RIYADH, 10 March 2006 — Facing slim employment prospects, students who have studied English are resorting to freelancing their skills to other students in need of translation services, the daily Asharq Al-Awsat, a sister publication of Arab News, reported. Some of these jobs are routine and acceptable, but others involve students passing off outsourced translation work as their own.

Graduates who have focused their studies on English have found work translating from Arabic to English university thesis papers and other project materials. While they expressed their frustration at their inability to find more reliable employment as professional translators, they are better off financially than students who chose to study languages other than English; these students tend to find jobs wholly unrelated to their core studies.

Life for an English graduate in Saudi Arabia who is lucky enough to develop a freelance career often involves the tedious work of translating 100-page documents at 250 words per page.

College graduates are increasingly going to these free agents instead of specialized translation services because it’s more economical.

Wala S., who did not want to give her family name, said that she used translators when she graduated two years ago with a bachelor’s degree. She said college students nowadays have a wide choice of translators, some of whom are adept or closely supervised by mentors.

Wafa A., who is a freelance project translator, confirmed that she has many clients who do not want to spend a full semester lost amid dictionaries and mountains of printed materials and are eager to pay somebody who can lift the translation burden off their already busy course schedules.

Abdul Aziz F., a freelance project translator, said that he receives between SR1,300 - SR4,000 per student. He clarified that prices vary according to the kind of translation required. He asks for SR1,300 for 100 pages including a simple printout of the work, but he asks for SR4,000 when a 100-page project involves layout and organizing the print production and binding.