| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | How did you choose your specialization? Thread poster: Annamaria Lagattolla
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| What everyone else has said | Jul 6, 2018 |
My variant is that I wanted to read medicine at school, and it took me years to acknowledge that I would never be a good doctor. My parents were linguists, and I felt I was NOT - I saw languages as the means to doing something else, not as a career in themselves, and I was certainly not going to teach...
Long story, checkered career, I took a training in technical librarianship in the days before Google, when people used libraries instead. Married a Dane and unemployed librarians we... See more My variant is that I wanted to read medicine at school, and it took me years to acknowledge that I would never be a good doctor. My parents were linguists, and I felt I was NOT - I saw languages as the means to doing something else, not as a career in themselves, and I was certainly not going to teach...
Long story, checkered career, I took a training in technical librarianship in the days before Google, when people used libraries instead. Married a Dane and unemployed librarians were all over the place, and I discovered that in a small country, languages are important, not just a hobby like sport or playing the piano.
Lots of people 'can English good', but my parents and schoolteachers had done a really good job. I finally won the lottery - a job in-house with a translation agency, at a point where I was desperate for any honest means of learning a living.
I was still interested in medicine and my school Latin was an advantage... The agency sponsored my translation diploma, and the law module proved useful. Unlike Chris S. I actually enjoyed that, but I run a mile from finance (after recommending a colleague if it is a good client). One of my kindest and best mentor-colleagues specialised in law and helped me with proofreading.
So I chose medicine and law chose me. I seem to be good at the long, wordy sentences.  ▲ Collapse
| | | | Emma Page
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:41
French to English
+ ...
| My "second choice" careers... | Jul 6, 2018 |
..are my specialty. That seems to be something of a theme...basically, if you weren't a translator, what would you be doing?
The cool thing about translation is it lets us work in a field which might not be feasible otherwise. Others have mentioned enjoying medicine, but not being quite up to being a doctor, or translating the things they enjoyed playing with as a kid (perhaps video games?) Perhaps you're not interested in practicing law, but always thought it was interesting, wished you ... See more ..are my specialty. That seems to be something of a theme...basically, if you weren't a translator, what would you be doing?
The cool thing about translation is it lets us work in a field which might not be feasible otherwise. Others have mentioned enjoying medicine, but not being quite up to being a doctor, or translating the things they enjoyed playing with as a kid (perhaps video games?) Perhaps you're not interested in practicing law, but always thought it was interesting, wished you ran a chain of hotels but didn't want to start at the bottom...this is your chance!
For me it's mostly commercial copywriting, a combination of B2C comms and B2B/in-house memos/reports etc. I could be working as a communications manager or copywriter full-time, but translation pays better and is more fun. ▲ Collapse
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