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Specialities as a beginner
Thread poster: Angel_7
Angel_7
Angel_7  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 16:53
French to English
+ ...
Jul 7, 2005

I have worked in various medical secretarial roles and studied law as one of my modules during my MA in Translation at the University of Surrey. I am just starting up in translation and don't know if my experience is broad enough to mention law and medicine on my CV. But otherwise how do I go about getting work as I would like to translate in these fields and have to start somewhere?
 
Gina W
Gina W
United States
Local time: 11:53
Member (2003)
French to English
Mention them but be honest about your experience and expertise Jul 7, 2005

It sounds like you are knowledgeable enough to do more than basic translations in those fields. Perhaps what you could do in the meantime is “practice” – find texts in those fields (redact out the personal information, such as company name, etc), and translate these texts so they can serve as your sample translations to present to an agency that wants to see your work. You don’t need to stress that you are a beginner and may not have worked with many (or any) agencies and end clients y... See more
It sounds like you are knowledgeable enough to do more than basic translations in those fields. Perhaps what you could do in the meantime is “practice” – find texts in those fields (redact out the personal information, such as company name, etc), and translate these texts so they can serve as your sample translations to present to an agency that wants to see your work. You don’t need to stress that you are a beginner and may not have worked with many (or any) agencies and end clients yet, but do present your skills honestly: if you know that you are capable of producing quality translations in certain fields, then by all means do include this on your CV, as you never know what kind of unique knowledge you may even have, that might be just what someone is looking for.

I hope this helps.:) ▲ Collapse
 
Giles Watson
Giles Watson  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 17:53
Italian to English
In memoriam
A suggestion Jul 7, 2005

Hi Sarah,

If you haven't got any/much experience, it might be an idea to find out how good you are.

Why don't you translate a few bits and bobs of fairly technical stuff and give them to non-French-speaking lawyer or doctor friends to look at?

They should be able to tell you whether your work is:

a) publication-ready;
b) OK, but needs editing;
or
c) rubbish.

This will give you a baseline to work from.

... See more
Hi Sarah,

If you haven't got any/much experience, it might be an idea to find out how good you are.

Why don't you translate a few bits and bobs of fairly technical stuff and give them to non-French-speaking lawyer or doctor friends to look at?

They should be able to tell you whether your work is:

a) publication-ready;
b) OK, but needs editing;
or
c) rubbish.

This will give you a baseline to work from.

Law and medicine are both very broad sectors. It might be worth trying to identify lucrative subsectors to bone up on.

HTH

Giles ▲ Collapse
 


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