Carl Gene Fordham
Hi! My name’s Carl and I’m a freelance Chinese-English translator and English tutor residing in the cultural hub of Melbourne, Australia. In my spare time I enjoy getting involved in the community through language exchange and intercultural meetups, cooking and learning Korean.
I started learning Mandarin when I was ten years old, in a primary school in a small town in Queensland. At 13, I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to enrol in a Chinese Immersion Program where four of my high school subjects were taught in Mandarin. This greatly fuelled my passion for the language and culture, and here I am, ten years later, with an Arts degree (majoring in Chinese and English), a Master’s in Translation Studies (Chinese-into-English translation) and my own business which allows me to combine my two loves – Chinese and English – and assist people who want to communicate better.
This blog is an accumulation of my years of learning the language. My aim is to meet more people like me who are young “professional bilinguals” so I can learn more from them. I do also hope that my ramblings here might help be of some help to inspire others to enrich their understanding of the Chinese language and culture.
Hi Carl!
I was just researching on the net about careers in translation and interpreting, and managed to discover this wonderful site of yours!
I am actually very interested in languages, and have been ever since secondary school years but, have never thought of taking this career pathway. Instead, I have completed a degree in Accounting, and am now looking into doing an Advanced Diploma in Translation and Interpreting at RMIT.
I hope you don’t mind, but if I could ask you a for a few suggestions and opinions regarding your studies and career in the translation and interpreting industry, I would really, really appreciate it!
Would you consider this industry to be a rewarding career, and would it be possible to rely on this career full-time? When applying for jobs, do you know whether the different institutions that we have graduated from be taken part as the employers’ consideration (even if given that the courses are all NAATI approved)? Therefore, with your experience, would you consider RMIT to be good institution to attend the translation and interpreting courses?
Sorry, for asking too many questions, but I have to say that it is very exciting and happy to know that I have found someone so interested in the Chinese language and also in this professional industry.
Thank you for your time in reading this, good luck with your studies and your endeavor into this meaningful industry. You have said it right, hope you (and hopefully me too!)can assist many, many people to communicate better!!
Hi Qi Hui,
Thanks for reading. Of course translating is a rewarding career, but it certainly is tough starting out. You need to develop a steady clientele/portfolio, but it can be hard to secure clients that are willing to pay you professional rates without previous experiences, either as a freelancer or working for an agency. As for being able to rely on it full-time, it certainly is doable, but you need to be ruthlessly business-minded and driven in establishing steady work, especially if you want a decent salary. I have been fortunate that my freelance business combines my love for teaching with translating and proofreading. In the future I may specialise in just one area, but for now I am enjoying the diversity. In terms of institutions, I found RMIT’s Master course in translation studies very enjoyable, however it’s certainly not for everyone – its focus is mainly on professional development, ethics and theoretical approaches – if you’re after a course to develop your practical skills, you’re better off starting at the TAFE level.
Good luck with your future goals, and feel free to email me if you have any more questions.
Carl
Hi Carl, good on you! If only more people understand the importance of mastering other languages besides the English language. I am interested in how you manage to be proficient in Mandarin…I have a daughter who is 4 years old and she currently has a Mandarin vocabulary of about 600 characters. She goes to a Mandarin language school in Kuala Lumpur. In a year’s time, she will be doing Year 1 in Queensland and due to my husband’s work commitments, we will be living in central Queensland. I am at wits’ end trying to find a school that will teach Mandarin as a language (would be better if it is a Chinese immersion program) in Queensland. If you don’t mind, what is the name of the primary school you started your Mandarin course and which school offers the Chinese immersion program? Thanks very much for your help and all the best.
Cheers,
Kim Lumley
Hi Kim,
Unfortunately I heard that Chinese immersion program was discontinued a few years after I graduated. I know of no other ones in Australia, but you never know. As for primary schools, try enquiring at some of the local schools, I honestly have no idea which schools actually teach it nowadays. Good luck on your search!
Hi Carl,
好久不见！I was just trolling twitter and found you! Your sites look fantastic, it looks like you’re doing very well!
I’m currently teaching Chinese at a high school in Brisbane and thought I might be able to help with Kim’s enquiry. There is one Chinese Immersion program that is running at Varsity College on the Gold Coast. The teacher that started the Immersion program at our High School is also working on something at a school in Brisbane.
Kim, I found Education Queensland documents that may be helpful [education.qld.gov.au/schools/statistics/docs/prim-chinese.pdf] and [education.qld.gov.au/schools/statistics/docs/sec-chinese.pdf]. You may need to copy and paste these. Many Brisbane schools are beginning to teach Chinese, although it does not look too promising in Central QLD, sorry!
