Ken Waide, an Associate ITIA member since 2013, is a freelance translator working from Japanese and French  into English, mainly in patent translation and other technical fields.

Describe yourself professionally in a few lines.

I am a freelance translator working from Japanese and French into English (with ambitions to expand my language combinations in the future). After completing an MA in Translation Studies at DCU in 2014, I was accepted to a three-month translation fellowship programme in the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in Geneva, which was extended for an additional three months. Upon returning to Ireland, I set up as a freelance translator and have been working busily since then, with WIPO being my most regular client. In view of this experience, I consider myself as being specialised in patent translation.

When and why did you decide on a career in translating/interpreting?

Since early adolescence, languages fascinated me more than any other subject, and I used to compile lists of words in the languages I was learning at school as well as furtively writing notes in German to an exchange student at the back of English class (at the time, the English language didn’t seem as interesting to me because I felt I already knew it well enough). I also invented two languages that I hoped to one day spread around the world in order to enable universal communication.

Around that time, a classmate asked me what I wanted to do after leaving school, and without thinking, I said I’d like to become a translator. His response was that he couldn’t think of anything more boring and, impressionable as I was, I seriously questioned whether it was worthwhile pursuing, and forgot about it for several years. In college, I studied English and Film Studies, but became frustrated at how difficult it was to find a steady job after graduating. It was at some point in the following year, while poring over lists of possible careers and finding nothing that I could imagine myself doing, that it suddenly occurred to me that the answer had been there since secondary school. I immediately started looking for university programmes and was thrilled when I found the MA in DCU, which had a great reputation.

Name the most important thing you did that helped you launch your career.

For me there were two important things. The first was enrolling in the MA at DCU, which has in many ways led me to where I am now in my career. This is not to say that simply doing a Master’s will teach you how to translate, because translation is a very personal challenge, but it was being at DCU that enabled me to apply for the WIPO fellowship, which has a history of accepting DCU graduates.

The second important thing was naturally the fellowship itself. At WIPO, I received intensive training in translating patent abstracts and patentability reports, without which I would be unable to do my job today. After a gentle induction giving me and the other fellows a grounding in patents and intellectual property in general, we were thrown in at the deep end and began translating abstracts destined for publication. The texts were dense and challenging and progress was slow in the beginning, but I received very detailed feedback on all my translations, pointing out any errors I had made and where I could go to find the correct answers. By the end of the fellowship I had reached a sufficient level of quality and output to be considered viable as a patent translator.

How important are training and qualifications for a career in translating/interpreting?

A qualification such as a postgraduate degree in translation is very useful and perhaps necessary in today’s market merely in order to match the competition. Firstly, taking a postgraduate course in translation demonstrates your commitment to the profession as well as your capabilities, and secondly, it can provide great contacts and opportunities to work with clients in the real world.

With regard to training, nothing can beat learning the ropes while working as an in-house translator. Prior to the fellowship, I had next to no knowledge of patents, but the close supervision and detailed feedback I received allowed me to grow very quickly as a translator. Without this intensive training, I certainly wouldn’t have the confidence I now have in my work.

How do you find clients?

Before my Master’s, I had it in mind that I needed to apply to as many translation agencies and attend as many networking events as possible. However, of all the emails and phone calls I made at that time, I can’t recall getting a single job as a result. In reality, apart from the fellowhsip, which entailed a formal application process, I have found that most of the clients I work with have come to me very informally through word of mouth. It works in my favour that being a Japanese translator in particular is quite a rare and memorable fact that tends to stay in friends’ and acquaintances’ minds. One large agency which I have done some work for contacted me only after a recommendation from a neighbour whom I met while out walking my dog. I have also been contacted by prospective clients who found me through the ITIA register of members, LinkedIn and the like.

Do you think it is necessary to specialise?

I think it is more satisfying and rewarding to specialise, because the greater the depth of your knowledge in a given area, the better and more efficient your translations will be.

Patents have a style of writing all of their own, with sometimes impenetrably long sentences that would bring tears to the average reader’s eyes. However, the more patents you read, the more familiar you become with the style, and the easier it becomes to predict the kinds of things that are likely to be said. Because the documents I work with are relatively short and great in number, I have to translate patents from almost all technical fields. This is great in terms of the variety it provides, but I would not rule out specialising further in the future.

What is your favourite type of text/assignment?

It might be a predictable answer, but I would have to say patents! The more familiar I become with them and the further I develop my knowledge in specific fields, the more satisfaction I get from translating them. Last week, for example, I started translating a document about a torque converter before realising that I didn’t know what on earth a torque converter looked like or was used for. A quick Google search brought up two Youtube videos – one in English, one in Japanese – giving an introduction to torque converters, complete with voiceovers and animations. After watching the videos, I felt I had gained a good basic understanding of what a torque converter looks like and how it works, as well as gleaning a lot of the relevant terminology in both languages. Though I may never use this information in the real world, my innate curiosity was satisfied, and when I went back to the source text it felt like I was reading it with fresh eyes. This kind of daily learning is something that appeals to me a lot about working with patents.

What is the best/worst thing about being a translator/ interpreter?

The best thing is being able to wake up without an alarm! The freedom of working as a freelancer is fantastic, and having experienced it, it would be very hard to go back to an office job. For the most part, I try to work regular working hours since it is harder to find the motivation to work when everyone else is off, but the convenience of being able to adjust my schedule freely would be hard to give up. Being able to do all my work from my laptop also allows me to take my work with me when I travel, meaning that I can go away for longer and combine business with leisure. The worst thing about being a translator might be the isolation of working alone. After a year working from home and in various libraries, I decided to rent a desk in a coworking office which is shared with other freelancers. Having an office away from home gives me some work/life separation as well as a feeling of being part of a work community, which can be sorely lacking for a freelance translator (although the ITIA is a great help in that regard!)

Is it possible to have a good standard of living?

This depends on several factors such as the language combination and subject field, but at least in the case of Japanese, the answer is yes. I am lucky to have ended up with a language combination that has one of the higher average rates per word, although in general, I would say that translating a Japanese text takes slightly longer than translating a similar French text due to the more numerous translation difficulties that arise (for example, since Japanese does not usually distinguish between singular and plural, it can be gruelling having to scour the source text for evidence of how a given noun should be rendered). One of the great things about working freelance is that if you put in the time and effort to become more knowledgeable in your language and your field, you can be financially rewarded for this by becoming more efficient. I am constantly aiming to grow as a translator and am pleased whenever I notice an improvement in productivity.

What advice would you give someone thinking of embarking on a career as a translator/interpreter?

I am happy to say that despite my classmate’s comment, I have found translation to be thoroughly engaging! If you are passionate about languages and think it would give you satisfaction to use them every day, go for it. If you are in a position to get a qualification, do so as it will certainly up your employability. Have a go at translating whatever you can get your hands on. When I was starting out, I contacted several associations in Japan with connections to Ireland to volunteer my translation services. The associations were appreciative because it allowed them to get some of their website content translated for free and broaden their readership, and meanwhile I had the opportunity to cut my teeth on real texts for real clients. Doing this confirmed for me that translation was something I enjoyed and gave me some experience setting and keeping to deadlines.

And of course, keep honing your language skills as all the work you put in will pay off in the long run!