Chile Forum

What are my chances of finding a job here as a Translator? I am fluent on a native level in English and Spanish and have about two years of experience as a professional translator and about three more freelancing, so all told I've got five years under my belt. I've been in Chile three years and have a Chilean wife and son. I have my RUT and all that good stuff, having recently emerged alive from the barrage of paperwork they fired at me for an entire year.

Now that I'm ready to stop teaching under the table and actually get in with a company work like a decent citizen, is there any hope of finding translation work here in Chile or is it all the same kind of freelance stuff where you post the lowest possible price and somebody comes along and undercuts you as it is on the "black market"? Do companies here actually hire 40 hour a week translators and pay them a living wage?

RG1981 wrote:What are my chances of finding a job here as a Translator? I am fluent on a native level in English and Spanish and have about two years of experience as a professional translator and about three more freelancing, so all told I've got five years under my belt. I've been in Chile three years and have a Chilean wife and son. I have my RUT and all that good stuff, having recently emerged alive from the barrage of paperwork they fired at me for an entire year.

Now that I'm ready to stop teaching under the table and actually get in with a company work like a decent citizen, is there any hope of finding translation work here in Chile or is it all the same kind of freelance stuff where you post the lowest possible price and somebody comes along and undercuts you as it is on the "black market"? Do companies here actually hire 40 hour a week translators and pay them a living wage?

Experience varies enormously. You have probably noticed that by and large most Chilean enterprises, including government agencies, don't really care to pay for expert translation, or even good translation. Even some of the book publishers here don't use native speakers, and it shows. Gawd it shows.

And don't be surprised if the local staff think they know better than the native-speaker-translator. I saw one submitted project later mauled by an editorial committee and it came out reworked to about half British-English and half-American English. Other projects down here are translated into Engrish by non-English speakers (often Germans) and the final product reads worse than a machine translation.

When I started doing translation down here some years ago, my friends said, oh how nice, now you have another hobby.

Suerte, y manda fruta,

patagoniax wrote:

RG1981 wrote:What are my chances of finding a job here as a Translator? I am fluent on a native level in English and Spanish and have about two years of experience as a professional translator and about three more freelancing, so all told I've got five years under my belt. I've been in Chile three years and have a Chilean wife and son. I have my RUT and all that good stuff, having recently emerged alive from the barrage of paperwork they fired at me for an entire year.

Now that I'm ready to stop teaching under the table and actually get in with a company work like a decent citizen, is there any hope of finding translation work here in Chile or is it all the same kind of freelance stuff where you post the lowest possible price and somebody comes along and undercuts you as it is on the "black market"? Do companies here actually hire 40 hour a week translators and pay them a living wage?

Experience varies enormously. You have probably noticed that by and large most Chilean enterprises, including government agencies, don't really care to pay for expert translation, or even good translation. Even some of the book publishers here don't use native speakers, and it shows. Gawd it shows.

When I started doing translation down here some years ago, my friends said, oh how nice, now you have another hobby.

Suerte, y manda fruta,

So I'll take that as a no then...?

RG1981 wrote:
So I'll take that as a no then...?

Not as a no, just as a challenge. Or a box of challenges. As a hobby, it has its moments. The subject matter can be intriguing. You may get to meet a range of interesting people and additional opportunities. You quickly notice how badly many local professionals write (esp those who are experts at 100-word run-on sentences). It might keep you from starving, if you fall into a good place and really work at it . Others who do translation will surely have other observations.

patagoniax wrote:

RG1981 wrote:
So I'll take that as a no then...?

Not as a no, just as a challenge. Or a box of challenges. As a hobby, it has its moments.

So then I shouldn't plan on doing it as a full time job?

RG1981 wrote:

patagoniax wrote:

RG1981 wrote:
So I'll take that as a no then...?

Not as a no, just as a challenge. Or a box of challenges. As a hobby, it has its moments.

So then I shouldn't plan on doing it as a full time job?

oops --- I just edited prior comment while you were answering. But to answer directly -- as a full-time freelance job it may be difficult to build up a decent client base and reliable cash flow before you starve. The people I know who do translation are part-timers, and it is an adjunct or "hobby" activity. But I live in the sticks and do my work via internet, with only a little face time. Let's hear comments from some others here who are also doing translation.

RG1981 wrote:

patagoniax wrote:

RG1981 wrote:
So I'll take that as a no then...?

Not as a no, just as a challenge. Or a box of challenges. As a hobby, it has its moments.

So then I shouldn't plan on doing it as a full time job?

put it this way, schools are turning out xxxx amount of students every 6 months with halfarse qualifications in translation that will work for $300,000 per month!, they will get the 9 - 6.30 jobs,

You need to chase freelance, big name, high value translations, computer software, important documents, technical documents etc, staaart networking and put your name out there!

We charge around 15,000 pesos a page for legal documents for clients (retail), regardless if it is going to a U.S. federal court or is just information for some one that wants to know what their property title says.