Carl, I’d love to catch up somehow and see how you’re going! My colleague and I have recently started up a blog of our own [www.ChineseTeachersBlog.com.au] and are trying to get it up and running. We’ve got a lot of feedback from Chinese learners from around the world, it’d be great if you could check it out and let us know what you think. I like the posts you’ve written about translation challenges and different expressions. My senior students devour this kind of stuff!
Good luck for the future, I look forward to catching up!
Caitlin
Hi Carl,
just found your site, and it looks really nice and good links, Im sure to be back for advice every once in a while! I Love languages myself and have been studying about 8 myself; however, Chinese is one of my weak ones, despite many years of (perhaps not so focused) studies… =S ) – so i was just wondering if you have time to answer direct questions here concerning mandarin, or do you have any suggestions on pages to consult where a personal answer is offered? Thank you!!
Hi 瑞典人,
I’d be happy to answer any specific questions you have by email – INFO at CARLGENE dot com. I also recommend you check out http://www.chinese-forums.com – the members on that forum are extremely helpful. Cheers.
Carl,
I stumbled upon your website when a friend of mine at the shanghaiist sent me a link. I think what you are doing is fantastic. I have been living in China for almost 3 years and been relying on websites and my co-workers for “Chinese Lessons.” I actually printed out your Comprehensive Guide to English Transliterations. Being a nerd, this is the kind of linguistic minutia that thouroughly engages me!
Anyways, I work for ShanghaiExpat.com, possibly the most popular English language website in based in China (not including government News sites). Our site is often the first thing foreigners ever see when thinking about moving to Shanghai, a Gateway Site if you will! I have tried several times to write good “learning” articles on our site, but my Chinese is not nearly as advanced as yours. For example:
http://www.shanghaiexpat.com/article/other-chinese-traditional-characters-and-wade-giles-10280.html
We are a pretty small company and rely on site partnerships and volunteer articles.
I would be honored if we could have a site partnership. That means we could run your articles (blogs) on our site. Of course, we would include a logo and/or link directly to your site from the reprinted article. I think it would benefit your presence as an aspiring professional and the content would fill a much needed void for us.
What are your thoughts?
Dennis Ming Nichols
Editor of ShanghaiExpat.com
Hi Dennis,
At the moment I am not interested in any kind of site partnership but thank you for reading and for your kind words.
Carl
this website is wonderful. glad to see someone so interested in chinese. good luck on becoming a professional translator. we are a charity based in china serving the aids orphans. if you want to take a break and teach english to children in rural china (we have 16 reading rooms there), please let us know.
Woops, I didn’t see this comment (posted Feburary this year) until now, sorry about that! At the moment I am content where I am in the world, teaching and learning, but I’m happy to leave your comment here for others to learn more about your foundation. Good luck!
hi,Carl, I want to know if there are any website that teaches chinese via video and audio, the kind of long distance learning with live native chinese teachers? thanks
Hi Spring, I’m sorry I’m not very familiar with websites teaching Chinese with private teachers. A Google search will give you plenty of results. If you want more opinions I recommend you check out the very useful Chinese-Forums.com. Cheers, Carl.
您好，卡日了 :p
This might be a long post but it will be interesting. I have been learning chinese starting from middle school, and from the beginning have found it interesting. I raised my hand too many times, didn’t goof off, and was passionate in my studies. In Freshmen year I was in Chinese 2 and got A’s, Sophomore year I did Chinese 3 and 4 in the same year and got A’s, Junior year I skipped Chinese 5 and went to IB Chinese and still got A’s, Senior year I took IB Chinese and got an A- and I took the IB test. from the talks between my teacher and I my score for the test will be at least a 5 to at most a 7. I have also attended Concordia Language Villages Sen Lin Hu, a chinese language immersion summer camp for two different times for 4 weeks at a time, as a kitchen assistant, and last year and this summer as a junior counselor and have found it, and I can’t stress it anymore then I can, EXTREMELY SOOPERDEEDOOPER HELPFUL to my chinese speaking skills. I am attending Concondia College in Moorhead MN this fall and am worried, because I have already studied the textbooks and workbooks the more advanced chinese classes (I want to take) are going to use. I am also not sure of what major to couple with my chinese major. Business? Translation? Education? I want to use my knowledge of Chinese to better my chances of being able to find an average to above average job in the market for Chinese-English Bilinguals. I would extremely like your feedback on my situation because I can see that your blog posts are fairly recent. Please email me ASAP please because you are such a nice person :]
谢谢好多了，
傅春晓
No worries, sending you an email now.
