I have intensive interpreter experience rather than translator. The reason is: there is not enough opportunities for the translator. I had part time experience translating court documents, school letter to the parents, and some letter translation to the commercial company for my friends. I also had technical writer experience for writing the technical and user's manuals for the clients while I worked as a professional system analyst at Fischer & Porter Co. and Leeds & Northrup Co. for about eight years.

We didn't have college course/major in translation in Korea and I didn't see many colleges that offers this course in U.S. either. Even if there is some such college, it does not offer four-year college degree providing sufficient full time career as a professional translator. I think the best qualification for the Korean-English/English-Korean translator is the professional writer to translate the English novel to Korean/ Korean novel to English for publishing. I don't have this qualification, however, the person with this qualification is very hard to find and be available. Next best qualification is the good interpreter experience with higher education and various social experiences. Specially, higher degree of education is more important for the translator than for the interpreter. Interpreters interprete the conversation which is not as complex as writing (translating). In order to get higher degree of education, you have to read lots of books, writes lots of reports, even thesis (for the master degree or higher). As you see the following resume, you will find that I have long years of education and held various kind of business and career experiences. When you have all those experiences, you understand the clients better, translate and interprete better because you know the environment and terms they use. If you look for only the translator experience when you examine the resume, then you can not find the best person. The person with less translator experience with higher degree of education is lot better than one with more translator experience with lower degree, because the former can learn and improve faster and higher than the latter. That is why the commercial company pays more to the people with higher education even if the degree is not directly related to the specialty they are looking for. Specially you consider that there is not enough job market for translator career, there is not many good people with translator experience or degree. Now, let me tell my interpreter qualification, which is helpful for the translator also.

I have over 8 years of interpretation experience, mainly with Quantum Inc. in Philadelphia, PA and several years with LSA. I have been master-degree-hold computer professional for long time and retired before interpreter career. I did all kind of interpretation for the many variety of clients with Quantum, but major field was medical and legal field. I have been the one of two priority interpreters at Quantum. I took cases for all Phila. courts (Quantum has exclusive contract), i.e. Criminal Justice Center, municipal courts, family court in Philadelphia. I also take all the out-of-town court cases, e.g. NJ courts in Atlantic City, Toms River, Mays Landing (superior court), criminal court and municipal court in Allentown, Chester county court. I also did some deposition cases at the lawyer's office. Since I start working with LSA, I took several court cases, Montgo Cty court in Norristown, several district courts. I also have heavy medical case assignment for Albert Einstein Hospital (main and branches), HUP (hosp. of Univ. of Penn), CHOP (children's Hosp. of Phila.) Abington Hosp., Jefferson Hosp. and all related branch clinic, doctor's office, PT/OT offices. I also had cases for government offices, school districts, whoever requests, I went there and interpreted (remember I was a priority (the best) interpreter). You can see my writing skill when you read this e-mail. You can be sure my Korean writing skill is far better than English since I am the 1st generation Korean obtaining B/A degree in Korea.