[Veni Vidi Pimpi]

Lots of people have asked about jobs and money making abroad and though I have no secret for this (I am employed by a US corp.) I have a friend who was able to live comfortably doing technical translation in Japan in addition to teaching English.

You can either link up with a big firm like Transperfect or do the freelance thing posting your skills and rates per word online. Upside: you can do it anywhere with an Internet connection. Downside: feast or famine. As a translator you depend on getting work to translate into your native language. Common languages like Spanish or French have low rates because of the abundant supply of translators and hard languages have higher rates but less consistent work. From what I heard, the more niche translating (Legal, technical, scientific, business) you can do, the higher your rates and better your chances.

Granted, you must be really good in some language, meticulous, and able to keep deadlines. Just an idea to throw out there.

[FretDancer]

Veni, can you provide us with some info and links on trustable websites that allow and provide these kind of jobs?

[AlphaQup2nite]

In my language of expertise, this is practically impossible. No one will want to do work with an unknown translator unless it is a last minute, once in a life time opportunity. You need an intermediary to introduce you, and unless you have a degree in translation and years of exp, expect to get paid what you would pay a college student would make, since that is who you are competing with for this kinda entry level translation.

Honestly, general translation and text translation is cheap. Anyone with a basic understanding and google translate can knock out one in a few hours. What is in demand is for live translation for meetings and such, as well as technical translation (tech/medical) and high end business (read: contract/legal) translation.

Generally, unless you can conduct high level trade talks in 2 or more languages, there isnt much of a market for those skills.

This kinda work wouldnt be any good for anyone looking to do it as a main sourse of income, but if you have the free time, it makes an ok supplement, but you could prbly make more just tutoring uni students.

[HammockLife]

(02-25-2011 04:04 AM)AlphaQup2nite Wrote:  

In my language of expertise, this is practically impossible. No one will want to do work with an unknown translator unless it is a last minute, once in a life time opportunity.

Nope, that's not the case at all, unless your native language is English. Like I have stated on this board before, about half of my income is derived from translation work. Good translators are hard to find, and any halfway serious business will be quite aware that Google Translate sucks very badly indeed. I could easily double my assignment volume and derive my entire income from translating stuff, but I don't like working more than I have to, so I routinely turn prospective customers away.

If your native language is something other than English, Spanish and French, you can make a pretty decent living doing nothing else than translating for 30 hours a week.

[Jalouse]

(02-25-2011 08:28 AM)HammockLife Wrote:  

(02-25-2011 04:04 AM)AlphaQup2nite Wrote:  

In my language of expertise, this is practically impossible. No one will want to do work with an unknown translator unless it is a last minute, once in a life time opportunity.

Nope, that's not the case at all, unless your native language is English. Like I have stated on this board before, about half of my income is derived from translation work. Good translators are hard to find, and any halfway serious business will be quite aware that Google Translate sucks very badly indeed. I could easily double my assignment volume and derive my entire income from translating stuff, but I don't like working more than I have to, so I routinely turn prospective customers away.

If your native language is something other than English, Spanish and French, you can make a pretty decent living doing nothing else than translating for 30 hours a week.

Proz.com is quite popular, I've hired people from there before to do some translation.

[emh]

I've met a couple of translators while traveling. One works for a company and is allowed to live wherever he wants. The other freelances. The thing is, they both admitted to me that the work is REALLY boring.