Hi, I was actually google-ing on interpreting & translation courses in Australia and I found your blog. And we have very similar language combination. My main working languages are English and Chinese, and Korean as my passive working language. I was wondering if you know which university in Australia provides the best Master course in this field? I am currently looking at UNSW, Monash and Macquarie. Thank you
I’m not sure I can answer your question. I only have experience with the RMIT’s Master program in Translating and Interpreting and I highly recommend it. I found it a good mix of theory and practice, as well as ethical and research-oriented units. I’m afraid you’d have to contact the other unis themselves to get more information.
Lovely to hear someone else who works with the same three languages – they’re fascinating, aren’t they?
Thanks for reading.
Carl
Hi,
I really liked your post about Chinese Homophones. I was wondering if I may use it as a post on my blog? With due credit to you, of course, and a plug with links to your site.
Thanks!
Myra
Sure, no worries. Thanks for asking for my permission, I do appreciate that. All my posts are for the benefit of the language-learning and translation community so I don’t mind them being shared around, as long as people credit me and link back to the blog. Cheers.
Hi Carl! I’m thrilled that I discovered an advanced Chinese learner and professional translator through Jeremy Webb’s blog post: http://www.angryeditor.com/2010/12/05/switch-around_words/
If you’re interested, please visit my Sina Microblog for the Chinese jokes and witty remarks I translate on a day-to-day basis:
http://www.weibo.com/2600880772/profile?topnav=1&wvr=4
And the Chinese pop songs that I translate on a weekly basis:
http://inmymelody.wordpress.com/
or http://blog.sina.com.cn/u/2600880772
Do you have an account on http://www.weibo.com?
Hey Rensi, thanks for reading. I don’t use Weibo, but I do use Twitter – feel free to check out my two accounts: http://twitter.com/#!/carlfordham and http://twitter.com/#!/chinesesentence. Cheers.
Hi Carl,
谢谢你教我用Nespresso…咖啡不错。 你的博客很棒， 不过让我心虚– 看来要考资格证书，我得不吃不睡苦读三年。Well, 一步一个脚印，可否麻烦你发几个翻译练习的links? 多谢！
li
嘿李！我已經發給你電子郵件了。你去查一下吧。卡爾
Hi Carl,
You have a great blog, extremely useful!!!
I am also a foreign languages lover and I’m so excited to find your amazing blog! For me as a beginner (about 6 months of studying Chinese + going to China this year) it is a pearl! =)
I have just one question: where is the “Subscribe” button? Haven’t found it, but I am eager to follow all your posts!
Thanks very much and keep up with great work!!!
Hi Margarita. Glad to know you’ve enjoyed my posts. About the “Subscribe” button – I have no idea. It’s a WordPress blog though so subscribing via RSS should be easy. Or you can follow me on Twitter (@carlfordham) – I post all updates on there. Cheers, Carl.
Hi Carl,
I am a graduate student learning C-E translation and interpreting in China. Your blog is a great help. Thanks for sharing!
Nick.
Hello,
The Top 100 Language Lovers 2012 competition hosted by the bab.la language portal and the Lexiophiles language blog has started and your blog has been nominated in the category professional language blogs. Congratulations! The nomination period goes until May 13th. Feel free to spread the word among other bloggers writing about languages or to suggest one blog yourself.
Please email me so I have your contact details (stefanie [at] bab [dot] la) and send you information about the status of the competition and the badge.
For further information on the Top 100 Language Lovers 2011 competition, visit http://www.lexiophiles.com/english/top-100-language-lovers-2012-nominate-your-favourite-now
Best wishes,
Stefanie for the bab.la and Lexiophiles team
Hi Carl, I’m learning English-Chinese translation for two years, and have encountered many Chinese words which I don’t know how to express in English without feeling strange and Chinglish. Could you please help me by sending me an e-mail so we could get in touch more often. Thank you.
Hi Lily, I just sent you an email. Cheers.
卡尔，你好！
第一次看你的博客，好多内容啊！要学的东西太多了，看得我眼花缭乱。
I like your website Carle. Can you tell me what at school you started learning Chinese please? Do they still have an immersion programme? You certainly are an inspiration to people who aspire to become a translator.
Cheers Jonathan S
Hi Jonathan,
I started learning Chinese at primary school. The subject is not uncommon in schools in Australia. As for the immersion programme, I attended that in a high school in Queensland. Unfortunately a few years after I left they cancelled it. It was the only one of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere, and I haven’t heard of any other Chinese Immersion Programs being organised in Australia since.
Thanks for your kind comments.
