A Huge Talent Gap to be Filled in the Translation Industry by

According to the relevant reports, as boosted by the rapid economic development of the nation, the total revenue of China's translation market is more than 13 billion Yuan per year, and the market potential is expected to be as high as 50 billion Yuan per year, which is still expanding rapidly. As a conservative estimate, the Beijing Olympic Games it alone saw a huge volume of translation services up to 70 million Yuan in value. However, the quality and quantity of the professional translators have been far below the needs of the market. The Foreign Language Department of China now only hired about 4 hundred translation experts, while the actual demand is more than one thousand. Currently only about six thousand translators had obtained the national professional translation certificate. Among them, the number of linguists who are good at professional sports translation only accounts for 1.29% - as the Beijing Olympic Games needed nearly 10,000 professional sports translators, there was a big gap in that. According to the data provided by the Translators' Association of China, there are now over 40,000 professional translators in China, with more than 3,000 professional translation companies. This may seem like a huge number, but actually it can't meet the needs of the current economic development at all, because only a few high-level translators are available, accounting for 5% or less of the total number, and the gap is as high as 90%.

Let's analyze the five types of translation talents identified as the "most needed".

As the golden collar at the top of the pyramid of the translation profession, simultaneous interpreters has been very popular and in short supply in recent years. In fact, the shortage of translation talent is not only the shortage of simultaneous interpretation, but the shortage of translation talent across the board. Professional translation is mainly divided into interpretation and translation. There are five aspects of professional translation talents in great demand and shortage in domestic market:

Business interpretation talents. The requirements for conference interpretation are slightly lower. Enterprises need a large number of business interpreters in the process of international trade and negotiation.

Liaison with accompany interpreters. Enterprises and government agencies have a large number of foreign affairs and reception services.

Document translation linguists. Compared with interpretation, such translation talents are in greater demand. Enterprises, publishing houses, translation companies and other institutions all need text translation talents with professional qualities, and the talent gap in this field is even larger.

Conference interpreters. Conference interpretation is at the high end of all kinds of interpretation, including consecutive interpretation and simultaneous interpretation. Although called conference interpretation, it is widely used in foreign affairs, meetings and negotiations, business activities, news media, training and teaching, television and radio, international arbitration and other fields besides international conferences. Nowadays, more than 200 international conferences are held in Shanghai every year, and foreign exchanges are overwhelming. In the peak season, conference interpretation is in short supply, and the number of conference interpreters in small languages is extremely rare.

Court interpreter. International litigation and arbitration affairs are on the rise, and there is a growing demand for court interpreters. The working environment of court interpreters is special and requires high legal knowledge. At present, there is almost no senior interpreters in this field in China.

Among the hourly wage guidelines issued by the Shanghai municipal labor department, simultaneous interpretation, conference interpretation and other translation positions occupy the high-end position in the market price, and simultaneous interpretation ranks among the golden leaders with a high price of 3,000 to 7,000 Yuan per day, while simultaneous translation of western, French and German ranks first with the highest hourly wage of 1,200 to 2,000 Yuan per hour. The highest salary for professional translators in short supply in the market is 2000 Yuan per hour. The maximum price for simultaneous interpretation of English, French and German in Beijing is 800 Yuan /4 hours (half a day). Simultaneous interpretation in English and Japanese is 1,000 Yuan to 1,500 Yuan per hour. If you do simultaneous translation twice a week on average, you can earn 40 or 500 thousand Yuan a year. The average price for a good interpreter is no less than 10,000 Yuan a day (8 hours). The value of professional text translation is generally about 25% higher than that of ordinary translation. The monthly salary of translators in enterprises and institutions can reach 6,000-8,000 Yuan. The monthly salary of the interpreter in the embassy is 8,000-10,000 Yuan. Do very professional meeting interpretation, income can reach 2000 Yuan/day. An Olympic translation and interpretation service provider has started recruiting full-time Olympic translators from around the world, with an average annual salary of 100,000 Yuan.

A professional translator must be versatile in knowledge and skills!

Many people think that if you learn a foreign language well, you can be a translator. This is a misunderstanding. Translators must be proficient in a foreign language other than their mother tongue, but this is only the foundation. To be a good translator, one needs to have a variety of skills other than the language, so as to be able to focus on one thing and use it freely.

A qualified translator should first master two or more languages, namely his mother tongue and a foreign language. Both languages should have solid basic skills. The second is to have the specific skills of translation work. Translation is a process of information transfer between two languages. Take conference interpretation as an example, it is necessary to quickly understand the meaning of speakers in a very short time, record it, and then accurately recombine it in another language and repeat it. The interpreter must have the agile memory ability, the recording ability, the logic analysis ability, the language understanding and the conversion ability; Thirdly, students should have a wide range of knowledge, especially an understanding of political, economic, legal and international affairs, be able to master them and apply them skillfully. Fourthly, we should have good professional ethics, make full preparations before the translation work, and treat and complete each translation task with an extremely responsible attitude. No matter what the occasion is, it is necessary to truthfully and accurately convey the meaning of the original message.

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