Cultus
Translation has become one of the top requested courses in recent years. Businesses are opening their doors to a global market and this offers a great opportunity for writers. If you can speak more than one language, you could be offering technical translation services. All you need to do is decide on a niche or market. Everything else will fall into place. When there is a need, business-minded people think of a way to incorporate that into making money.
E-learning has become a popular form of educating yourself. It’s affordable and saves a lot of time. There is no commuting to classes or balancing the rest of your life with the time you have to be in school. It’s a win-win situation for many people. You have the ability to learn at your own pace and on your own time. There is a lot of online courses on various topics. You just have to go through the masses to find the gold. We have done that for you and compiled a list of the best and affordable courses for technical translation.
-
Translation in practice – Coursera
You can find a ton of good courses on Coursera and this is one of them. The basics are covered and also much more. With so many techniques taught through this course, it’s unbelievable that it is free of charge. There is a variety of topics covered within this course. It seems like it was written by the best translator online because of the examples included. It’s always great learning from actual examples when it comes to translating of any type of writing.
-
Working with translation – Future Learn
This is one of those courses where you feel like you are part of a class. You have to join the course by signing up, which is the least they could ask for. The course runs over a course of 4 weeks, which is nothing compared to the knowledge you will gain. This course gets straight to the point and it does not waste any of your time on filler material.
-
Introduction to translation project management – Udemy
Most of the courses on Udemy provides a wealth of information and techniques. Students use this all the time to advance their knowledge on the subject they are passionate about. There is a course for almost every subject. This is why the website is so popular. If you need to subtitle movies online you can find a course for that. Whatever translating needs you have, this should be your first stop.
-
Translation as a career – The Open University
If you are serious about becoming a professional translator, you have to work through this course. It goes in depth about what it takes to do this as a profession. Even if you already speak a few languages, there are some business skills you could take away. Translating is more than just rewriting content in another language. You need to still keep the context the same, which is where the confusion comes in for many translators. It’s not a work for work translation.
-
Country-based online courses
A lot of different countries offer online translation training. You can go to some university websites and look at short courses. These are usually affordable. If you want to take a language course first, that would be a good approach. Then you can move on to some of the short translating courses. You will be receiving so much information from the country of interest. There are some cultural lessons you can only learn if the course was designed in the country of choice.
Is there a future for technical translating services?
Everyone is moving their businesses online and this opens the doors of opportunity for translators. If there was ever a good time to offer this service, it would be now. The world has just merged because of the internet and we have to keep up with this change. You no longer have to live in a country to use a specific language. Translation services are in high demand with companies building websites in different languages. Start with a few courses and you could solidify a career as a professional translator.
