Do translators make that much money?

[NewJeffCT]

My wife got a call about a 2 day job working as a translator for some high level business clients that were coming into NYC next week. They're going to pay her $80/hour, plus put her up in a hotel and pay for mileage & meals. So, she's going to take 2 vacation days from her regular job to do this since it pays so well.

I had to read the email twice that it was $80/hour.

But, it also got both of us to thinking that if she can make even close to that on a full-time basis, it might be worth it for her to change fields.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

1. yes but its hard to make a full living. the jobs are well paid but erratic

my mom is a bengali-english translator

[NewJeffCT]

2. I found it odd

that they couldn't find anybody in NYC that could translate Mandarin Chinese on short notice.

but, maybe having somebody with business skills & an MBA makes it harder to find somebody.

But, even then...

[La Lioness Priyanka]

3. i know that they have shortages of some chinese dialect

i mean plenty speak the language but dont speak english well

[NewJeffCT]

4. especially around Canal St or Main St in Flushing

My wife goes there sometimes to go to a Chinese dentist, and the guy barely speaks English because he's probably not had call for it much since he graduated from NYU 20+ years ago.

[China_cat]

7. There's a difference between translation and interpretation.

Interpretation is looser and mainly gets the ideas across without being that precise. Translation means exact and sometimes simultaneous. Necessary in business or for court sessions. Not everyone with more than one language has the skills to be a translator.

[dembotoz]

5. remeber the problem Carter had with a translator in Poland

important job

Wasn't the flap about the translation where a sentence when translated turned into how Jimmy lusted after the Polish women....

Was not a good day

[NewJeffCT]

6. well, I don't blame him for lusting after Polish women

they seem to be overstocked with well-endowed women. :hide:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. She's being asked to work as an interpreter (spoken), not a translator (written)

Interpreters are well paid, but it's a high-stress job. I don't interpret, but some translators do, and they all say that they're wiped out at the end of the day.

Interpreters can make a lot of money, but they get more work and money if they have field-specific knowledge. If the people who hire your wife like her work, she may get more assignments. ON EDIT: I noticed that she has an MBA and business skills. This could make her a very valuable interpreter.

Also, if she has good composition skills in Chinese, she could make a decent living as an English-Chinese translator. There's a lot of demand for that now, as more U.S. companies do business with China. They want catalogues, contracts, employee handbooks, business letters, patents, and other documents translated into Chinese.

A (written) translator's income depends on the volume of work. I've been a Japanese-English translator since 1994, and my monthly income has varied from a low of $200 to a high of $8000.

Translators are paid by the word, either by word/character (in East Asian languages) of source text or by word/character of output text. The less common your language is, the more money you can earn per word.

If she's interested in becoming a translator with a sideline of interpreting, she should sign on to the Internet mailing list "Fanyi." I think it's located at the University of Hawaii, but you should be able to find it by googling.