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Don't miss a thing
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Don't miss a thing
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Jan
25
I’ve been reviewing my membership with some of the UK’s professional translation bodies lately as part of my CPD planning, and thought it might be useful to post my notes for anyone else at a similar stage of their career. My aim for the short to medium term is to upgrade my status with the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI) to Qualified Member, and then apply for Chartered Linguist (Translator) status. I’ve written before about the benefits of membership, so there is no doubt in my mind as to the value of this.
I first became a student member of the ITI in 2002 or 2003, then upgraded to associate membership after I became a full-time freelance translator in 2005. I joined the Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL) around then too, qualifying for full membership status immediately. It does require planning to meet some of the requirements of these associations, and I’d recommend that if you are considering joining a professional organisation, check the requirements and start preparing the necessary paperwork well in advance. (Full details and membership requirements here, here and here.)
Here’s a summary of the requirements for ITI Qualified ITI Member status (MITI). Details on Chartered Linguist (Translator) status (CL (Translator)) in a separate post here.
• References - 2 professional, 1 character: I know from experience that these take longer to gather than you might initially expect, and as I work out of three languages, I need to think carefully about who to ask in order to properly represent my experience. I really do dislike asking clients to complete these kind of reference forms though!
• Experience: A minimum of five years’ full-time work experience PLUS either successful assessment of work or a Pass in the ITI Membership Examination. The exam costs £200 + VAT per language combination, so I don’t believe that it’s a worthwhile option for me. I’m not sure what kind of work I’ll need to submit for assessment, so there’s my first action: I’ll need to speak to the ITI’s membership officer and clarify this. I’ll also speak to other translators about their experience of having work assessed.
• Work volume: supply details of work volume (word counts) per language combination for the previous 5 years. Again, I’m not clear on what the ITI expects in terms of volume, or indeed if there is a cut-off of some kind. Their 2001 survey found that most translators and presumably, therefore, their members, work part-time though, so as a full-timer I should be fine on this. I’ll have to trawl through my invoices from the past few years as I’ve not kept specific data of this, but at least I can start keeping note on future jobs. In addition, a lot of my work isn’t easily measured in word count, so I’ll have to speak to the membership officer about how best to quantify it.
• Cost: £200 + VAT annual membership fee. No charge for the application as I’ll be upgrading from my current associate status (it’s £30 + VAT for new ITI members).
Details on Chartered Linguist (Translator) status in a separate post here.
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Great to see someone discussing this - in my opinion the ITI does not make it hugely clear on their website, and I think a lot of people are unsure how to apply for MITI status.
Having gone through the process myself very recently, in total it will take about 6 months, perhaps more. The initial application is easy enough. Like you say there is no admin charge if you’re already an associate. This should be an easy stage to get through, as they actually go by number of words translated. So, if you’ve been translating full time for a while it’s surprising just how many words you will have done - I know I was!
Once you’re through that stage, however, is when it begins to get a little more complicated. The information they sent me said that there IS a charge for an ‘assessment of work’: £235. Hence I chose the exam route because I realized that I would have to pay in either scenario.
Needless to say, I could only afford to do one language combination at a time, and I wonder whether this is an issue for others…For me, it was an easy decision to take the exam in Spanish, but I’m not sure what happens if I do pass the exam - how do I say that I’m MITI in Spanish, but an associate in French and Portuguese?!
Having sat the exam at home last weekend, I can assure people it is a beast of a thing to do, and there is, they tell me, a 40% failure rate. Personally I would say that £235 is a bit steep, particularly for the ‘assessment of work’ option.
HOWEVER (not wishing to put people off!) I found the exam EXTREMELY productive from a CPD point of view alone - it really tested me and threw up tons of interesting language issues.
I can only assume that, coupled with the £199 annual membership fee, MITI status really reaps dividends! Something this hard to obtain surely must be worth its weight…