The Linguist

The Linguist 56,3 – June/July 2017

The Linguist is a languages magazine for professional linguists, translators, interpreters, language professionals, language teachers, trainers, students and academics with articles on translation, interpreting, business, government, technology

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22 The Linguist Vol/56 No/3 2017 www.ciol.org.uk FEATURES Katy Abraham on the rigours and rewards of financial translation O ne of the many questions asked by linguists entering the translation market is how to choose a specialism. This would certainly have applied to me had I embarked on my career as a translator immediately after my Masters in Translating and Conference Interpreting. Instead, I chose to spend nine years working in business development, and sales and marketing, in the financial services and automotive industry. Although initially daunting, this helped me immensely in finding my specialism when I decided the time was right to become a freelance translator. The companies I worked for had a strong European presence, which enabled me to use my languages, so translating and interpreting were always a key part of my professional life. I learned a huge amount in the boardrooms of some of Europe's largest banks, and at the coalface in automotive dealerships, helping small businesses to analyse their performance and achieve their financial objectives. Gaining broad work experience is extremely helpful to translators, while academic studies encourage one of the most important skills required to be successful in any specialism: the ability to conduct detailed research. As legislation is amended and terminology evolves, a translator's knowledge needs to be maintained and expanded. A profound understanding of events taking place in the background is a vital element in understanding an industry. In my field, subscriptions to financial publications, such as The Financial Times, The Economist and Money Week, are helpful for target-language research. Translators can keep abreast of events in the financial world through content published by large professional services companies in all their working languages (for me, this means English and German). Useful German resources include the online version of Wirtschaftswoche and the financial pages of Die Zeit and Süddeutsche Zeitung. The website of the Bundesministerium der Finanzen (German Federal Ministry of Finance) also provides a wealth of information and is useful for cross- checking terminology. A diverse field The field of finance is vastly diverse and can be broken down into numerous sub-sections, ranging from public sector finance and international institutions, to investment management, international trading and business services, mergers and acquisitions, accounting, auditing, public finance, banking and insurance. Money matters © SHUTTERSTOCK

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