Life after JET: Translation/interpretation qualifications

[KIKKI.K]

Even though I'm planning on being on JET a couple more years, I'm thinking about what I'm going to do after JET. I think I'd like to go into translation/interpretation, but I'd like to study in Europe or Japan (doing English-Japanese translation)... My preference would be for Europe, as I'm prone to itchy feet syndrome ^_^. I have dual citizenship with a country that is part of the EU, but I know nothing about European (inc UK and Ireland) universities, or if any of them even offer good quality qualifications in translation/interpretation in English and Japanese.

So I'm hoping the JET community can give me some ideas and names of Universities, because from what I've found so far, most places seem to have a higher emphasis on Chinese, or European languages, rather than Japanese. On top of that, there are so many Universities to look into, can you guys help me narrow down my search a bit?

Thanks ^_^

[king]

A friend of mine who does a lot of this for his job did has masters with Sheffield Uni (top 20 in the UK)- he was able to do much of it as a distance course too, which was good. I think he may have did more of a Japanese course with a bit of translation than a pure translation course though. But I'm unsure.

[KIKKI.K]

A friend of mine who does a lot of this for his job did has masters with Sheffield Uni (top 20 in the UK)- he was able to do much of it as a distance course too, which was good. I think he may have did more of a Japanese course with a bit of translation than a pure translation course though. But I'm unsure.

hmmmm actually, a jet in my city went to that uni, so i'll ask them about it, but thanks for your reply^^

[Jen_KyotoPA]

You might want to try the Honyaku mailing list (http://honyakuhome.org/node/27) . It's a mailing list for professional E<->J translators, with a lot of stuff about specific translation issues, but information about qualifications and getting started comes up a lot too. You can search the archives here: http://honyaku-archive.org/search/?q=qualifications . Or you could ask the list of course.

In general, my impression is that experience takes priority over qualifications/courses in translation.

[misheruz]

Does anyone know how much useful experience you gain from the JET translation course? I'm also interested in doing translation or interpretation after JET.

[KIKKI.K]

You might want to try the Honyaku mailing list (http://honyakuhome.org/node/27) . It's a mailing list for professional E<->J translators, with a lot of stuff about specific translation issues, but information about qualifications and getting started comes up a lot too. You can search the archives here: http://honyaku-archive.org/search/?q=qualifications . Or you could ask the list of course.

In general, my impression is that experience takes priority over qualifications/courses in translation.

Hmmmm a couple of people actaully said in the replies, that they thought it was better to get a qualification, because it teaches you the skills that they had to learn by themselves over many years anyway, and it would have saved them some trouble...

Thanks for the link... some interesting reads^^

[Jen_KyotoPA]

Does anyone know how much useful experience you gain from the JET translation course? I'm also interested in doing translation or interpretation after JET.

I'd say some. In my personal opinion the correspondence course is so-so. It will give you opportunities to practice but the feedback (particularly the J->E feedback) isn't necessarily very helpful. The weeklong conference, however, is quite good -- all the teachers are professionals and generally have quite a bit of good advice and I know I found the interpreting practice quite helpful as a CIR.

Hmmmm a couple of people actaully said in the replies, that they thought it was better to get a qualification, because it teaches you the skills that they had to learn by themselves over many years anyway, and it would have saved them some trouble...

Thanks for the link... some interesting reads^^

Yep, everyone has different opinions. That said, having looked for translation jobs for a while, experience is basically always a prerequisite, while qualifications almost never are.

[Hawkeye]

Late reply to this thread, but I'd like to anyway.

I'm also going into Translation/interpretation afterwards. I've done it before, although unofficially...
I just wanted to respond to something said in the very first post. You were thinking of studying it, but you wanted to go to Europe? If you want to study Japanese to English or vice versa, definitely, definitely do not study in Europe... you're too far away from your B language I think.. also, most translation/interpretation schools in Europe require at least 3 of the UN languages for entry... Japanese isn't one of them, but can be considered as an additional C language.
Suuuuuper late, but i've been researching it lately ... having no classes... so just thought i'd try to revive it a bit.

[KIKKI.K]

Late reply to this thread, but I'd like to anyway.

I'm also going into Translation/interpretation afterwards. I've done it before, although unofficially...
I just wanted to respond to something said in the very first post. You were thinking of studying it, but you wanted to go to Europe? If you want to study Japanese to English or vice versa, definitely, definitely do not study in Europe... you're too far away from your B language I think.. also, most translation/interpretation schools in Europe require at least 3 of the UN languages for entry... Japanese isn't one of them, but can be considered as an additional C language.
Suuuuuper late, but i've been researching it lately ... having no classes... so just thought i'd try to revive it a bit.

Hey, thanks for the reply, I've looked into several universities in the UK and Ireland, and they do MAs in Translation going between Japanese and English only, so I don't think I need to worry about that. I don't know anything about reputable translation schools per se, so yeah, I just looked into some universities...
Studying an MA, it'd only be for a year, and since I'm planning on 4-5 here on JET, I don't think that's an issue, and I need to go back to my home country and do an hons degree anyway, before doing an MA. Basically, I like to travel, so that's why I want to go somewhere new for an MA, before settling down with a job and hopefully a career...

Thanks for the input, could you tell me what school you looked at? If they have good reputations worldwide, I'd like to take a look at them anyway^^

[Muts]

I know Bath University has a course focusing on both translation and interpretation.
http://www.bath.ac.uk/study/pg/programm ... e-and-tran
It sounded like there were more native japanese speakers taking the course, but that there were some native english speakers too.

From my experience applying for translation jobs with several companies I'd say that although to a certain extent qualifications and experience will make your resume look more attractive, the most important factor seems to be your actual ability to do well on their trials. There are some jobs where the company definitely needs someone with experience, but there are also plenty of opportunities for people will no experience but good ability. The number of native english speakers with fluent japanese is low relative to a lot of other language pairs, so although that alone won't get you a job companies have less freedom to be demanding about experience and qualifications than say they might be when trying to hire a native Japanese speaker with fluent english. A degree will help to improve your skills, but it isn't essential. The fact that your skills will have improved is probably going to be more important than the bit of paper you get with it.

If you're serious about doing interpreting as well as translation then I guess that a degree would be much more important.