It is good for you to have such a colorful & successful life : )
I just wondering the following sentence “At 13, I as lucky enough to get the opportunity……” did u miss the ‘w’ for the word ‘was’ or it is a another fashion expression? lol
Thanks for picking up that typo. And for the kind words.
Hi, Carl,
I tutor Spanish/English interpreting in Sydney and would like to put a link to your website on our Moodle page. The university has a lot of Chinese students doing this course.
I was also wondering if it would be OK to use your dialogues (changing the Chinese to Spanish, of course
) with my students. I would be happy to pass these on to you and to send any dialogues that I write for my students.
I have been thinking of setting up a website myself with dialogues that can be used to practise and prepare for NAATI exam, so your website is a real inspiration.
Congratulations on a great website!
Francesca
Hi Francesca,
No worries at all. I’m happy for as many people to use the content on my blog as possible – that is, after all, why I created it! Just be sure to acknowledge and link back to my blog.
I actually think it would be great if other people adapted the content for interpreting training in their own language direction – Spanish, French, Korean, whatever. Since there is so little interpreting practice material available online we should all create and share as many materials as we can.
Thanks for your support, and let me know when you launch your website, I look forward to checking it out.
Cheers,
Carl
Carl,
You’re awesome, all the work that you’ve done is absolutely fantastic! I raise my hands to you! Thank you so much!
Dear Carl,
I found your blog through a youtube video featuring you which was posted on our Chinese Learners Facebook page by a Chinese lecturer at my university (UTAS – where you did a Bachelor of Arts if I’m not mistaken – 所以我們是校友
).
I just want to say thank you – I’ve just been flicking through the blog and it seems like a real treasure trove of practical Chinese learning with some rather unique aspects – earning it an automatic place on my “bookmarks bar” amongst my other favourite Chinese learning resources. I think it is really important to have people like yourself who have not only reached a high level of proficiency and understanding but who are also sharing that knowledge with the rest of us and contributing to the development of Chinese learning overall.
Like I said before, I am a UTAS student. My degree is Arts/Law. I was fortunate enough to enrol in Chinese in first year on the basis that my wife is from Taiwan, and lo and behold I complete fell in love (or became obsessed) with it (my wife says sometimes more than her). So far, learning Chinese has given me some amazing opportunities, and is by far one of the best accidents that has happened in my life!
I was wondering if you organise or are involved in bi-lingual or chinese learning/ meetups / groups in Melbourne? I will possibly be coming to Melbourne this summer to do some law internships, and, if they are successful, we will likely move to Melbourne at start of 2014 after I graduate. It would be great to have some people with similar interests to meet up with.
Cheers
David
風大為
Hi David,
Great to meet another UTAS graduate!
I’ll send you some info now via email.
Cheers,
Carl
Hi Carl
I kown something about you on a chinese TV programme. You are awesome!!
haha. I would love to be a bilingual.lol. Anyway nice to meet you. I can speak cantonese, Manderin and Enlgish. haha. But not perfect English. Pls advice me to speak perfect English, PLS!!
Thank you
Cheers
Kara
熟能生巧
Hi, Carl, just wanna say thank you so much for sharing those invaluable interpreting resources. I have passed my interpreting test in Sep (only at para-professional level though) and this is all because of your kindly sharing of your work. I will definitely recommend this site to everyone.
Thanks for your work
Carl你好，
从Angry Editor里面找到你这里来的。然后很惊讶的发现你竟然在Melbourne Cultural Hub! 离我家只有几步之遥哟。
总而言之，很高兴看见你的博客，并且希望看见你有新的博文，带给大家更多惊喜。
Thanks Carl!
Cool site, man. I just found you at Chinese-forums. Send an e-mail my way if you’re interested in a link exchange.
Cheers,
Mike Laoshi
Hi Carl,
I am a native Chinese speaker studying psychology in Sydney.
我总是遇到一些在字典上查不到的词，这时候我就会想，如果有一个人可以问一下就好了。我相信这也是许多学习外语的人共同的想法。
I am not a real “professional bilingual ” as you expected, but I would really appreciate if we can exchange mail addresses improve together.
Cheers,
Iris
Check your email I’ve replied there. Cheers.
Hi Carl, I noticed you are using traditional Chinese? 超厲害! And awesome blog btw. Could we have some more medical/legal dialogue practices? Being greedy I know, sry.
I’m actually working on a research proposal on how true (early) bilinguals develop their interpreting skills and their differences with that of late bilinguals (second language learners), perhaps you can give me some tips about your training process if you don’t mind? Would be great to receive your reply via email. Thanks tons!
I’ve replied via email. Thanks Emma.