Anyone here have a career in translating/foreign languages?

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We are just noticing that our 13 year old son has a gift for languages -- his German class is the only class that he doesn't have to study for.

I just wondered if there are any people who have careers in languages on the forum -- either working as an instructor, translator, foreign service, linguistics, etc?

There are excellent jobs for people who study foreign languages. However, German is not a language that is in high demand. We
are not at war with any German speaking countries and Germany doesn't demand much from the U.S. economically.

Currently, the BEST language to learn is Arabic...with everything going on in Afganistan, Pakistan and the Middle East. The U.S.
government, particularly Homeland Security, the FBI, etc are always looking to fill positions with qualified people.

Other languages, as Spanish and Portugese are also, in demand as these are the languages spoken in Latin America and we do
alot of Import/Export business with these countries.

Also, Russian is an excellent language to learn due to the many political and economic challenges that Russia faces.

Anywhere there is the possibility of confrontations where the U.S. needs to stay on good terms, there will be a high demand for
individuals with such language skills.

It is not likely that the U.S. will ever go to war with France so, learning French may be nice but there is no real political or economic benefit. Neither will there be a high demand for German Speakers. Yet, as a professional language speaker, it is a good language to know.

I was/am very good at learning foreign languages. I excelled in my Spanish classes (spent the class tutoring because I picked it up so quickly). In university my focus was on sign language. I excelled at that as well and was considering interpreting however I feared my difficulties reading people would result in subtle miscommunications.

unfortunately not many people need english finnish translations

I've been in the field full-time for almost two decades working as a translator and interpreter, though mostly the former since I prefer translating.

Predicting which languages will be useful professionally in 10 to 20 years is impossible. Right now the U.S. gov't lists Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Farsi, Davi, Pashto, Hindi as a few others as "critical needs foreign languages" but that could change quite quickly. German is still in demand in the sci-tech field, as well as in business. Even French (English into French) is in demand because of rules in various states for having official documents in French. And so it goes, but to where no one knows.

More important, however, is the need to know the second language at an adult-level proficiency (reading, writing, and speaking) as well as knowing or several related subjects at a university-level of comprehension. To be a financial translator, you have to know finance. To be a technical translator (my field), you need to know science and engineering.

Last, make sure your son isn't just leveraging a fantastic memory to do well in JHS-level language classes. I got through my high school and college language classes (Spanish in HS, Japanese in college) without any effort, even skipping years, basically because of my memory. Learning to communicate as an adult in those languages, and then learning to translate and interpret, were separate tasks that came with more time and effort.

I'm working on it.

Language teaching is something I would not want to do, and interpretation is an extremely exhausting work (I read about this (interpreter collapsed) in a language-related forum). If he likes it, translating might be a good idea if he knows a language that is highly in demand and also has a good specification (law or military). Many translators that don't work for a government or a big company work freelance and a big part of their work is customer acquisition.

Learning languages comes easily to me. I speak two foreign languages very fluently and used them extensively in my profession. I also had many dealings with translators.

My opinion is that translation is not a particularly good choice as a full-time profession. There are too many migrants and others who are willing to do this part-time, and the work is tedious and often sporadic. Teaching is an option, but might necessitate dealing with students who are not fully committed to learning, which could be frustrating. Homeland Security might be a possibility worth looking into.

Most international work requires expertise other than languages, but of course fluency in languages can be a very important secondary asset.

My son is taking German because he is just starting out language education in middle school, ... but, when he goes to high school, they offer Chinese, and THAT was what we were wondering if it might be his calling, and be an honestly good career choice. It would be better if he did some combination of engineering and Chinese, or business and Chinese, or some science and Chinese, and then go to work for a company of some sort. But possibly learning Chinese along with a couple of other languages, if it ends up being truly easy for him, might be a good plausible career choice in the future.

You are lucky. Chinese is perhaps the ideal language choice, given China's rapid growth, size and increasing international importance. You are correct in thinking that it would be best if your son studied one of the combinations you mentioned. If he is not strong in other academics he might still be able to manage basic business classes, which could be enough to open doors. Speaking one foreign language extremely well is often of more practical value than speaking 3 or 4 less well.

By the way, travelling/working abroad in a foreign language is a great advantage to AS, because social deficits are often chalked up to linguistic imperfection or cultural differences.

Finally, I hadn't noticed Aoi's post when I commented on the viability of becoming a translator. Aoi is obviously in a better position than I am to know how easy it is to find permanent positions with good renumeration, and made excellent comments. I imagine that some good positions with government are available.

