Specialising in business/ legal translation in the UK Thread poster: Ka Yee MECK DipTrans ACIL
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Hello everyone! Sorry if this topic's been covered already but I would really appreciate your advice and insight.
I've been working as a translator for a decade, mostly doing more general translation. However, since my kids started school full-time this year, I've been trying to get more work and it seems that developing a specialism is essential for me to be able to take on more work... There seems to be quite a lot of translation work in the legal / business field (i.e. legal doc... See more Hello everyone! Sorry if this topic's been covered already but I would really appreciate your advice and insight.
I've been working as a translator for a decade, mostly doing more general translation. However, since my kids started school full-time this year, I've been trying to get more work and it seems that developing a specialism is essential for me to be able to take on more work... There seems to be quite a lot of translation work in the legal / business field (i.e. legal documents, contracts etc.) but my experience in this field is pretty much non-existent.
So my questions are:
1. In the UK, do you have to be officially certified to carry out translation work of a legal nature? Or does it entirely depend on your expertise/ experience?
2. If some sort of certification is required, how do I go about obtaining this certification? How long would it take to go from zero to getting certified?
3. I'm currently working towards a Level 3 Community Interpreting qualification, and am considering taking Level 6 DPSI (Law) perhaps next year. Would the DPSI qualification enable me to take on legal translation work?
Thank you in advance for your help!!
Ka Yee ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Legal translation | Nov 9, 2021 |
You don't need to be certified to do legal translations in the UK.
Looking at your profile and CV, though, you appear to have considerable experience as a marketing translator. So I'm a bit confused as to why you don't consider that to be enough of a 'specialism'. There is certainly plenty of demand for marketing translations and it's probably one of the safer fields in terms of machine translation due to the creativity involved.
So, my question would be - are you sure... See more You don't need to be certified to do legal translations in the UK.
Looking at your profile and CV, though, you appear to have considerable experience as a marketing translator. So I'm a bit confused as to why you don't consider that to be enough of a 'specialism'. There is certainly plenty of demand for marketing translations and it's probably one of the safer fields in terms of machine translation due to the creativity involved.
So, my question would be - are you sure you actually need/want a new specialism or could you make more of the experience you already have? Maybe you just need to market yourself a bit more now that you have more availability. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Thank you for your reply! | Nov 10, 2021 |
Hello Rachel, thank you so much for your reply - I really appreciate it.
You are right, I do have quite a lot of marketing-related translation experience but somehow, I don't seem to be getting much work at all. Perhaps like you said, I should focus on marketing myself a bit more but I really don't have a clue as to where to start!
What I've been doing is contacting translation agencies and offering my services directly. It's been a bit hit-and-miss. Some agencies have... See more Hello Rachel, thank you so much for your reply - I really appreciate it.
You are right, I do have quite a lot of marketing-related translation experience but somehow, I don't seem to be getting much work at all. Perhaps like you said, I should focus on marketing myself a bit more but I really don't have a clue as to where to start!
What I've been doing is contacting translation agencies and offering my services directly. It's been a bit hit-and-miss. Some agencies have taken me on but have offered little to no work...
So when you say marketing, are you referring to things like social media? Paid advertisement?
Any tips and advice would be greatly appreciated! ▲ Collapse
| | | | | I'm not a marketing expert but ... | Nov 10, 2021 |
Agencies get huge amounts of unsolicited CVs from freelancers so 'hit and miss' could actually indicate that you are doing the right thing but just need to keep at it.
Maybe it's just a case of scaling up what you are already doing - contact more agencies or be more targetted in who you approach, be more active on your chosen social media channel(s), network more with other translators.
It may be that it will just take a little time to ramp up from where you are now to ... See more Agencies get huge amounts of unsolicited CVs from freelancers so 'hit and miss' could actually indicate that you are doing the right thing but just need to keep at it.
Maybe it's just a case of scaling up what you are already doing - contact more agencies or be more targetted in who you approach, be more active on your chosen social media channel(s), network more with other translators.
It may be that it will just take a little time to ramp up from where you are now to where you want to be.
