Translator / Transcriber

Hello world,

I'm new here and I would like to introduce myself to you all. I've decided to take the step into entrepreneurship by starting a online transcription/translating business. Especially between Mandarin Chinese and English. I see a real need in this area.

I use to work with a missions organization that has tonnes of good material but not everything is in Chinese. I long to see more of them and other good Christian material being made available in Chinese. And with China being a superpower, I imagine this service of translating and transcribing will became a great need soon.

Please to meet you all.
Edwin
 
Welcome, Edwin! You have a great potential in your choice of livelihood! As a young person, my desire was to be a translator, so I can imagine how exciting this would be for you! May God bless it, indeed!

 
Nice to meet you Euphemia and God is Love. Well, I never thought I'd be a translator but God's funny in that way.
What made you want to learn Mandarin? Do you know other foreign languages? Before I was saved I was learning Mandarin because of the $$$ potential. It was fun learning another language but the reasons for learning mandarin for me were wrong. Now that my priorities have changed my interest in studying Mandarin has died. I'm looking forward to taking Hebrew and Koine Greek classes once I get into bible college though, so it's not like I've given up on ever learning another language.
 
Welcome, Edwin! You have a great potential in your choice of livelihood! As a young person, my desire was to be a translator, so I can imagine how exciting this would be for you! May God bless it, indeed!

That's interesting. What languages do you know?
 
That's interesting. What languages do you know?

I have only a smattering of French now. But I took five years of Latin and one year of German in high school, and in university I took Spanish and Italian along with French. But circumstances were such that I could no longer pursue my dream. I even worked as a hostess in a fancy Chinese restaurant for about three years as a young woman and had a great affinity for learning the Chinese language there. It was great fun! I can still count to ten! But I am not sure which form of Chinese I was learning, whether it was Cantonese or Mandarin.

So, English is now all I've got left! Too bad. I am so happy for people like Edwin to be able to make a career like that.
 
I have only a smattering of French now. But I took five years of Latin and one year of German in high school, and in university I took Spanish and Italian along with French. But circumstances were such that I could no longer pursue my dream. I even worked as a hostess in a fancy Chinese restaurant for about three years as a young woman and had a great affinity for learning the Chinese language there. It was great fun! I can still count to ten! But I am not sure which form of Chinese I was learning, whether it was Cantonese or Mandarin.

So, English is now all I've got left! Too bad. I am so happy for people like Edwin to be able to make a career like that.
I forget the reason why but a lot of Cantonese immigrated to America so lots of Chinese restaurants are Cantonese, so that's probably what you were learning. Yeah if you don't keep practicing you lose the language over time.
 
Hello world,

I'm new here and I would like to introduce myself to you all. I've decided to take the step into entrepreneurship by starting a online transcription/translating business. Especially between Mandarin Chinese and English. I see a real need in this area.

I use to work with a missions organization that has tonnes of good material but not everything is in Chinese. I long to see more of them and other good Christian material being made available in Chinese. And with China being a superpower, I imagine this service of translating and transcribing will became a great need soon.

Please to meet you all.
Edwin

Hi Edwin! Are you hoping to recruit mainly Christians?

My best and most cost effective translators have come from grad-students in various Beijing universities. Those actually hoping to be full-time translators will be more expensive, since live and simultaneous translation skills are both scarce and in growing demand. But students working on an English lit. degree for example are perfectly capable of doing good text to text work and then you can have it proofed by a mono-lingual.
 
What made you want to learn Mandarin? Do you know other foreign languages? Before I was saved I was learning Mandarin because of the $$$ potential. It was fun learning another language but the reasons for learning mandarin for me were wrong. Now that my priorities have changed my interest in studying Mandarin has died. I'm looking forward to taking Hebrew and Koine Greek classes once I get into bible college though, so it's not like I've given up on ever learning another language.

I've always wanted to learn Mandarin since I was a kid. I don't know why but it attracted me very much and I didn't want to learn it anywhere but China so when I had the chance to go there, that's what I went as. A student learning Chinese. But my Chinese is mostly conversational and definitely not up to the business level. That's where I hire help. If I can pay someone else to do it, why do everything myself?! Haha ... I didn't learn Mandarin for $$$, it was more a self-interest but then it just grew. At that time, China was still considered a very unlikely superpower so I never thought about that aspect. Hebrew and Greek are 2 languages I would love to take up as well but it's not anytime soon. I wish you all the best!
 
I forget the reason why but a lot of Cantonese immigrated to America so lots of Chinese restaurants are Cantonese, so that's probably what you were learning. Yeah if you don't keep practicing you lose the language over time.

