So... I do literary translation for a living now

[yersi]

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[Gleaves]

Very cool. I read this one last year when it was getting some buzz . It seems like it would be a fun book to translate, but that geo-political lecture towards the end by the government official must have been painful.

If you don't mind me asking, how long does a project like that take?

[jbradfor]

If you don't mind me asking, about how much do you get paid?

[Hugh]

I wonder if it's a disadvantage to be a native English speaker when it comes to learning foreign languages, in terms of career aspects, as there's so much English-speaking competition. There are too many Chinese-English translators and, like you say, a shortage of Norwegian-Chinese ones. I guess it's harder to find a niche with such a global language.

[imron]

How familiar are you the source material before beginning to translate? Would you typically read it through (beginning-to-end) first or is it more translate as you go?

How do you deal with concepts that don't translate well across languages (or perhaps more importantly, cultures). Do you just skip/gloss over it, or provide extra information/background.

And finally, seeing as no-one else has asked yet, how did you get into this line of work?

[Murray]

I wonder if it's a disadvantage to be a native English speaker when it comes to learning foreign languages' date=' in terms of career aspects, as there's so much English-speaking competition. There are too many Chinese-English translators and, like you say, a shortage of Norwegian-Chinese ones. I guess it's harder to find a niche with such a global language. [/quote']

I know exactly what you mean! Being a native English speaker is a bit of a hinderance in this regard. It seems there are so many C > E translators...having my first language be something less commonly known would be great.

@Yesl:

I would be interested to know, how you came into this line of work? Do you have any special qualifications that helped you land those jobs?

[yersi]

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[daofeishi]

I have considered going into translation myself. I have been reading native-level material, including novels and newspapers, comfortably for a while, but what is stopping me is that I am not confident that I have reached a level where I can catch all the important textual nuances, and I don't want to risk making a travesty of the work I'm translating.

How long have you been studying Chinese and what formal qualifications do you have in China-related fields? How important is this to the publisher? At what point did you decide you were comfortable enough with Chinese to go into translation?

Since I also happen to be Norwegian, perhaps you could provide some more specific information about the Norwegian market. Do you know if translators from Chinese into Norwegian are in demand, and if any of the Norwegian publishers have work for freelance/part-time translators? Through what process are Chinese novels/books/texts selected for translation and publishing in Norwegian?

[roddy]

There's a profile of the book and its author on the BBC is anyone is interested.