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Poll: Were/are your parents in the translation business? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Were/are your parents in the translation business?".
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Interlangue (X)
Angola
Local time: 07:29
English to French
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| Not in "the business" | Mar 3, 2010 |
but somehow involved in languages - teacher and multilingual secretary (and 'immigrants').
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| Not in "the business" either, but... | Mar 3, 2010 |
Interlangue wrote:
but somehow involved in languages - teacher and multilingual secretary (and 'immigrants').
Same here - my father used to do voluntary interpretations, and my mother was a Spanish teacher and now helps immigrant children to learn English.
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| Not translators, but freelancers | Mar 3, 2010 |
My parents certainly passed on their love of language, although neither was a translator; we used to read etymological dictionaries for fun at bedtime However, my father was a freelance illustrator and graphic designer throughout most of my childhood and I do think that inspired me to seek a freelance profession.
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Xanthippe
France
Local time: 07:29
Member (2008)
Italian to French
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SITE LOCALIZER | not translators | Mar 3, 2010 |
not translators but my father worked in another country and use to speak at least 2 languages all the time.
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Latin_Hellas (X)
United States
Local time: 07:29
Italian to English
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| Languages & business good, but not necessarily language business | Mar 3, 2010 |
One parent ran a small/medium-sized business, wife and her family mostly small business owners. Mainly working in a local context on mostly monolingual continents, no multilingual skills among them.
Nonetheless, it is certainly helpful in business, especially in a globalized economy, to know as many languages as possible. However, my guess is that the majority of people who conduct business in several languages are not necessarily in the language business.
My experienc... See more One parent ran a small/medium-sized business, wife and her family mostly small business owners. Mainly working in a local context on mostly monolingual continents, no multilingual skills among them.
Nonetheless, it is certainly helpful in business, especially in a globalized economy, to know as many languages as possible. However, my guess is that the majority of people who conduct business in several languages are not necessarily in the language business.
My experience suggests that the language business is better as a second career after experience in another business conducted in more than one language.
However, there are plenty of people whose primary education/training is language and translation and who pursue translation, or intend to pursue it, as a primary occupation/business, and it appears that the trend currently and going forward is that more and more people are entering the translation business with this background. It also appears that the downward pressure on rates reflects that trend.
[Edited at 2010-03-03 10:28 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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my parents can only speak Italian, but my mum loves "learning" as much as she can about different cultures. So she supported me every time I wanted to travel, study abroad and also when I decided to quit my previous job (in-house) as a web editor, to start as a freelance translator.
[Edited at 2010-03-03 11:30 GMT]
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Valeria Fuma
Argentina
Local time: 02:29
English to Spanish
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my mum is a housewife and my dad runs a medium-sized business
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Jiantao Lu 
China
Local time: 13:29
English to Chinese
| interestingly | Mar 3, 2010 |
My dad was firstly a teacher teaching Russian; then when the previous Soviet Union broke up with China, my dad became an English teacher, both in high school.
My mom was a Chinese teacher in junior high school.
Now I am a freelancer translator, from English into Chinese.
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David Russi
United States
Local time: 23:29
English to Spanish
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| My father was a translator, Italian to English | Mar 3, 2010 |
The clickety-clack-clack of a manual typewriter is the background noise of my childhood.
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Laureana Pavon
Uruguay
Local time: 02:29
Member (2007)
English to Spanish
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MODERATOR
My father is an engineering geologist who later in life used the language skills he picked up while working all over the world to become a translator/interpreter (mostly interpreter). He's now retired.
My mom is a Spanish/Spanish Literature teacher.
[Edited at 2010-03-03 17:12 GMT]
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but my uncle is a part-time interpreter and my grandmother (who died when I was a child) was a translator
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| My mother - Freelance Translator for 35+ years | Mar 3, 2010 |
In the beginning it was the manual typewriter, with layers of copy and carbot sheets beneath the original paper.
Later on, it was the IBM typwriter, again, copy and carbon sheets attached.
Today, she's still in the computer (At last, no more messy carbon-copy).
As fate would have it, here I am, too.
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Louise Souter (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 06:29
Spanish to English
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xanthippe wrote:
not translators but my father worked in another country and use to speak at least 2 languages all the time.
We also travelled a lot when I was a child and both my parents speak French.
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but my aunt who had a great influence on my life (passed away prematurely) was an English language teacher. I think I came to love the English language because I loved her so much. Her two daughters, interestingly enough, are also studying languages (English included).
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