Posted on 04/24/2005 4:50:39 PM PDT by Former Fetus
Ok Freepers, I need help again!
I am bilingual, born in Spain, have lived in the USA for 25 years where I have attended graduate school and received a M.S. in Chemistry and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology. Now, what I would like to do is to start a business as interpreter and translator. I think there's a future for it around here, since we have a large migrant population, many of which stay year around. It would enable me to quit teaching and still contribute to support the family. My problem is I don't know how to go about it. I cannot leave my family to go take college courses in translating. Besides, I've spoken Spanish for 48 years! I'm trying to get a business license and just open an office and advertise in the local paper, but I just don't know if that's the right way to begin. After a couple of weeks searching the internet for an answer, I'm coming to y'all. Everytime I have posted a question in FR y'all have exceeded my expectations. Thanks.
Offer your services to a CPA who only speaks English but wishes to serve the Hipanic community.
You mean large illegal alien population? I think the Minuteman Project did a bang-up job of translating "go home" into the appropriate lingo ;).
Healthcare--translation services via phone.
The FBI actually is in need of translators. You may be just the kind of person they are looking for.
This might well be the best way to go about it - your translation customers are not the general populace, but rather professionals who need to communicate with potential clients.
Try finding out what the largest local law firms (check the Yellow Pages) are, and make a pitch for translation services to them. Firms which handle a lot of personal injury (automobile accident, etc.) cases are probably looking to expand their ability to help Spanish-speaking customers.
I did not see your location, but most public entities, especially courts, probation offices and prisons in the South West require translators. Some are full time jobs (the County Courts in Dallas) and some are on call. These assignments pay a fixed rate which will pay the rent.
The money is in commercial translations where you can charge whatever the market will bear. With your techie background, I'd find which advertising agencies handle the products that best square with your technical background and contact them with specific representations.
The trick is too not only view your specific language skills as important but to stress your specific knowledge of the terminology of certain high dollar technical disciplines, in effect, another langugae, strange to most who speak English and/or Spanish.
Given your scientific background, what about the biotech/pharmaceutical companies? For example, Wyeth has offices in Puerto Rico and throughout South America. They may need a translator state-side.
It is my understanding that the National Security Agency is in severe need of translators, particularly those with scientific background. They are willing to pay well plus civil service benefits!
I might add the State Department as well.
Go to http://www.usajobs.opm.gov/ for jobs with the Feds if you're interested. Good luck.
Become a real estate agent(first time buyers, plus a steady clientele of renters), translator for a lawfirm that work immigration cases, a notary public, and you'll be set. Pretty much, immigrants will trust you and your lawyer partners with every financial transaction that has a possible cut in it for an agent.
Works like a charm in NY/NJ.
Also, you could open a Western Union type storefront, sell long distance calling cards, import foods from Spain, Portugal, and South/Central America, or open a Spanish restaurant(put that chemistry degree to some good use).
That's what I've seen the most successful bi/tri lingual people do in NY/NJ.
Talking of NJ Biotech translation needs, most Pharma media, (inserts, packaging, trade show materials, pamphlets, ads, physician education manuals, etc.) are produced in NJ.
Lot of great replies...best I can say is, local government, i.e. Police Dept, Human Services, etc. Medical transcription is a possibility, depending on the local hospitals. I'm certain you will find something perfect for your needs.
Medical transcription (or medical dictation) in Spanish? In my experience, that doesn't usually happen in the contiguous U.S., at least regarding hospital medical reports (I have worked as a medical transcriptionist for over 16 years, so I know what I'm talking about), as all the dictators whose speech I have personally transcribed were speaking (or attempting to speak) in English.
It might, however, be a different story for a local clinic which serves a Hispanic population; though again, I would imagine that most medical records in this country are dond in English.
The trick, in working as a medical transcriptionist, is to understand what doctors (and other dictators) are saying when they absolutely butcher the English language... and language butchers are not always foreigners, unfortunately.
And, unfortunately, it does not always follow, if the transcriptionist and the dictator speak the same native language, that the transcriptionist will always understand what the dictator is trying to say in English as a second language. For example, at one job I had, a Filipino transcriptionist didn't necessarily understand what the Filipino doctors were attempting to say in English.
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