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Canadian wanting to do Translation Studies in Russian..

Hello.

The subject line pretty much covers it. I am a Canadian with a Bachelor's in History, Humanities and Political Science. I've been out of school for a few years and am thinking of doing a Master's in Translation Studies with Russian being the other language.

I did look at different university websites and their course descriptions but that in itself has not made me feel that I can make an informed choice.

So, now I am hoping some of you here have gone through a program of this kind or are currently enrolled in one and can share an advice or two.. on Translation Studies programs in the UK in general - which ones of them have more solid reputations.. Which programs are more effective in terms of future employability.. Are there programs that are particularly good when it comes to Russian language.. Are there programs that feature something special, not available just about everywhere..

Also, I think I am leaning more towards Scotland as the geographic area..or Wales..or their vicinities .. And if I could choose I'd probably go for a smaller town than a major urban area.

I would appreciate your comment in a major way!
Reply 1
Original post by Blazh
Hello.

The subject line pretty much covers it. I am a Canadian with a Bachelor's in History, Humanities and Political Science. I've been out of school for a few years and am thinking of doing a Master's in Translation Studies with Russian being the other language.

I did look at different university websites and their course descriptions but that in itself has not made me feel that I can make an informed choice.

So, now I am hoping some of you here have gone through a program of this kind or are currently enrolled in one and can share an advice or two.. on Translation Studies programs in the UK in general - which ones of them have more solid reputations.. Which programs are more effective in terms of future employability.. Are there programs that are particularly good when it comes to Russian language.. Are there programs that feature something special, not available just about everywhere..

Also, I think I am leaning more towards Scotland as the geographic area..or Wales..or their vicinities .. And if I could choose I'd probably go for a smaller town than a major urban area.

I would appreciate your comment in a major way!


This may sound like a stupid question, but do you actually speak Russian? The translation programmes I looked at required knowledge of the language, and it would seem fairly obvious where to start looking if you were interested in Russian since there are not that many universities which teach the language. In Scotland, Glasgow would be the obvious choice but it is probably too urban (so would Edinburgh). I cannot really speak about Wales to be honest.

I would also be conscious about the fact that a lot of translation programmes have very limited hours, or are even taught entirely by distance, so do you actually need to consider the location at all in this respect.
Reply 2
Original post by evantej
This may sound like a stupid question, but do you actually speak Russian? The translation programmes I looked at required knowledge of the language, and it would seem fairly obvious where to start looking if you were interested in Russian since there are not that many universities which teach the language. In Scotland, Glasgow would be the obvious choice but it is probably too urban (so would Edinburgh). I cannot really speak about Wales to be honest.

I would also be conscious about the fact that a lot of translation programmes have very limited hours, or are even taught entirely by distance, so do you actually need to consider the location at all in this respect.


I do speak Russian and, as it turned out, there is actually quite a few programs that allow for this language.

As for the location, I guess I mostly meant to say that I would want to stay away from London..:smile: And the reason I am wondering about this aspect is that I live in Canada but would actually want to spend a year in the UK as opposed to getting a distance education. Perhaps I should indeed learn more specifically about how courses are structured.
Reply 3
Original post by Blazh
I do speak Russian and, as it turned out, there is actually quite a few programs that allow for this language.

As for the location, I guess I mostly meant to say that I would want to stay away from London..:smile: And the reason I am wondering about this aspect is that I live in Canada but would actually want to spend a year in the UK as opposed to getting a distance education. Perhaps I should indeed learn more specifically about how courses are structured.


Well, the universities outside London that offer Russian at undergraduate level are: Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield and St Andrews. I am not sure how accurate this is (I used UCAS), because I know that Russian is also taught at Durham, Edinburgh and Exeter so it seems the aforementioned are the largest departments (why Cambridge, Nottingham and Oxford are not mentioned is beyond me, because they have fairly large departments, especially the former, too). It seems the others use 'Russian Studies' rather than 'Russian', which was the issue.

The next step would be to see if they offered translation programmes; St Andrews (I checked before I wrote my first comment) do not, for example. Then check the format of the programme; Bristol's programme is distance learning so you could discount them, for example. That leaves you with eleven others to pick from.

I could tell you which were the best Russian departments, but this is not really relevant to translation so I am not sure how helpful that would be. In addition, if you were interested in picking somewhere for its location; that is, somewhere that is a nice location so you could visit other cities and towns then I would suggest Leeds, Manchester or Sheffield, and discount Durham and Exeter as they are fairly small and not representative of what it is like in the UK; you might stick Cambridge and Oxford in this bracket if you were so inclined too.
Reply 4
evantej
x


I don't know where you're getting your info from, but there are literally dozens of courses at loads of universities.

I checked UKPASS for "Russian translation" and this is what I got.
Reply 5
Original post by Ice_Queen
I don't know where you're getting your info from, but there are literally dozens of courses at loads of universities.

I checked UKPASS for "Russian translation" and this is what I got.


The first sentence in my first paragraph explained the limited results I received, which I was not satisfied with myself. Nevertheless, if you actually refine your search result down to be more relevant to the OP there are only a few more universities that I did not mention, and most are not worth looking at; Bath is the only one with a (decent) Russian department, for example.
Reply 6
ja budem gavarit xorosho paruski adyn dyen...
Reply 7
Original post by PrimateJ
ja budem gavarit xorosho paruski adyn dyen...


..I see..:smile:

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