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The Average Salary of a Translator

By: Eric Nelson Posted on Tue, 03-11-2015

Granted, being a translator is not an easy job. And let’s be real for a moment, no one graduates from High School and College with the dreams of becoming a top end translator or interpreter, not many of us, anyway. For the most of us, it was our second job, or part-time job, the job-to-get-us-some-extra-cash job. As we gained experience, it later became our profession and we excelled at it. But these days, there is a new trend. People actually want to make this their profession. More people are joining courses and majors that will help them accelerate their career as a translator.

For some people, this is their passion and they want to exploit it to the best of their abilities. However, they are a little hesitant to join the translation services community because they have no idea what will be the average salary of a new translator. This is a tough market, especially when you are working with international clients. Most of the time, the translators have to set their own rates. They don’t to short change themselves, but they also don’t want to ask too high rates and risk losing business.

So what is the average salary of a translator? It all depends upon the experience, specialization and education of the translator. They all have equal importance and must be taken seriously.

Most of the time, people prefer to hire translators with a degree in their specialized language, however, people without these degrees are judged on how well they write, their experience and their skills.

Basically, you need to be fluent in a language and then you are paid according to your experience and how well you translate in your second language. A person needs to understand one thing though, the pay scale and pay type is his or her own choice. Either they can choose to be paid per word, or they can be choose to be paid by the hour. Also, you must decide if you want to be self-employed or you want to be part of a company. On average, a translator can charge $20 per hour, however, the most experienced translators are even charging $41 per hour.

Similarly, the average annual income of a translator will range between $24,181 and $27,878. However, with a little more experience, you can earn as much as $84,120. If you become a part of a translation service provider like Mars Translation, you can get addition income like up to $5,081 bonus and up to $3,000 profit sharing.

There has been a steady rise in the wages of translators and interpreters. Since 2004, the average annual salary of a translator has increased by 30%.

Some of the translation services pay more or have more work like document translation. Plus, the industry you specialize in will have a huge impact on what you earn. For example, if you specialize in the chemical engineering document translation service, you will earn slightly higher than the other because of the area of translation. Plus, there is always one or another opportunity for translators to earn more income, like the newly announced opportunities for translators by Amazon and Iranian Government.

There are plenty of opportunities for the translators. It is all about staying up to date with the translation community. Plus, there are new opportunities coming your way, every day. You just have to embrace the one that is more suitable for you.

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