The first question to ask is: does a translator have to specialize at all? My answer would be no, but it is certainly preferable. While I don’t doubt that it is possible to make a decent living as a freelance translator translating only general texts (“general” being extremely difficult to define and a text that one translator would classify as general could well be considered specialized by another, so let’s just say that “general” texts are those that do not require specialist knowledge in a certain field), the most successful freelance translators are generally those that have expert knowledge in one or a few specific areas. Why is that so? If you are an expert in a specific field with proven experience in your specialization, you will be more credible and inspire more confidence to a potential client. If I were a client requiring a legal translation for example, I would certainly choose a translator who has a law degree and has worked for courts and lawyers over one who doesn’t have such a specialization or claims to translate everything from legal to technical and medical. Specializing also helps you to become more productive. If you have translated texts in a specific field for years, you know the terminology inside out, you hardly need to research anymore and you can work much faster than when you are working in a field you are not familiar with. You can translate faster and the quality of your translations increases, which usually means that your income also increases.

But how does one become an expert translator in a certain field? And where to start as a beginner fresh out of university?

Here is what I would recommend:

First of all, you have to identify the area or areas you are going to specialize in. Start with what you already know well.

• What areas do you have previous work experience in? For example, if you worked as a tourist guide before becoming a translator, you could specialize in translating texts related to tourism.

• What did you previously study? For example, if you have a degree in marketing, you could specialize in marketing translations.

• What are your hobbies? For example, if you practice martial arts, you could specialize in martial arts translations.

• What other fields are you interested in? Identify the areas that you have an interest in and would like to learn more about. Many novice translators want to know what areas are most in demand in order to specialize in those areas. While you obviously have to pick a specialization with high enough demand to keep you busy, I don’t believe that focusing only on what field has the highest demand is a good approach. Even if I could earn twice as much as I currently do if I specialized in medical translation, I could never do it, as I absolutely hate everything that has to do with medicine and would not enjoy my work anymore if I had to switch to medical translation. As in any other job, if you don’t enjoy what you do, you will never be successful or happy. So choose a specialization that allows you to get enough jobs, but most importantly, choose a field that you really enjoy researching and learning about as you will spend a lot of time immersed in it.

Next, learn as much as you can about the fields you have identified. Become a sponge and absorb everything related to them.

• Sign up for courses in your fields. You don’t necessarily have to do a full degree; you could attend public lectures at your local university, take a class at community college evening courses, summer courses, sign up for correspondence courses or continuing education classes, etc. If you can take classes in different languages, your source and target languages, that’s even better.

• Attend specialized translation courses, conferences or seminars in your fields and languages. While such courses don’t exist for every language and every specialization, an increasing number of universities and translator associations offer courses on legal, financial or technical translation.

• Read as much as you can about your subject in your source and target languages. If you read what the experts in the field are reading, you will not only acquire a lot of valuable knowledge of the field, but you will also pick up the related terminology and can start compiling your own specialized glossary.

• Invest in the best specialist dictionaries and reference books in your field, but don’t rely blindly on them, always cross-check with other sources.

• Have your translations proofread by an expert in your field and learn from their experience.

Nobody becomes a specialist overnight. Becoming an expert translator in a specific field takes years and you learn something new with every translation you do. It’s a constant learning process and, just like for every other profession, it is practice that helps you to improve.

Do you have any other tips? How did you become a specialized translator? Let me know and leave a comment below!

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