If you’ve travelled to a foreign land you probably had some difficulty communicating if the spoken language wasn’t English. If you were on a hosted tour of some kind there would have been someone who came along to handle all non-English communication. That would have been an interpreter.
Translators and interpreters are used to convert information from one language into another one but there is a clear distinction between the two. Interpreters work in spoken or sign language where translators work in written language. Interpreters are usually found working in schools, hospitals, courtrooms and conference centers. Basically they are used when communication needs to be converted in person where translators are able to work at home on projects that don’t require immediate transmission of the converted information.
Becoming a self-employed translator or interpreter can provide a great extra income to ease you into retirement or to keep as part of your retirement earnings. With the increasing multilingual state of both Canada and the United States the need for translators and interpreters continues to grow. In fact, at present there are many job opportunities for translators listed online at AtaNet.org and this isn’t just to translate English to French or Spanish, either.
Doctors and lawyers are increasingly employing translators who can speak any language you can imagine from Bulgarian to Farsi with some specific language translators in demand in certain parts of North America. You can’t just walk in off the street into a government operated facility and expect to get hired as a translator as there are some basic requirements.
In most cases a bachelor’s degree is a good start. Added to that a ‘native-level fluency’ in English, or in other words, you can speak it as if it was the only language you spoke all your life, plus one more language you will qualify for many translator jobs.
The more languages you are fluent in, the better and job-specific training may be required in some cases but the earning potential makes this part-time or full-time employment option worth looking into for seniors.
The median pay in 2012 was $45,430 per year with an hourly average at $21.84 with a total of 63,600 jobs listed in 2012 alone. The job outlook for the ten year period from 2012 to 2022 pointed to a 46-percent increase in job postings putting translation in a category much faster than the average growth of all other careers.
The reason for such a high projection of growth comes from continued globalization and an increase in non-English speaking people moving into both Canada and the United States. For more information on this exciting and timely opportunity, simply enter “translator jobs” into your internet browser search bar.