This is post #3 in my ongoing series of questions from the webinar on “Getting started as a freelance translator” that I presented for the American Translators Association earlier this month.
A participant asks: How can I prepare for the ATA certification exam?
Short answer: Order a practice test from ATA; at $50 (including return of the graded copy of your exam) as opposed to $300 for the real exam (not including return of the graded copy of your exam), it’s a good investment and a good indicator of your chances of passing the real exam.
Longer answer: If you’d like to take the ATA exam, you need to do a few things:
- Join ATA
- Make sure you meet the eligibility requirements for the exam. If you don’t meet them and you do not currently work as a translator, your most expeditious route is probably to get a translation certificate from an approved program; there’s a list on the ATA website.
- Gather (buy, borrow, check out of the library) enough paper dictionaries and reference books for the exam. At present, ATA does not allow candidates to use any electronic resources for the exam, but you can use all of the paper dictionaries that you can carry. When I took the test, the woman next to me brought a rolling suitcase full of dictionaries covering a variety of subject areas.
- Familiarize yourself with the error marking framework for the exam, the tips for candidates and the other resources on ATA’s website.
- Take a practice test and see how you do. The magic number is 17; with 17 or fewer error points, you’re in. If you take the practice test and get 20 error points, you probably have a chance of passing the real exam (this happened to me) but if you get 40 error points, well…
And a few random thoughts on the ATA exam:
- I am ATA-certified and find it to be a boost for my business. At the very least, someone browsing the ATA online directory is likely to call the certified translators first. I do a pretty brisk business translating official documents for individual direct clients, partially because I’m one of only three ATA-certified French to English translators in Colorado. However, the highest paid freelancers I know, people in the 40+ cents per word market, are not certified. You can definitely earn a very healthy income as a freelance translator without being certified.
- As was recently discussed on Jill Sommer’s blog, there are lots of issues with the ATA exam. The handwriting factor is huge; personally I don’t hand write anything except my grocery list, and I found it excruciating to hand write the whole exam. In nearly a decade as a freelancer, I have never hand written a translation other than the ATA exam. Ditto with paper dictionaries; most of us have moved over to entirely electronic terminology resources and it’s tough to translate without using them. When I took the exam, the general passage was much, much harder than the specialized passage, and I felt that the grading standards were heavily swayed toward a fairly literal, word-by-word translation; the kind of translation I try to avoid when I translate for publication. ATA is working on a lot of these issues. And to be fair, it’s hard to deal with some of them (for example the long turnaround time to get your exam graded) without raising the price beyond most translators’ means.
- The pass rate for the ATA certification exams is very low. ATA does not release exact statistics, but the pass rate seems to be about 20%. However: a) this is comparable to, or even higher than the pass rates for similar exams such as the Federal Court Interpreter certification exam. Some court interpreter certification exams even have a pass rate around 5%. b) if you fail the ATA exam, it means that two separate graders agree that you failed. Every exam is reviewed by two graders to start out with. If they disagree on the result, the exam is then sent to another grader for a third review. So you cannot fail the exam based on only one person’s assessment of your test. c) I would be interested to see the pass rates broken down by language. Anecdotally, it seems that some languages’ pass rates are much lower than others
- If I were to give ATA some business advice, I would advise them to start producing preparation materials for the certification exams. I think that this would serve the twofold purpose of making the exam and the grading process more transparent and of generating revenue for ATA. For example, ATA could publish preparation manuals of old exams with graded example translations. They could even offer preparation courses. Hey, if people will spend several thousand dollars for a bar exam preparation course, ATA should be able to charge real money for a translator certification exam preparation course.
Other thoughts?
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Hi Corinne,
As a Chinese > English translator, the topic of ATA Certification is near and dear to my heart – mostly because such certification does not (yet!) exist despite the sustained efforts of dedicated Chinese Language Division members.
