Having spent a scary amount of my waking hours over the past week working on a game translation (25+ A4 pages – a significant effort), I am considering (as I do every couple of years) getting accredited as a German-to-English translator.

Reasons to do the exam:

• Formal accreditation (but what is this really worth?)
• Sense of achievement, belief that you can never have too many qualifications (is this really worth $270 or so plus another $100 in sample papers?)

Reasons not to bother:

• Even if I go looking to do more paid game translations, publishers will care more that I understand the game and have a track record than that I have a piece of paper that says I can do it.
• $300 or so

I still think (dream) about the possibility that we might one day manage an extended working holiday in Europe. But, again, I don’t think that an australian translation qualification will be of real interest, when I have other more relevant qualifications like a degree in German linguistics and, somewhere, the certificate that confirms I have taken the Zentrale Oberstufenpruefung.

So on balance? I think not. It’s not my career, nor do I expect that it ever will be.

I still fantasise about the Grosses deutsches Sprachdiplom. I wonder how I could explain that to Fraser