The translator: a citizen of the world! Welcome to the profession that allows you to travel and live everywhere in the world. Your computer is your house and office and you are your own boss… but also your assistant and human resource employee too. Find out what the pros and cons may be.

The idiom “a citizen of the world”, besides what it has been coined for, is a perfect way to describe the translation professional: sometimes in a figurative sense, sometimes literally.

How is that? Well, thanks to globalisation and the great strides of technology, a translator could actually live anywhere in the world, provided a good internet connection on the spot and a working mobile number, possibly on an Android phone (WhatsApp and Skype, just to mention the most popular ones, can surely kick it up a notch when it comes to be contacted by potential or actual clients).

So, do you feel an urge to live at the seaside and watch endless horizons from your window? Or to spend some relaxing time somewhere in a nice area in the mountains? Are there any cities you have always dreamt to live in for a while? It’s just up to you: the most important keys, the ones “is a must not to lose”, are not anymore the ones that open your house door, but the passwords for your computer; your laptop can become your house and office and the shifts are planned by you (the HR Manager) for all your employees (yourself). P.S.: possibly the messiest desks on Earth belong to translators, they mostly often forget their job involves cleaning related tasks.

Anyway, as fascinating as it may sound, it is not all a bed of roses. This seems to be just a sort of Heaven on Earth, unless translations are not the only income you get (to be frank: a great deal of savings would be the only option). Translators could be among the richest and happiest people alive if work flow was steady, the problem is that it is difficult to plan your life because it all depends on the next assignment. Therefore the complete literal sense of the idiom “Citizen of the World” is left to few chosen ones. On the other hand, figuratively speaking, translators are truly their own bosses: they might live somewhere specific, but their computer keeps on being their office and all the positions in the company are taken (a one man show, ipso facto). It is mandatory to trust yourself, because it mainly depends on you. Frustration is frequently around the corner, you have to learn how to deal with it and make sure it won’t get too often on the way. On the bright side, though, maybe it won’t be a life on the road, but it is definitely easier to move around during certain times of the year, because no one is waiting for you to punch the clock.

But why is translating so fascinating? Translating is not as easy as it sounds: in order to do it well, one has to vivisect a language using the technical skills of an extremely meticulous doctor, yet soak it with the creativity of an insane genius artist. What a hard slog! But in the end, the best of all rewards: to express a feeling, an idea, anything really, from a language into the other. It makes the translator feel closer to other cultures. That is why, one way or another, the translator can claim to be a real Citizen of the World.