Translating financial documents into English

[Guest realmayo]

I have some knowledge of certain financial arcana, as well as more general understanding of the financial markets, and a vague and probably unrealistic hope of getting paid to translate financial documents from Chinese to English in the future (say, a couple of years). I'd love to know if there is a market for this, and also any advice about developing the necessary skills: I recently saw the Financial Times translates a good chunk of stuff into Chinese, so I'm starting translating articles from there back into English and comparing my version against the original. I'm guessing their choice of translations for specific terms is likely to be current and worth noting/remembering. Anything else I should be doing? I should add that my Chinese is not good enough at the moment to be paid translating anything professionally, but I'm hoping it might get there in time. Thanks

[feihong]

I would recommend signing up for Lang-8, and translating some basic, non-financial stuff from English to Chinese. I know that you're hoping to translate from Chinese to English, but having a good general understanding of going in the other direction can only make you better. And hey, the feedback you get on Lang-8 is free.

[roddy]

For sector news, you can also try 经济观察网 and the like - was going to suggest 财经, but not sure if that's any good any more. I suspect Gato will know. There might be opportunities to help out on volunteer websites - Yeeyan.org has a community section where you could help people understand English articles, for example. There must be China-relevant blogs that would be happy to have you write up pieces based on Chinese articles.

You say you've got sector knowledge, but can you actually write? Working though some course on newspaper or financial writing will be extremely helpful if you haven't done anything similar. As I've said on here before, it's easy to forget that half of translating is writing.

[Guest realmayo]

Thanks for the suggestions, I'm just looking at 经济观察网 now, and if a spot of English-to-Chinese translating is going to be helpful maybe I should force myself to do that. Roddy, I should have mentioned that it's the writing in English side that I'm actually fairly confident about, beacuse I spent the previous several years as a journalist, reporting on certain financial markets. What I'm finding weird at the moment is that while learning Chinese I've always tried to avoid (if I can) translating in my head every Chinese sentence I hear into English -- I think that's something lots of people advocate avoiding. So it's a shock to actually have to sit down and produce English equivalents for all these everyday words now.

[roddy]

To be honest I'm not sure how valuable E>C work is if you're going to be doing C>E. I suggested Yeeyan more for the exposure to vocab and the Chinese translations.

Having the writing background is a massive head start - plenty of people can translate stuff, but handing it over in a state fit to print is very different.

[gato]

was going to suggest 财经, but not sure if that's any good any more. I suspect Gato will know.

Haha. As mentioned before, virtually the entire 财经 team led by the chief editor 胡舒立 moved to start a new magazine last year. That new magazine is 新世纪周刊, which is actually an existing but almost dormant magazine that the 胡舒立 team took over and converted to a new format. The publishing world here has a limited number of magazine publishing licenses, so it was easier for them to take an existing magazine than to apply to the authorities to start a new one.

The old 财经 is still running, under the leadership of the former editor of 第一财经日报, a major financial paper based in Shanghai.

Note that the website for 新世纪周刊 is caing.com, which is kind of daft, to use a British term.

I haven't done a real comparison of the new 财经 vs the new 新世纪周刊 yet, as roddy suggested. I have been buying 新世纪周刊 on a regular basis. Since it's a weekly now, as opposed to a biweekly for 财经, it's a little harder to keep up with the new issues, as they haven't reduced the bulk of each issue.

I did get a sense a few months ago that the new weekly's articles might not have as much depth as the old biweekly 财经. I even bought copies of both the new 财经 and 新世纪周刊 one week, with the intention of doing a comparison, but that idea sort of slipped. Actually, I was thinking about writing a complaint/suggestion letter to the editors of 新世纪周刊 on this impression of a more hurried feel of the articles in the weekly format. I did write to them once (while they were still at the old 财经) about a mistake in a translation of an Andy Xie article to Chinese. The translator translated "dollar rallied hard" as "美元升值的进程十分艰难". One of the editors sent me a very nice personal reply.

By the way, both 财经 and 新世纪周刊 produce an online English edition (mostly translations). 新世纪周刊 has an internship program, if you are interested.

http://english.caing.com/hirings/

Intern program

Qualifications:

Interns must be native English speakers with fluent mandarin capabilities. Candidates with a background in journalism, English literature or East Asian studies are preferred

Openings:

We are currently accepting three-month intern applications for fall and winter term

And 财经 seems to be hiring. They lost almost everybody and did have to hire a lot of people in a hurry towards the end of last year. I guess their circulation hasn't totally dived.

http://english.caijing.com.cn/2009-08-31/110231099.html'>http://english.caijing.com.cn/2009-08-31/110231099.html

2、记者/翻译：

工作内容：

　　1．协助高级编辑筛选当日财经新闻

　　2. 将中文稿件改写并翻译成英文。

　　3，与中文作者就内容进行核对和沟通

　　4．用英文进行即时新闻的写作；

　　5．完成编辑部安排的其他新闻工作

职位要求：

　　1. 英语专业学士或以上学历；

　　2. 精于英文写作，英文翻译准确流畅；

　　3. 对经济、金融及公司相关知识均有一定了解，并对某一特定财经领域具有丰富知识；

　　5. 能接受阶段性的夜班工作；

　　6. 一年以上财经新闻翻译或编辑经验，有国际通讯社工作经历者优先。

3、Subeditor:

Editors For Start-up Investment News Service in Beijing, China Caijing Magazine (http://english.caijing.com.cn/) seeks native English-speaking financial editors for a newswire that will serve institutional investors. These are full-time, on-site staff positions in Beijing, China.

About us: While other countries' media industries are contracting and other media companies are firing, China and Caijing are growing. Caijing's newest project is a start-up with a target launch date of early 2010. Our service will have a sharp financial focus, so we want people who are capable of seeing the investment angle in a story.

About you: We are looking for editors with at least three years of experience in daily newspapers, websites or, preferably, newswires. They must have a firm grounding in business, finance and economics.

These editors will mainly work with junior-level Chinese staff who have a business background but use English as a second language, so editors will need the skill, insight and patience to help writers express complicated concepts.

These are not reporting or writing jobs, but they require substantial rewriting at times. And since we will cover breaking news, editors must work quickly and accurately and think on their feet.

Applicants will be asked to take a timed editing test.

We especially welcome applications from people who have previously worked or studied in China or elsewhere in Asia.

We offer contracts with compensation packages comparable to those in many Western cities, with lower taxes and living costs. Our packages include an annual bonus, housing subsidy, allowance for private individual medical insurance and airfare allowance. We also offer relocation assistance.

Please note: These are on-site jobs, not freelance or telecommuting work. These are editing positions, with little or no reporting involved, and they involve shift work with night differential and taxi fares home. Foreign staff currently on this project are available to speak with applicants who have questions about moving to or living in China. We would like new hires to be on site by late September.