Do interpreters earn more than translators?

Is it easy to work as an interpreter? That seems to be the question every aspiring interpreter is trying to answer. It turns out that there are very few interpreters who are very active in both translation and interpreting at the same time. More often than not, an interpreter chooses an occupation to suit his or her needs. Many people think that working as a translator is very comfortable. A person sits in front of a computer and doesn’t seem to get into stressful situations at all. Interpreters, on the other hand, constantly have to keep up appearances, spend more time travelling and constantly learn new subjects. It’s hard to believe, but often interpreters feel absolutely no stress at all at work, while translators are constantly under stress, particularly because of strict deadlines and the identification of shortcomings in their work.

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To find out who earns more on average in Belarus, we carried out an anonymous survey of English translators. We asked them several questions about their earnings and the length of their working hours.

It turned out that translators work more and earn less. How come? The fact is that many translators work from home, they have irregular working hours and, depending on their desire to earn, can take inhuman amounts of work.

«You constantly have to work overtime to reach a certain level of income per month,» writes one of the participants in the survey.

On average, a translator earns from $1.5 to $3 per page of translation, a translation rate of 8-10 pages per day, which means that a translator will earn around $336 per month. «With overtime, it is possible to earn 500-600 dollars a month. However, you have to work at weekends, on holidays, and in the evenings», the interviewees describe the situation.

As for translators who only do interpreting, it turned out that they can earn $336 for 3 days of work. «At maximum load and the number of orders per month you can earn up to $ 2,000, even at the most modest rates, if orders are few and working, say, half a month, in a leisurely mode, you can earn up to $ 1,000. Of course, in bulk orders have to make a discount» — confesses one of the translators.

At the same time, interpreters have strict requirements regarding language skills, speaking skills, presentable appearance, ability to translate without a dictionary, and obligatory work experience.

Recently our company has launched a website for recruiting interpreters in Belarus. www.interpreters.by — interpreters from any city of Belarus are welcome to place their application forms here. Each professional may state about himself and get a stable inflow of orders from our site.

You may also be interested in our section on consecutive interpreting.