 So the video today is a video about specializations. Now this was a question that was asked to me by Alice Bass, or possibly Alicja Bass, I'm not sure how to pronounce it. She asked me about specializations and more specifically, if you need a degree in a certain specialization to be able to be considered specialized in that area or industry. So I wanted to touch upon this just briefly. The best way to go about it is to talk about my story. When I first started out as a translator and I decided, okay, I want to make a career out of this, I figured that the best specialization for me would be books and stuff having to do with entrepreneurship and freelancing, because that's how I felt, like an entrepreneur freelancer. So I wanted to help others in my same situation and be mixed up in that world. And I also wanted to do books because that's interesting, right? And then you can say, hey, I've translated a whole book. Fast forward to now to today and my main area specializations are, the main areas are legal translations and financial translations. And I'm really happy with that. I think each translator's journey is different, but I'll talk about mine. Now the reason I got into financial translations was because my background was in finance. I do have a degree in finance. So that was the easiest place for me to search for translations and it was what I felt most comfortable with. Legal translations was more of a fluke than anything. During the course of my financial translations, I found myself doing contracts, helping out with entries in the registries of commerce and stuff like that. And that kind of gradually just veered into legal translations. Right now I'm very happy with both financial and legal translations and in fact, I'm not interested in the other specializations anymore because I feel like it's more precise. There is a precise way to translate certain terms and certain expressions and certain ideas. You know, there's a certain way to translate balance sheet income statement or pro forma or defendant applicant. When it comes to literature, especially poetry and stuff like that, then it can be all across the board. And you have to use your intuition a bit more, which a lot of people like, but then I find myself having to justify myself with a client, which is a lot easier to do in finance and legal translations when I can say, look, this is how the Swiss government has always done it. This is how it's done in these contracts or in this legislation, et cetera. I feel more comfortable with that and so I wouldn't change it. If I'd wanted to change it, if I at this point, since I got a career going and I was still interested in entrepreneurship and translations about entrepreneurship and books and literature, then I'd be in a pretty good position to go there because I have a track record. I have satisfied clients. So I would be in a much better position now than when I first started out. All of that is to say that here's what I think you should do if you're just starting out now. First of all, you should take into account that probably a vast, vast, vast majority of the translations you come across are going to be legal. Financial, medical, and otherwise what I call marketing miscellaneous like translation of pamphlets and websites. Keep this in mind when you're doing your translations. If you're first starting out, you're probably going to go into one of those categories at least to get your experience. Quite frankly, let's face it, the medical and scientific translations are quite specialized already. If your background is not in some type of science or a medical background or what have you, then you probably do not want to enter this realm, at least not at the beginning. That means you're probably going to end up with financial or legal translations or marketing, something along those lines. Now, I should say these are popular in my language combination attaining to English and at least in my experience. If you're dealing with different parts of the globe and different languages, it could be different, but in general, this seems to be the case. And by finance, finance might be a bit too specific. Depending on the language, it could just be general business. So let's just say general business, general law and general marketing. So my advice to you would be to start off in one of those. After you can get a track record in one of these, then if you still feel the passion for what you first wanted to go for, by all means, go for it. And you're in a much better position at that point. So when you start out, I would pick which of these three fields you feel most comfortable with and just shoot for that. Now, as to whether or not you need a degree in this, well, I kind of answer your question with my story. I do have a degree in finance, so there it makes sense, but I don't have any legal background whatsoever. However, now I'm a pretty good legal translator from Italian to English. I gained that experience just doing the job. I would say just go for it. And if you are a good translator, you'll know if you're doing a good job or not. And if you're not doing a good job, that's when you can use the forums and the websites that I've mentioned in other videos where you can ask other translators to help you out. Once again, these will be on like pros.com and translators cafe are the best ones. Word reference also basically chat rooms and places where you can ask questions. After you've been doing this for a while, then you'll have a better feel of what to specialize in. To sum it all up, when you first start out, choose the main specializations in your language combination, which probably will be general business, legal and general marketing. And then take it from there and see where it takes you. Don't worry too much about whether you have a degree in something or not. If you do have a degree in a certain specialization, then definitely shoot for that, but otherwise just see where it takes you. And chances are you'll be surprised by what happens. I certainly was. I definitely didn't think I'd be doing financial and definitely not legal translations, but here I am. I'm doing those and I'm quite happy with them. So anyway, I hope that helps and I hope that helped you, Alice or Ariche. Hopefully you guys found it helpful in terms of specializations. If you have any questions, feel free to let me know. So I hope this helps out and don't forget to subscribe for more videos like this. Hit that like button as well. That's about it. Thanks. Bye. I just realized I'm creating all these shadows on my face. And that's it.