we-are-not-amoosed:

loving-language:

World upside down

It is sad and fascinating at the same time that it is way harder to find a job as interpreter or translator with an MA in translation and interpreting (and being a state-certified interpreter and translator in Germany) than finding a dull office job where you are just sitting around waiting for someone to give you work. At the same time, the German government cannot get enough interpreters but the conditions they offer are worse than for a simple office job…and the office job pays better as well. I don‘t understand today‘s economy and labour market 🤦🏻‍♀️

#germany #interpreter #translator #bored

That’s pretty much why the German public service can’t get any interpreters: pay and working conditions can’t even compare to boring office jobs, let alone conference interpreting. But it’s very true that, in general, getting a job as translator or interpreter is HARD. And I have lots of thoughts on why that is.

Basically, my theory is that (in Germany more than in the UK, imo) our professions have absolutely no visibly in the media and very, very little in the professional world, and that the value of our work is constantly downplayed.

First, there’s the entertainment media. There are almost no interpreters in the media (apart from that one Nicole Kidman film), and if there are, they are not portrayed accurately. In films and series they just have the one guy who once learned that language in school translate documents or interpret at interviews. Then, of course, none of those “interpreters” or “translators” adhere to the code of conduct. They just do whatever the writer, a non-linguist with no clue about our profession(s), thinks we do, and then you end up with people summarizing, speaking in third person, forgetting or purposefully (!) leaving out details, not taking notes etc, a.k.a doing a completely inadequate and shitty job. And thus people think that’s what we do, think that they can do that themselves and the cycle continues. In other situations in films, books, series etc where you would normally have interpreters, the writers just have the other person speak the required language perfectly (which is unrealistic, but better for storytelling I guess). So people don’t think they’ll need an interpreter if they and the other person speak one common language. But what they tend to forget is that that’s fine if they wanna talk about the weather, their weekend or even their field of specialty, but if they want to discuss that one specific clause in a contract, if they want to defend themselves in a court of law or if they need that trademark application translated into German, your average language skills just aren’t gonna cut it.

And in the rare case they have interpreters or translators in entertainment media, they aren’t represented accurately. Examples I’ve seen include the one interpreter in Mar del Plastico, who didn’t take any notes and spoke in third person, the translator in Inspector Lewis, who translated a whole crate of files by herself in two days and called conference interpreting boring and unchallenging, and, of course, the interpreter in Corazón tan Blanco, who interpreted everything incorrectly in a meeting between the British PM and the Spanish president JUST FOR FUN. In conclusion, in entertainment media we’re underepresented or misrepresented, and the value of our work is often downplayed to “anyone who speaks two languages can interpret or translate” With representation like this, it’s no wonder people think they don’t need interpreters or translators.

But of course it’s not the entertainment industry’s job to make us look good and to promote our profession. That’s OUR job and thus also the job of our professional associations. And it’s a job we as an industry have neglected too much, imo. As far as I’m aware, the BDÜ, the German Association of Interpreters and Translators, does have an awareness campaign, which I don’t know much about (which, tbh, is a bad thing for an awareness campaign). I’ve seen a few posters from that campaign which say “Do you need an interpreter/translator?” and then something like “here’s where you can find them” and contact info, and yes, that’s a great thing; it’s good when people who need our services know where they can find us! But we also need to make people understand WHY they need our services, what exactly those services are and how they’re different from the common misconceptions about interpreters and translators. We need to tell them that they deserve something better than the bad portrayals of our professions in entertainment media and show them how we can create value for them. If we don’t do that, the situation won’t improve. So far, the only people who value the work of translators and interpreters are those who have worked with translators and interpreters in the past. Those who haven’t worked with translators and interpreters don’t know about the value our services provide and thus don’t work with us. It’s a bit of a vicious circle.

The latter is definitely the case in the German public service, which is suffering most from lack of interpreters. There is no public service interpreter training in Germany, let alone training for the police on how to work with interpreters (like there is in the UK). The UK has researchers like Jo Drugan who work hard to make co-operation between interpreters and law enforcement agencies easier. We need people to do something like this in Germany as well.

And lastly, machine translation (MT). The tech world has been going on for FOREVER about how they’re soon gonna replace us with machines. I’m not joking, it’s been going on since the 1950s. So, for almost 70 years they’ve been working on that, and while they’ve made progress we’re still lightyears from human parity. The thing is just, you only know this and all the issues with MT and MI (machine interpreting) if you’re involved in the industry. And if you just hear some tech companies talking about how they’re all gonna put us out of job soon, you might be starting to think that the MT available (Google Translate, DeepL, etc) really are enough to translate whatever document you have, or you might say: “How hard can it be if a machine can do it?” Again, the only thing we can do (and should do) is make clients aware that, no, there’s no human parity and there won’t be for quite a while, there’s huge data protection issues if you feed your data into public MTs, etc.

In conclusion; what our profession(s) need is way more visibility and for us to get out from behind our computers and tell people WHY they need us and how hiring us will benefit THEM.

And yes, I’m aware of the irony that I’m writing this on my phone, but in my defense, I’m on holiday and if as many people as possible reblog this we might actually get a bit more visibility.