written quite a bit about that on this blog (see Getting a PhD and What Can You Study When You Do a PhD in Translation?, for example).

One of the most common recent questions has been what path you need to take if you know for sure you want to get a PhD in translation studies one day. People ask me whether they should study languages, literature, linguistics, translation studies at the undergraduate or MA level, or some other topic entirely.

This is a very individual choice, and I’m loathe to tell people how to shape their lives and their careers. Obviously, to apply to and get accepted to a PhD program in translation studies, you need to show that you have the requisite level of skill in your chosen language/s and literature/s and other relevant subject area/s. You’ll need to prove that you have the scholarly background necessary for doing strong critical work in the humanities (i.e. a BA in sports science probably won’t help). You may also need to show your expertise as a translator, especially if you want to do a creative-critical PhD. But how you get these skills and how you show them in your application will vary.

Personally, my BA is in literature and creative writing and I have an MFA in creative writing. I also worked as a practicing translator for some years before applying for my PhD studies. That pathway worked for me, but I also know people who went for BAs and MAs in translation first, then directly on to a PhD, and still others who did undergraduate degrees in fields such as law or medicine and then switched to languages and translation for their MAs. Others focused on language at the undergraduate level and then came to literature and literary translation as MA students. There is no one right way.

So my simple advice is to consider what your interests are and where you eventually hope to end up. If you want to become a pharmaceutical translator, then an undergraduate degree in medicine might serve you very well. If you know you want to be an academic who researches the translation of opera, then studying languages and music as an undergraduate might be a good choice. And so on. Think about who you are and what will inspire you, and take it from there.

How’s the Pay?

One of the questions I’m asked most often, both by email and in person, is how much translators get paid. “How much do you actually make?” folks ask. I sometimes wonder how polite of a question that is and whether they’d ask that of, say, a teacher or a doctor or a salesperson.

Well, anyway, the pay depends. How long have you been a translator? What type of work do you do? Where do you live?

The Translators’ Association here in the UK writes on their website: “The negotiation of fees is a matter for the individual translator and client to resolve. In the Society's experience of reviewing contracts, we have found that UK publishers are prepared to pay in the region of £88.50 per 1,000 words.” That’s a sensible starting place. Obviously, some really complicated jobs will require you to ask for a higher fee, while a simpler job that allows you to use translation tools and includes a lot of repetition of words will earn you less. Likewise, if live in a country with a really high cost of living, your prices should be higher. A small job may make you want to ask for a flat fee, rather than a per word rate. But start from the assumption that you want to earn around £0.08 per word.

“Can you actually make a living as a translator?” people also ask me.

The answer to that question is yes, and no.

It too depends. It depends on what type of translation work you do, how good you are at both translation and networking, how able you are to work alone for long hours and to chase down work, and how long you’ve been at it for. If you’re just starting out and you only translate poetry, you most likely won’t be able to work full-time as a translator. If you have a medical degree and you want to specialize in pharmaceutical texts, then you might have a better shot. If you’re an award-winning translator of thrillers, you’ll probably end up having to turn down work.

I recognize that this isn’t necessarily very helpful of a response. But it does reflect reality for translators. As you broaden your customer base and get more experience, you’ll get more work and be able to raise your rates. But it’s unrealistic to expect that as soon as you print business cards, you’ll suddenly be very busy with work.

That’s why many translators have “portfolio careers” or “parallel careers”, developing their freelance translation careers while also doing other work, such as working for a translation agency or publishing company, teaching, painting houses, practicing law, doing admin work, etc. It’s also quite stimulating to have different aspects to your career and to have the opportunity to move from one task to another. Personally, I feel it makes me a better translator.

Programs in Translation Studies

People regularly write to me to ask me to recommend programs in translation studies to them. This information is quite easily available on the internet, with careful Googling. I also think that since all academic programs require that students do research, you should start by researching universities and their offerings. 

However, I recently came across this list, which has some programs on it, though it is missing many, including the one I teach at, at the University of East Anglia.

FAQ – References on Allusions

As I’ve said before, I get a lot of emails from people who ask me to tell them where to find books or articles on particular areas of translation studies. I do think research means that you should do the research, but of course it can be helpful to get book suggestions from other people.

So here are some reading subjects on the topic of allusions/intertextuality in general and on translating cultural/political/literary/religious/other references:

Graham Allen, Intertextuality (London: Routledge, 2000).

Richard Bauman, A World of Others’ Words (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004).

Mieke K.T. Desmet, ‘Intertextuality/Intervisuality in Translation: The Jolly Postman’s Intercultural Journey from Britain to the Netherlands’, The Translation of Children’s Literature, ed. Gillian Lathey (Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 2006).

B.J. Epstein, “Life is Just an Allusion,” in Crossing Textual Boundaries in International Children’s Literature, published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, spring 2011

B.J. Epstein, “Manipulating the Next Generation: Translating Culture for Children,” in Papers: Explorations into Children’s Literature, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 41-76, autumn 2010
Belén González Cascallana, “Translating Cultural Intertextuality in Children’s Literature”, in Van Coillie, Jan, and Walter P. Verschueren, eds., Children’s Literature in Translation: Challenges and Strategies (Manchester: St. Jerome, 2006), 97-110.

William Irwin, ‘Against Intertextuality’, Philosophy and Literature, vol. 28, nr. 2, (October 2004), 227-242.

Ritva Leppihalme, Notes on Culture Bumps: An Empirical Approach to the Translation of Allusions (Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 1997).

Ulrike H. Meinhof and Jonathan Smith, eds. Intertextuality and the Media: From Genre to Everyday Life (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000).