Our translator / interpretor is what they refer to in the translator circles as one of the "5 sacred cows" in Chile. There are 5 generally recognized big ticket, big gun translators, for really big deals in Chile. You will see one or all of them translating at major events or meetings in Chile. The kind you call to do the Oscars live on TV (ours did them 3 years in a row), the kind the Dalli llama calls when he is in town, the kind you call for court testimony, the kind they call for multi-billion dollar contract negotiations where a turn of the phrase or a facial tick can cost millions one way or the other. Most importantly the kind that gets called from the emergency rooms in the middle of the night to talk to the doctors when there really is a life or death conversation involved.

I know she can make a couple hundred thousand dollars a year depending on how much she wants to work and also the swings of the market ( I don't pay her that much, but others do ). There are companies with in house translations departments that do pay well. Mostly multi-national companies with a branch in Chile, but main office is back in the States or Europe.

I do get a special rate because I married her daughter, but not that special. My wife is also a fully qualified translator and worked for years as a professional translator in law school both in Chile and Europe. So, our rates for translation are a bit distorted as they are in addition to whatever other services we are providing to a client. Translation of documents and interpretation is often kind of what needs to be done to move a projects along, and a lot of times don't bill clients for them (even when we should). Typically only when a formal translation is needed do we charge for them apart from our other services. After all, Clients are paying us for English services in a Spanish speaking country to start. Dealing with the language/cultural issues is kind the core of our service to start. So, my wife is getting paid most of the time to be English speaking attorney in a Spanish speaking country. Not a translator or interpretor most of the time.

There are a lot of very unqualified translators floating around Chile, that don't get payed much at all for a very good reason. Which is fine if you are dealing with taking someone on tour or perhaps an academic conference. Something not all that critical.

I have fired a couple translators over the years because I have never been really happy with their work (by the way, seems you can't fire your mother-in-law). I have also interviewed more than a few "translators" that could not pass my personal version of the Turing test to get hired in the first place.

By the way, my Turing test for Interpretors in Chile is simple. I developed this technique in grad school studying Philosophy of Language and teaching English in China. I start talking to them in English about whatever, and then slip increasing amounts of gibberish in to the conversation until they blink. Just sufficient that a native speaker or someone fully fluent would stop me and say, "I don't understand". If they don't stop me, they don't make the cut. It also takes in to consideration the cultural inclination in Chile to not interrupt or correct someone in authority. If they are so unsure about themselves that they will not request clarification, then they are no good to me anyway.

At one point we started English classes for our office staff, then discovered the language barrier between them and our clients created an important safety valve. So, only those that really need to speak English because they are qualified to deal with clients get to dive in to complex conversations that might be dangerous or misunderstood. Thus, qualified attorneys that speak complete English, get to talk to clients. Secretary that speaks a little English, gets to deal with secretary level stuff. Junior attorneys just getting out of law school and don't really know much about anything, get to say hello, smile, and point. Everything else in the English department gets handled by my wife, myself, or my mother-in-law. We had some translators in the past that went over the line in dealing with clients, and promptly got cut loose. Just having random English speaking people around that don't really know anything about anything beyond how to speak English and Spanish, we have found to be dangerous in our line of work.

And as translator you will have niches..... If you are going to be translating engineering articles/document/terms it helps to be an engineer, technical writer, etc. If you are translating complex legal documents it helps to be a lawyer as is the case with admin's wife, ditto if you are doing something like medical journals. If you want to translate at the level of say UN or government delegations then that is another niche..... If you are good and fast maybe you can undercut some in price but there are many translators wwho work cheap.

Here is your first assignment:

topic6081.html

Thank you for your very informative post, Admin. I'd be curious to check out the test that you use so I can try to see what exactly potential employers would be looking for.

Also, I'm curious as to who these "big five" might be. I guess you wouldn't want to post their names publicly if you're in competition with them, but perhaps if you could send me a PM (or being an Admin you have access to my email and you have my permission to send me an email on this subject if you wish) indicating who they are or who I might be able to speak with regarding finding a job I'd appreciate it.

Thanks everyone for your replies!

The freelance stuff is feast or famine, but if you get your name out there and a decent client base, you can actually do okay, though it's best to have another gig. I juggle several different "jobs," with a couple of routine, monthly gigs that helps to keep things going. There are in-house translation positions, but I know way more freelancers or indie companies than people that work in-house. As has been said, a lot of times, they'd rather not pay professional prices, and get (pardon the expression) a half-assed translation. Or they don't need enough translations to merit an in-house translator, so they farm it out.

Interpreters seem harder to come by, so if you're also an interpreter, you might want to try pursuing that. I'm routinely asked to interpret (which I almost always refuse, unless it's a dear friend and/or an emergency plus it doesn't need to be perfect, as it's not really my forté), and I'm guessing that's because there's more work than qualified people.

Hope you find what you're looking for!

Yo, send that interpreting work my way, I'd definitely be down for that. I've done it from Spanish-English when I worked in radio in Boston, I'm good at translating like that on the fly...not to mention every time my mother wants to speak to my wife lol

I'm more interested in getting an "in-house" position with a company than I am in freelancing. I've already tried freelancing and found it incredibly difficult to get any work. I was doing people's resumes for 5'000 pesos a pop just to kill time, and even then people were still trying to undercut me, so I don't think it's really viable in my position to "freelance".

But, again, if anybody knows how to get a foot in the door with a company that's looking for an in-house translator, please post away, I could really use some advice!!