According to history and a not so wonderful one, China open up its international trade with many nations because it was failing economically. That was more than a 100 years ago when they last dynasty was at its end. The foreign superpowers like America, Britain, French and Dutch wanted to get into China for its rich resources and just like in Africa, they decided that Chinese would make cheap labor so there was a lure of riches to entice the Chinese to go abroad. Because trades were made at ports, most Chinese that went were from the South (near Hong Kong) and that area is where the Cantonese-speaking people were (Mandarin only became the official language during Chairman Mao's reign in the late 1960s).

Not all of these migrations are due to a deception. Others chose to migrate for a better future at a time of political instability. Early Chinese settlers went as far as Australia. The mission world calls this "The Great Diaspora".

That is why almost every country has a Chinatown and most often, they are Cantonese speaking. :)
 
Hi Edwin! Are you hoping to recruit mainly Christians?

My best and most cost effective translators have come from grad-students in various Beijing universities. Those actually hoping to be full-time translators will be more expensive, since live and simultaneous translation skills are both scarce and in growing demand. But students working on an English lit. degree for example are perfectly capable of doing good text to text work and then you can have it proofed by a mono-lingual.

No, DavidG. When I started this, I never wanted to mainly just recruit Christians. I find my freelancers via other freelancing websites and when I engage them, I'm more interested in their seriousness towards work. I'm not interested in sloppy work. And in my engagement with them, I would also ask them about their background and such. I make it known from the start that I'm a Christian and that's all. Funny thing is, I've been able to meet a girl in Singapore that has backsliden, a man in Canada that is considering to be baptised but had a lot of questions and most often, I meet non-believers who have questions about the faith. All in all, it doesn't bother me and it didn't bother them that I'm a Christian. Through my conversations with them, they know that I'm serious about work and they appreciate that and I guess that allowed them to be open when they realize that I'm not the preachy type.

The translators that I've met so far are usually working and doing this part-time. Actually, I found that translators in China still have some ways to go because of a lack of using English in society. Rather, I find those in Asia that have a thriving English speakers like Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia. That's my strategy anyway.

I'd like to hear your story, DavidG. How did you start your business?
 
This us :) http://www.teachasworship.com/who-we-are.html That website (and this forum) are publicly searchable, so any details not posted, feel free to PM me about.

Can I ask which missions organization you used to work with?

Also, if you're still recruiting, I may be able to connect you with a few Chinese who have excellent English fluency.
 
People who are so proficient in languages fascinate me. I'm lucky to get by with my mother-tongue, English. I've taken Koine Greek but long ago and have forgotten much of it, and Hebrew is a continuous thing for me, but I can only haltingly read it with understanding, not speak it. You people are amazing. Wish I had the gift of tongues.
 
I've always wanted to learn Mandarin since I was a kid. I don't know why but it attracted me very much and I didn't want to learn it anywhere but China so when I had the chance to go there, that's what I went as. A student learning Chinese. But my Chinese is mostly conversational and definitely not up to the business level. That's where I hire help. If I can pay someone else to do it, why do everything myself?! Haha ... I didn't learn Mandarin for $$$, it was more a self-interest but then it just grew. At that time, China was still considered a very unlikely superpower so I never thought about that aspect. Hebrew and Greek are 2 languages I would love to take up as well but it's not anytime soon. I wish you all the best!
I don't want you to think I was accusing you of learning mandarin for money, I was just saying how I got into it.
 
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Hi Edwin,
Pleased to meet you too, I'm new on here too, just finding my feet around the site. Its sounds like you have alot of work ahead of you, I pray that God blesses you in your work in his name.
Sharon:)
 
I don't want you to think I was accusing you of learning mandarin for money, I was just saying how I got into it.

Hey. No... I totally understood you. I didn't think you were accusing me of making $$$ out of Mandarin. I was also sharing how I got into it and that I didn't start out with $$$ in mind and somehow it has led me to use it as an avenue to create a business. So in a nutshell, I think I'm blessed. :)
 
Hello world,

I'm new here and I would like to introduce myself to you all. I've decided to take the step into entrepreneurship by starting a online transcription/translating business. Especially between Mandarin Chinese and English. I see a real need in this area.

I use to work with a missions organization that has tonnes of good material but not everything is in Chinese. I long to see more of them and other good Christian material being made available in Chinese. And with China being a superpower, I imagine this service of translating and transcribing will became a great need soon.

Please to meet you all.
Edwin

Hello Edwin and welcome to the forum. It sounds like a fantastic idea and by the way things are shaping up in China, God could well be preparing a way through your vision so, be praying for your success!
 
Hey. No... I totally understood you. I didn't think you were accusing me of making $$$ out of Mandarin. I was also sharing how I got into it and that I didn't start out with $$$ in mind and somehow it has led me to use it as an avenue to create a business. So in a nutshell, I think I'm blessed. :)
Phew, that's a relief. I didn't want you to misunderstand me and think I was being rude. Yeah that's pretty cool, I hope your entrepreneurship is successful :)
 
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