Mary Orr, Intertextuality: Debates and Contexts (Cambridge: Polity, 2003).

Isabel Pascua-Febles, “Translating Cultural References: The Language of Young People in Literary Texts,” in Van Coillie, Jan, and Walter P. Verschueren, eds., Children’s Literature in Translation: Challenges and Strategies (Manchester: St. Jerome, 2006), 111-121.

References on Translating Children’s Literature

For my second list of references (the first list was on translation in general), I thought I’d offer a list of books on translating children’s literature, which happens to be my area of special.

Hallford, Deborah, and Edgardo Zaghini, Outside In: Children’s Books in Translation (London: Milet, 2005).

Klingberg, Göte, Barn- och ungdomslitteraturforskning: områden, metoder, terminologi [Research on Children’s Literature: Areas, Methods, Terminology] (Göteborg: Lärarhögskolan, 1969).

Klingberg, Göte, Barn- och ungdomslitteraturen [Children’s Literature] (Stockholm: Natur & Kultur, 1970).

Klingberg, Göte, Barnlitteraturforskning. En introduktion [Research on Children’s Literature: An Introduction] (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1972).

Klingberg, Göte, Översättningen av barn- och ungdomsböcker: en metodisk förundersökning [The Translation of Children’s Literature: A Methodological Preliminary Investigation] (Göteborg : Lärarhögskolan, 1974).

Klingberg, Göte, Att översätta barn- och ungdomsböcker: empiriska studier och rekommendationer [Translating Children’s Literature: Empirical Studies and Recommendations] (Mölndal: Lärarhögskolan, 1977).

Klingberg, Göte, ed., Children’s Books in Translation: the Situation and the Problems. Proceedings of the third symposium of the International Research Society for Children’s Literature (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1978).

Klingberg, Göte, De främmande världarna i barn- och ungdomslitteraturen [Strange Worlds in Children’s Literature] (Stockholm: Rabén & Sjögren, 1980).

Klingberg, Göte, Children’s Fiction in the Hands of Translators (Stockholm: CWK, 1986).

Gillian Lathey, ed. The Translation of Children’s Literature (Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 2006).

Oittinen, Riitta, I am Me – I am Other. On the Dialogics of Translating for Children (Tampere: University of Tampere, 1993).

Oittinen, Riitta, Translating for Children (New York: Garland, Inc., 2000).

O’Sullivan, Emer, Comparative Children's Literature, trans. Anthea Bell (London: Routledge, 2005).

Jan Van Coillie and Walter P. Verschueren, eds., Children’s Literature in Translation: Challenges and Strategies (Manchester: St. Jerome, 2006).

References on Translation

I often get emails from people who ask me for reading lists and while I don't think I should do people's research for them, as I've said before, I can provide some suggestions. And if any readers come up with other books and articles that could be of use, feel free to add them in the comments.

So, for the first such list, I thought I'd offer some good introductory texts on translation. These will serve as a useful academic basis for a deeper understanding of what translation is and what translators do.

Mona Baker: In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation

Basil Hatim and Ian Mason: Discourse and the Translator

Clifford E. Landers: Literary Translation: A Practical Guide

André Lefevere: Translating Literature: Practice and Theory in a Comparative Literature Context

Jeremy Munday: Introducing Translation Studies

Peter Newmark: Approaches to Translation

Peter Newmark: A Textbook of Translation

Eugene A. Nida and Charles R. Taber: The Theory and Practice of Translation

Christiane Nord: Translating as a Purposeful Activity: Functionalist Approaches Explained

Gideon Toury: Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond

FAQ # 3: Research Means Just That

This FAQ is going to sound very obvious, but the number of emails I get on this makes it worth repeating.

Research means just that, i.e. research. If you want to do an MA or a PhD in translation studies, you need to be an independent and active researcher. You have to take responsibility for your own work (this is true for any subject, of course, and not just translation studies or literature). I get many emails from readers asking me for research topics, book lists, literature reviews, and other information that, if they are truly serious about doing research, they should be doing themselves.

So: if you want to be a researcher, take responsibility for your own work and do your research.

FAQ #2: On Research Topics

I get many questions regarding possible research topics for people who are writing theses or dissertations on translation studies. Since you spend a lot of time and energy on your research, you need to choose something that you actually find interesting and worth looking into, not just something you think sounds good. It’s true that there are quite a few underresearched areas out there (children’s literature, for example, or subtitling, or certain language pairs), but you shouldn’t choose a topic based on that alone.

So I am sorry to say that I can’t offer readers lists of potential subjects for their research. All I can suggest is that you think carefully about what languages you know, what you have studied or excelled at in school thus far, and what your hobbies and interests are, and then try to find a way to combine them. In my case, for example, I learned Swedish by reading children’s books and that led to me falling for children’s literature in Scandinavia and making its translation the subject matter for my research.

FAQ #1: On Hiring

I regularly get questions via email from readers of this blog, so it occurred to me that instead of me constantly writing individual responses to them, I could collate some of the regular questions and answers here. Therefore, I’ll write a series of FAQ posts.

First of all, I’ll start with the easiest answer: no, except in very particular circumstances, I am not hiring. When I do need someone’s help on a project, I have contacts that I work with. So while I appreciate all the cover letters and CVs you send me, I am sorry to say that nothing will come of them.

In general, you should do more research before approaching a potential employer. I get a lot of emails from people who work with Arabic, but if you would carefully study my website, you’d see that I never work with Arabic and thus have no jobs to offer in that area. The same goes for most other languages and for subject matters such as engineering or medicine. You should always review someone’s website and materials before wasting your time contacting someone who doesn’t have work for you.

Stay tuned for more FAQ!