Advice needed on becoming a translator

I was just wondering if anyone could give me some advice on becoming a translator. My fiancée just finished a degree in English and is currently teaching English in Poland, she will be coming to the Uk shortly to live and she would like to look into translation as a career.

She has done quite alot of translation in relatively big church conferences etc without any problems so I believe she has the credentials but my sticking point is there seems to be so many different qualifications and so many governing bodies, then you have sworn translators etc which gets all a little confusing. Any advice on courses she should do, governing bodies she should join etc would be greatly appreciated in order for her to become a freelance translator or interpreter- there are vacancies in the area but they require the relevant qualifications for such work.

Thanks in advance for any light that some of you may shed :D

It depends on the kind of translation she wants to do.

If she wants to translate leagal papers, she must be a sworn translator. It takes some special course and a state exam.

As far as other kinds of translations are concerned, I don't know of any official regulations. If you want to join an gency, it's good to have a degree. But to translate for TV, you need to know the right people, qualifications or actual skills don't matter...

For a start it's good to know some other freelance translator who gets too many orders and needs aid. You can get some experience by working for such a person.

Oh ok cool, thanks for the reply.

Related: Becoming a translator in Poland


You will want Jagiellonian University, Faculty of Philology: they run a couple of post-graduate diplomas in translating. However, if it is anything like the courses offered in Warsaw, entry is rather competitive.

I suspect it will be - the UAM course is ridiculously competitive too.

All the details are here: filg.uj.edu.pl/dydaktyka/studia-podyplomowe

Annoyingly typical of Poland to have swung from one extreme when it comes to interpreting/translating to the other.