Translators often describe their work as a labor of love and it's true that translating a great novel into another language can be very satisfying. However, translators also do the necessay work of translating technical manuals, business memos, news stories, and government documents, without which the global economy would probably grind to a halt. Whether you translate poetry or scientific reports, translating requires creative thinking, research, and determinations.

Did you know that PFIGS stands for the languages traditionally in the most demand: Portuguese, French, Italian, German and Spanish. However, Chinese, Japanese and Korean are also good languages to know and the list is always changing in response to world events.

Are you ready to: research rarely used words in dictionaries written for native speakers; do background research on writers to understand their use of language; translate a complicated instruction manual into clear instructions in another language; possibly work as a contractor, one project at a time, and not as a full-time employee.

It helps to be able to work alone for long periods of time. While working as a freelance translator can be loney, it also means you'll set our own schedule. Make high school count by signing up for advanced foreign language classes, try translating short texts such as a poem you are studying in English class from one language to another, spend a summer in another country and learn how to speak the language, reade a variety of books in your second language to increase your fluency.

Government economists expect job growth for translators and interpreters to be much faster than the average for all careers through 2018. Translators who work in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, German, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic and other Middle Eastern languages shoudl be in demand. While translating jobs in health care and law should be in good supply, jobs in literary translation will be hard to find. The earnings of translators depend on many factors, such as the languages and subject matter they translate. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, interpreters and translators earned an estimated average yearly salary of $45,700 in 2009.

Listed below are links to websites that will help you with career exploration. Click on the links for more information.