I think the idea of the ATA developing exam preparation materials is genius. As any good student knows, preparing for an exam can be (a) useless and unrepresentative of one’s actual capabilities OR (b) a valuable tool for assessing and sharpening one’s skills. The outcome, of course, depends on the nature of the exam and the nature of one’s preparation. Were we to have preparation materials similar to those for professionals in other fields (lawyers, architects, nurses etc.), we ATA members would do ourselves a great favor by improving the professional image of our industry and by properly grooming the next generation of language professionals. Time to contact the Certification and Professional Development Committees…
Cheers,
Katie Spillane
—————————————–
Chinese – English Translator
spillanetranslations@gmail.com
Tel: 718-717-2588
Fax: 718-521-5547
Great tips and thoughts, Corinne.
I was considering working towards the certification, however, because of the handwriting requirement I don’t think I will. Several years ago I broke my arm in an accident and now have a plate and 4 screws in my ulna. My arm is better than new, except for my handwriting, which has suffered greatly such that it’s illegible by anyone other than me. However, that has not hindered me in my translation work or any other of my endeavors. I am pretty certain that I am not the only translator out there with some physical limitations regarding the handwriting requirement and I think ATA should take this into account (OTOH I’d hate to ask for special accomodations just for me).
Interesting. I hand-wrote my final exams for my German university degree, but that was ages ago (1996). And I agree, it really is odd to judge someone using handwriting, when they really are almost always typing their translations.
I also wonder what it means to “fail” a translation test. Given that there is no such thing as “the right translation” (there are many wrong translations), I just wonder what failing means ? Does that mean that the translator did not get the meaning across, or did not get enough meaning across ? Even those really bad Japanese-English translations of the 1970s and 1980s got meaning across (while being comical). I really wonder what it means to “fail” to get meaning across.
Or is it that the graders just want to create artificial elitism by failing 80%+ of the people who take the test ?
I’m actually probably in the minority about the importance of being certified. From my experience working on the vendor-side for 6+ years, for the most part, PMs at agencies don’t really care (it’s far from being the most important thing they look at), and end-clients don’t know any better. For one, ATA certification is an American certification, so translators living outside of the US are usually not included in this group. The reverse is true; clients based outside of the US aren’t looking for translators certified in a different country. Then there’s the issue of the subjects being tested. If a highly specialized translator in the field of, say, mechanical engineering, doesn’t pass the exam because he/she never translates “general” texts (or medical/legal/scientific or any of the other “specialized” texts), does that mean that he/she is not a good translator?
My personal opinion is that ATA certification only has prestige amongst other translators. Clients know quality when they see it – they don’t need certification to tell them that. And the fact that the ATA requires one to earn “points” every year to maintain their certification is, IMHO, just another money-making ploy. And if you let your membership lapse (which I did for several years when I wasn’t translating), you lose your certification (which I did).
Sorry, but I don’t buy into it anymore.
I have a coworker who needs to be certified by ATA in Spanish for her job. English is her second language, she was born in Mexico. She has taken the ATA exam twice and failed. She got closer the second time. Does anyone know of tutors for this kind of thing? Either in the Denver area or online?
Laurie, thanks for your comment. I’m sending you a reply privately as well, but in general the only prep materials for the ATA exam are the practice tests that ATA sells. Those are helpful; they cost $50 which includes a graded copy of your exam (which you do not receive for the real exam unless you pay a substantial review fee). Personally, although I am actively involved with ATA, I do feel that this is a deficit in the certification program. Imagine if other professional certification exams (CPA, medical board exams, etc) offered no prep materials other than practice tests… just a thought!
Laurie,
I have a question.. We are a start up translation company, i notice a lot of translation companies have ATA certification logo on their website, but ATA does not offer certification for companies but only for translators, Please clear this for me please and if it is posible for me to get the ata certification for my company
I am an ATA certified translator.
I can help your friend prepare for the English to Spanish ATA exam.
I live in NY, but we can work through e-mail and Word attachments
Write to me at: enespanols@aol.com