It seems to me that you already have some strong selling points (published author, background in marketing, etc.). ▲ Collapse
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| A thread that may help with "certified translator" in the UK | Nov 12, 2021 |
1) "Certified" can have a couple of meanings with regard to translation.
If you mean having a qualification or diploma in translation, then in the UK and indeed many countries, there is no requirement to have a qualification in translation to work as a translator.
If you mean "certified" with regard to carrying out translations for official purposes and/or for the courts, for example, then again, the UK does not have any certification system for translators wishing to do that type of... See more 1) "Certified" can have a couple of meanings with regard to translation.
If you mean having a qualification or diploma in translation, then in the UK and indeed many countries, there is no requirement to have a qualification in translation to work as a translator.
If you mean "certified" with regard to carrying out translations for official purposes and/or for the courts, for example, then again, the UK does not have any certification system for translators wishing to do that type of work. It is sufficient to have translation as your business activity to be able to certify your own translations.
This thread may be of interest on this point: 233266-becoming_a_certified_translator_in_the_uk_help_needed.html
2) Legal translation.
If you are considering legal translation as a speciality for business reasons, based on the impression that that particular field offers a lot of work opportunities, there are a number of things to bear in mind. Just like any other field of expertise, you need to have knowledge to get the work. Many of those working in legal translation have a degree in law or are in fact qualified legal professionals. Further, law is a massive area with a number of specialist domains. In many fields of law, you need to have an understanding of how the legal systems work in countries where both your source and target languages are spoken.
Knowledge can be acquired, for sure, and you need to be committed to acquiring that. You need to be interested in the field too. Apart from being good at what you do, you need to know how you are going to target your clients.
A mix of marketing and legal may make you stand out from the crowd in certain types of work. Some translators have a lot of work as they have a particular combination of skills. Offering both may be a way to go. As you acquire new knowledge, if that is what you decide to do, there may be new ways of finding new clients in marketing. That too is a massive field. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Thank you both! | Nov 12, 2021 |
Thank you to both Rachel and Nikki for your helpful replies! Really appreciate it!
| | | | JapanLegal 
Japan
Local time: 23:08
Member (2009)
Japanese to English
+ ...
| Read lots of legal documents | Nov 13, 2021 |
As an experienced M&A attorney, here are some thoughts.
Law is a specialized field with lots of deceptive jargon, i.e. terms that you think you understand, but really don't. There is also an extreme degree of nuance, in which every last turn of phrase and punctuation mark is critical, particularly in the land of contract drafting.
If you want to become a legal translator, meaning someone who translates actual legal documents, as opposed to emails that are part of a dis... See more As an experienced M&A attorney, here are some thoughts.
Law is a specialized field with lots of deceptive jargon, i.e. terms that you think you understand, but really don't. There is also an extreme degree of nuance, in which every last turn of phrase and punctuation mark is critical, particularly in the land of contract drafting.
If you want to become a legal translator, meaning someone who translates actual legal documents, as opposed to emails that are part of a discovery dump for litigation, you will need to be interested enough in law to read contracts for fun and to read up on certain legal concepts. Why? You need to recognize these concepts when you see them, and you need to know the difference between similar-sounding, but not interchangeable, and differently-phrased, but equivalent terminology. You can only pick up on these subtleties if you understand the texts and contracts conceptually. What are the contracts and parties trying to accomplish? How do the legal mechanics of the transaction work? How is the industry structured? What is the source of the relevant legal relationships, decision-making authority, etc.?
Using broad brushstrokes or getting the "gist" of a document (which is often done in marketing) can be highly problematic in legal translation. This is because, if you eliminate even a single word (even one that sounds familiar and thus "non-legal" to a layperson), you may be inadvertently eliminating an entire legal concept that had been expressed in that word.
Please don't take your transition to legal translation lightly. Make sure that you are extremely confident with these sorts of documents in your target language, to the point where you could restate and explain them accurately in plain terms, before you dive into translation from a separate language. Make sure that when you read legal documents in your source language, your brain can easily map the concepts and terms onto what you already know in the target language. If you are not there yet, read, read, and read some more.
Good luck! ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Thank you JapanLegal | Nov 18, 2021 |
Thank you for sharing your honest opinions on the subject - really appreciate it!!
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