There are two questions that needs to be answered when we talk about the career of a Spanish language translator; first, whether there is a need to be certified before becoming a translator, and secondly, if it is so, how to go about getting certification as a qualified Spanish translator? If you can answer these two questions satisfactorily, you can then look forward to a successful and rewarding career as a Spanish translator. Let us try to answer both.

It may not always be necessary to be certified in order to work as a Spanish translator for having a certificate alone is not always enough to succeed in this work .The certification simply provides the customers with a yardstick with which to measure the Spanish translator’s abilities. In other words, it does not make one a good Spanish translator. Thus, even a person without certification in Spanish translation can provide just as good Spanish to English translation as a certified Spanish translator.

However, still, many companies put a prerequisite that they will only offer a Spanish to English translation job to a certified Spanish translator. In such circumstances, a certification in Spanish translation would come handy. In other words, certification increases one’s chances of landing in a translator job, even though most companies also give weightage to language skills, experience, and attitude of the translator concerned.

In order to become a certified Spanish translator you could try any of the worldwide organizations that certify Spanish translators including American Translator’s Association in America, who require that you become a member of this organization, have the necessary minimum qualifications in terms of work experience and education and you also need to register and be ready to take their examinations.

Once you get yourself certified, you’ll get more job opportunities as a Spanish translator. Remember however that if you have a high degree of expertise and excellent grasp of both English and Spanish, there is no reason why you too cannot become Spanish to English translator – with or without certification.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 10:12 am and is filed under Spanish Translation Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.