Awesome, thanks for getting back to me so quickly! I would apply at Concordia, and maybe at a French university. Unfortunately, McGill doesn't offer a bachelor's in translation. Your sidebar says that you're a grad student, are you still studying translation? Does having a higher degree than a bachelor's open any specific doors for a translator, besides just having more expertise? And, if you don't mind, could you sum up a few weeks or a month of what you do as a translator?
captainbuckybarnes Sure, no problem! :)
Yeah, I did my bachelor's at Université Laval in Quebec city - I did it in two years since I already had a Bachelor's in international relations, so I decided to do a Master's after to have more expertise and to be able to teach. A higher degree really doesn't add anything - experience really is the key in translation, since there's only so much you can be taught - every client is different, after all. The professors do give you excellent tips and feedback; you also learn about what the market is like, a few thing about theory, the useful tools to work with, and tips specific to certain specialities - you can look at the classes Concordia offers, for example. You could specialize in scientific translation, medical translation, technical translations, commercial translation, marketing translation, etc.
A few weeks of what I do... so, I have four years of experience at the moment: I've worked in the university student translation service as Director of Operations, which means I phoned and wrote to the clients, set the prices, and monitored the work and assignments of the other translators to see which one could take the contract and made sure to have a follow-up and feedback mechanism with the clients. That's the kind of job some translators who work in groups have to do. I also worked in a smaller cabinet, where I checked the emails regularly, took the texts when I could and translated them, then, when done, sent them to a colleague for proofreading. After they sent it back to me with their comments, I'd correct my text and send back the final version to the client along with an invoice. Some translators in bigger offices strictly do the translating part; and translators with more experience may also proofread. You may also have to do terminology research - meaning look at texts and corpuses to build a sort of terminology bank, or the client may send you their own list of terms and their translations. Either way, there's still a lot of day-to-day research involved to find the right terms for the context.
Right now I'm in the process of starting my own little translation cabinet with three other students, working pretty much the same way. But I'm also working as a freelancer, which means I have to find clients - through my network, mainly - and a proofreader to check my translations after I'm done.
It's a lot of work, but it's also a lot of fun. :) it does take a while to get started if you're a freelancer - finding good clients - but having contacts help, and once you're on track you can easily live from it. :)
