Shahin Bepari Lambe
Panaji: Portuguese can offer career opportunities in translation, teaching and international business, with demand for language skills extending from official documentation to corporate work involving Portuguese-speaking countries, said experts in the field.
“There are job opportunities for those who know Portuguese, including translation, teaching and translation work involving documents related to acquisition of Portuguese nationality,” said Tolentino Antônio Colaço, an empanelled Portuguese translator and teacher at Chowgule College, Margao.
He said translation could provide full-time employment, with some translators working exclusively in the field and remaining busy. Apart from records held by the Department of Archives, people also approached translators with documents from other departments.
Colaço said even when translation tools were used, proficiency in Portuguese remained necessary.
Assistant Professor Dhruv Usgaonkar of Goa University’s Discipline of Portuguese and Lusophone Studies said knowledge of Portuguese could also open up opportunities in international business and employment in Portuguese-speaking countries.
“India is also expanding into Angola and Mozambique in the petroleum and real estate sector, and translators and interpreters in Portuguese can go to these two countries,” Usgaonkar said. “MNCs across various sectors based in India are doing a lot of business with Brazil, creating demand for corporate translators and trainers.”
Usgaonkar said people working in translation needed better organisation. “Presently, apart from the Department of Archives, the others who are doing translations are doing it on their own,” he said.
Assistant archivist Krutika Sawant urged young people to learn Portuguese and take up translation work, saying there was scope for those proficient in the language.
Colaço also called for Portuguese teachers in Goa to be paid monthly rather than on a per-lecture basis, saying the current arrangement made it difficult to pursue teaching as a full-time career.
“Teachers in schools and higher secondary schools who teach Portuguese are doing so not for money, but for their love for the language and left with no alternative after having accomplished BA and MA in Portuguese literature,” he said.
Archives to expand Portuguese translator panel, seeks applications
Panaji: With around 90 per cent of the documents held by the Department of Archives in Portuguese, the department is seeking to empanel more translators to meet the needs of people requiring these records for court cases and other official purposes.
The department currently has around 15 empanelled translators, most of whom are senior in age. They were empanelled in 2021 and the department has invited fresh applications to expand the pool of translators.
“More translators are needed as people approach the department for Portuguese records required for legal proceedings and other official work. These include inscriptions, descriptions, inventories, notarial documents, and birth, marriage and death records,” said assistant archivist Krutika Sawant.
Sawant said demand for the department’s translation service is currently low, possibly because people are unaware that empanelled translators are available.