I majored in linguistics for a short while, but I got too little experience to be able to tell you what it's like. Also considered going into a distance learning program in English translation, but decided against it because if you want to make your career out of translation here you must have a Master's degree in that language (considered majoring in English at university, too) and that would take me forever.

A point I should have mentioned earlier about mastering a second language is that you will have to spend considerable time in a country where that language is used natively. In other words, you (or whoever is learning the language) will have to go abroad, live and work in another country and culture, and deal with all that challenges doing so implies.

The matter of Aspies living and working overseas has been discussed in a variety of threads. My own experience of living in Japan for three years was positive and beneficial overall, though very difficult in many ways due to my AS.

Also, Chinese may seem like a great choice now, but that will change. Also, many companies and organizations prefer to have their translation work done in China because of far lower costs than having it done in the U.S. or Europe.

Funny this should come up. This is actually my long term ambition. I aced French and Spanish at school and taught myself Japanese to a good enough level that I can watch Japanese TV shows without needing subtitles. The problem for me was at eighteen (undiagnosed) when I went to Uni I was too intimidated to do the year abroad so I'm still playing catchup with myself at 27 (and though working, not at the income level needed to save up adequately to go back to uni for translation stuff.)

I badly want to go to Japan and study. Aoi, I am very envious

I've heard of other Aspies picking up languages quickly. I think it's a combination of two things, to be honest - firstly the desire to communicate that we;ve all had since we were tiny. We've all worked so hard to make ourselves understood and to understand those around us that it becomes second nature to want to understand other languages and define the exact meaning of others' words. To me Aspie is my first language and every day social English is my second, so why not have French as a third and Japanese as a fourth...? Aspie brains are just more open to learning communication because they have to do it in order to survive in society. So I think anyhow

The second is that Aspies tend to have good memories and so remember structures and words pretty easily.

I can remember trying to teach myself all kinds of languages from a young age (though Japanese was the only one I ever stuck with for any period of time). Aspies have the gift of being able to focus on something and learn it properly and fully because it's their interest and they hold onto it. Without letting it become an 'obsession', I'd say encourage the interest and let it build as he sees fit. Doesn't matter what the language is, really. Most linguistic Aspies I've come across don't stop at one language and German may not be the final language he opts for.

But either way it's a good thing to encourage. Words and use of words in any language/situation helps make people more aware of their own methods of communication and will probably help him in the long run too.

I'm trying to learn a foreign language. I love reading, writing, spelling, etc. so I think I should pick it up as best as I can without visiting the country.

I see this is a very old post, I hope your son is doing well!

I picked up Norwegian while living there in my early 20s for a few years, my degree is in Arabic and Hebrew. One Aspie related thing I notice is that I seem to struggle less with reading, writing and listening but more with speaking because I find small talk hard so I'm trying to think of both what is appropriate to say now and how to say it right, which makes me speak pretty slowly. I am much better at giving factual presentations and stuff but still not as good as NT learners who hang out with native speakers a lot for fun. I really like Hebrew because its pretty hard to be rude in, its a very direct language and there's a wide range of acceptable ways of expressing yourself.

Anyone who learns additional languages as an adult will have to compete in the job market with native speakers who are bilingual or have acquired excellent English, so it helps to cultivate interests in related fields an/or in really excellent English writing skills for journalism/highbrow translation (I have a feeling this happens or it doesn't though, the level of skill required is probably not something you can coach).
One advantage Aspies seem to have over Neurotypical language learners is when the target language either becomes a long term special interest or that culture is the special interest and the Aspie started the language as a way of accessing untranslated material about the subject (this was the case with my Hebrew and to an extent, my Arabic). Most NT learners wrongly assume that studying the subject at degree level will give them proficiency in it, this might be true with a European language but is not the case most of the time with other languages, even with a year abroad.

Languages just do not fit into the university taught course/exam system in the same way that humanities subjects do because although it is possible to narrow down the focus of say, history, to what fits into 20 weeks of the academic year, it is at best a very short introduction to the subject matter. A language is a huge complex system which will take about 10 years of dedication to master properly, so even very well structured and intensive degree programs leave a huge amount for the student to fill in (of course this is also true of history, etc, but most history graduates understand this as being the difference between taking it for a first degree and taking it to PhD level or further, whereas language graduates seem to often have assumed that first degree level would mean fluency in one language at least). I feel one main advantage/difference of Aspergers is that we take subjects out of the learning boxes society puts them in; we find it hard to learn a little bit of what we are 'supposed to' but as soon as we pick up interest in something we zoom ahead and quickly acquire a knowledge of it beyond the limitations of the system we are currently studying it in.

I'm a teacher assistant at a German immersion school. My job is basically to speak nothing but German to the kids in whichever class I'm in.