If you have a talent for understanding and speaking languages while being fluent in one or more foreign tongues, particularly English and Chinese languages, then you may have a great future being a translator in Singapore. As Singapore is the forefront of business and commerce, most companies have moved internationally. That means there’s a strong demand for being a translator today.
What is a Translator
A certified or accredited translator is a translation professional that helps transcribes or translates written and spoken information from one language to another.
Often working for corporations, governments, education, translation companies, publications, or freelancing, they are the people that connect cultures and countries together. Some translators can move on to develop interpretation skills which can be very useful.
How To Become an Accredited Translator in Singapore
To become a certified translator, the pre-requisite is having a bachelor’s or master’s degree from a reputable college or university. Although having a degree related to language and translation is not a necessity, it’s often recommended as it can add extra points towards your resume.
The more languages you are fluent in especially in the common languages used in Singapore such as English, Chinese and Malay languages, the more translation job opportunities and projects you’ll attract from various companies and clients in Singapore. The most frequently requested language for translation is the Chinese language.
Translation Certification: Path to being a Certified Translator in Singapore
To become a certified translator in Singapore, you’ll need to obtain a certification with a respected association. Most choose an authorized association such as the American Translator Association and take a translator certification test. There are also translation courses in Singapore via Skillsfuture to help students understand basic concepts. Basic interpreting skills will also be taught in the Skillsfuture course.
The American Translator Association is the largest professional association of translators in the United States, with over 10,000 members in more than 100 countries.
ATA’s primary goal is to support and foster the professional development of translators and help them excel in their professions. Helping these individuals with a variety of programs and services including one-day workshops, webinars, and yearly annual conferences that features translation education in diverse languages and specialties
Currently, they hold translator certification programs in the following language pairs [1]:
Into English from Arabic, Chinese, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Ukrainian.
From English into Arabic, Chinese, Croatian, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Ukrainian.
After you’ve passed the American Translator Association’s exams, translators in Singapore are required to complete a certain amount of “continuing education” points to keep their certifications.
If you’re looking to be a professional legal translator or medical translator, then getting a certification for translator from the National Board of Certified Medical Interpreters (CMI) or National Association of Judiciary Interpreters (NAJIT) is crucial. If you have STEM background, you will be able to apply your industry experience to scientific and technical writings.
As a student, you will need to understand the basic concepts of professional translation through these courses. Once you achieve certifications from these prestigious associations such as ATA, you are on your way to becoming an accredited translator.
Learning and Obtaining Important Skills
To be a successful singapore translator, being able to be fluent in at least two languages and multi-tasking is crucial. Having the ability to type fast, knowledgeable with Microsoft Office and translation software, and being able to communicate eloquently is vital to be successful in the translation world.
With the addition of being able to understand each cultural aspect, traditions, and nuances of each of the speaker’s languages, these are skills needed to set a good translator from a professional.
This proficiency comes from practicing and working in real-life situations. You will start with basic linguistic knowledge and skills and the faster you get into the professional translation service, the faster you’ll become an expert.
Why Should I Become a Translator in Singapore?
Illustration of Why be a Translator in Singapore at work
Flexibility
Being a translator means you can be your own boss, allowing you to work from the comforts of your own house by providing your services online or by phone. This is perfect if you have children or loved ones that need to be taken care of at home.
You are able to decide when your schedules and the hours you work. Being able to manage your workload, choosing what work, and type of projects you want to accept. Whether you choose to finish work early and enjoy the rest of the day or you’re most productive at night, you have that freedom to choose.
Excitement
There is never a day when you are bored with translating. Every day you’ll be covering a wide range of subjects and topics while meeting different challenges along with every project.
With keeping up with the news, slang, vocabulary, and general language skills, you’ll always be able to find something to do.
Global
As a translator, you have a lot of flexibility in terms of where you work. This can be difficult when you have a nine to five office job.
As translations services are moving more online, translators can be more location independent when they provide their services.
Being able to work anywhere you want and at your hours means you’re able to travel and do the things that you’ve always wanted, so long as you deliver the translations before the deadline.
Demand
Globalization brings people together from all over the world as more businesses and individuals are needing translation services.
As they expand to new markets, translators are crucial in ensuring the company’s brand message is communicated correctly and effectively, following the cultural and societal dogma. As one of the top emerging jobs in 2018, there has never been a better time to be a translator. [2]
As most internet users choose to buy from companies that speak and use their native languages, businesses are always looking for skilled translators to connect with their potential customers.
Whether it’s subtitling, dubbing, transcribing, or doing a voice-over, there will always be a demand for translation services.
High Pay
The amount that you get paid is the amount of value and expertise you can offer to the company. The more you learn, the more you earn.
The more difficult speaking languages that have strong markets for business and commerce expansion earn more money, such as Arabic, Korean, Chinese, and German. We have also seen high demand for English Chinese bilateral translation needs from companies.
However, this can be compensated by taking more jobs in standard languages and providing an unbeatable service. Whether it’s for business, diplomacy, or politics, translators are always in high demand, meaning that you’ll receive higher pay the better service you provide than a normal salary.
Multiple Fields
There is no limit to what you do as a translator. There is always learning more languages, venture in different fields, and work for hundreds of different companies. You can work remotely as you will likely be working on commonly used business documents via email.
With no fixed career structures, artificial barriers, or a boss to control what you do, you are limited with your drive to succeed.
You have the choice to provide translation services to legal, government, information technology & software, and marketing industries or learn more languages to help more different business and ecommerce companies. Ecommerce companies are targeting to increase their market share in India so English to Tamil translation will be useful.
The career options are limitless as you can work on translation projects globally.
Networking
Being a translator means you get to meet with people from all across the globe, allowing you to form lifetime connections. As each translator has a unique upbringing, you can learn about their experiences, cultural differences and exchange opinions on what words are the correct translations.
As networking is one of the most crucial elements in being successful as a translator, connecting with people will accelerate your career as a translator. And soon, you’ll be able to reach out to anybody around the world and help solve their business translation problems.
Why Choose TranslateRight For Technical Document Translation Services
Translated Right is a certified professional technical translation agency that provides technical translations online in 50+ languages. Our translation services languages include English, Chinese, Malay, Tamil, Japanese, French, and more. Providing fast, accurate, and reliable, professional translation services for all types of documents, formats, and lengths.
With over 5000+ professional and experienced translators, we’ve filtered out the best translator using our stringent and detailed interviewing process, ensuring that you can hire only the best-qualified person for your specific translation document.
This has allowed us to simplify the whole entire technical translation process, resulting in a smooth application process.
This is seen by our 1000+ of satisfied customers from our competitive prices, friendly and efficient translation services.
If you’re looking for a translation service near me that can translate from a source language to the desired target language that conforms to the requirements of the technical side of your industry, Translated Right can help you today.
Providing a streamlined and hassle-free process, get your document translated by a professional service today. If you need to get a sworn translator, you can get our notarised translations as well.
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