Even basic translation skills can lead to a living
The advent of the Internet has brought a wealth of opportunities since its rise to primacy as the world’s primary business and communications medium; indeed many translation services companies now rely on the internet as the basis of their business model. It is fascinating then, to see how a business opportunity has arisen for even amateur translators, from what originated as a free service provided by film fans.
Thanks to the technological magic of file sharing, popular American movies and TV shows are available all over the world — often within hours of their US broadcast…and they all have an avid worldwide following. The trouble for many recipients though is that whilst they love the shows, they often cannot understand English and they are unwilling to wait for the episodes to be released on subtitled DVD (or indeed pay for them when they are); thus arose Fansub.
Fansub is a film translating and subtitling service usually carried out by fans who perform the service free of charge as an act of kudos just to be the first fan to release a translated version. These subtitled films are then uploaded onto file sharing sites for the free viewing of fellow fans.
Although Fansub is deemed illegal in most countries, heavy demand by fans has helped to propagate it worldwide.
In a new twist though, a definite business opportunity has arisen for entrepreneurial amateur translators who are able to translate between high demand languages and English. The demand for Fansub films in Arabic, for instance is so high that those that are able, can earn a substantial illicit living by translating the latest US TV episodes, burning the subtitled films onto DVD and selling them on…there is apparently a ready market all over the Middle East.
…wonder if I should dig out that old Linguaphone Arabic course?