Applied Translation Studies, MA

Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures, University of Leeds, the United Kingdom

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Study options for this course

The award	How you will study	Study duration	Course start	Domestic course fees	International course fees
MA	Full-time, Part-time	12 - 24 months	September	GBP 12000 per total	GBP 25250 per total

About Applied Translation Studies, MA - at Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures, University of Leeds

This course places considerable emphasis on computer-assisted translation and project management, giving you valuable experience of the localisation, project and terminology management tools that are used in professional practice. You'll also work with students specialising in a wide range of languages to carry out multilingual translation projects.

Provided you pass our entry translation test(s), you can specialise in translation between English and up to three languages, as follows: from Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish into English, and from English into Arabic and Chinese. In addition, you will be able to choose from optional modules informed by the research of our experts on topics such as audiovisual translation, machine translation, literary translation, legal translation and genre analysis.

You will be taught by both leading Centre for Translation Studies researchers and contracted practitioners who will equip you with a strong knowledge base and practical skills to launch an exciting career in the language services industry.

Specialist facilities

As a proud member of CIUTI (Conférence internationale permanente d'instituts universitaires de traducteurs et interprètes), the Centre for Translation Studies benefits from excellent facilities and resources to support your studies. Our Martin Thomas Translation Labs (MTL1 and MTL2) support all of our translation programmes, complete with around 60 high-spec PCs and a wide range of specialist software for translation and subtitling.

The Centre for Translation Studies is also constantly compiling and updating very large corpora of texts in digital form so you can analyse source texts and produce more idiomatic translations. Moreover, you can also see our interpreting students at work in our state-of-the-art conference suites.

This course is also available to study part-time over 24 months.

In addition to translation theory and specialised translation, this course focuses on providing you with training in the different facets of the Language Services Industry, from localisation and project management, to working with CAT tools, communicating and negotiating effectively, and developing finance and marketing skills. In this context, the core modules provide specialised training in an impressive range of software tools widely used by leading translation and localisation companies, such as Trados Studio, Multiterm and Passolo, memoQ, Phrase, OmegaT, Matecat, Verifka and Xbench. You will also have access to additional cutting-edge language technologies such as Dragon NaturallySpeaking, Sketch Engine, and PerfectIt. Note that access to certain software is subject to availability.

Our core modules include multilingual group projects, sometimes organised in collaboration with local or global NGOs or educational partners. These projects provide valuable experience of translation and localisation project management, as well as localisation, translation, post-editing machine translation (PEMT), revision and review work, giving you a much more accurate idea of the complexities of managing real projects, starting with the client briefing and going through the analysis and quoting stage, the actual translation, PEMT or revision and quality assurance, and the final delivery, invoicing, and reflection.

Learn more about Applied Translation Studies, MA - at Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures, University of Leeds

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Entry requirements

IELTS 6.5 overall, with no less than 6.0 in any components

Student reviews of Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures, University of Leeds

Find out what students say about Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures, University of Leeds

Caroline Mwape Phiri-Lubwika - MA Applied and Professional Ethics (Online Learning)

What made you want to apply to your course and to Leeds?

I chose to study my course because you can apply it across different careers. I believe that each and every person needs to step up in terms of being professional in their work and in their careers; it is something very close to my heart.

I am a journalist by profession, and ethics is at the core of the media industry. I train upcoming journalists in Botswana and I also do children’s reporting, so issues of ethics are very pertinent; not only to me personally but to the profession that I stand for.

How would you describe your experience of studying at Leeds?

Studying online gave me the rare opportunity to study and take care of my family at the same time. It was good that I could concentrate on raising my family while also continuing with my professional work, I must say I gained all round!

I have studied online before - I did distance learning with the University of South Africa, where I did my BA in Communications Science - but this was at another level. What kept me going were the group discussions, which gave me an opportunity to interact with students from across the world, and the tutors coming in to give their opinion.

I decided to come to Leeds in person for my graduation and I was so excited because my dreams have turned into reality. It was so friendly and lovely that I felt like I’d been there before, even though it was my first visit to the campus.

Aakriti Jain - MA Global Fashion Management

What made you want to apply to your course and to Leeds?

After working in fashion as a designer, I realised that I am more suited for the managerial side of this industry. I had all the knowledge and experience I needed to become a designer but I needed to learn more about how that organisation works. With that in mind I started looking for universities who were offering a fashion management course which will help me to gain and enhance the required skills. UK was always my first choice for pursuing my masters because of the successful and booming fashion industry here along with the cultural diversity. University of Leeds offers that exact course which I had been looking for. The combination of subjects that this course provides is extremely unique. It has the perfect blend of business and fashion studies. Other than the course that the University of Leeds offers, the city also has a very warm and welcoming atmosphere for students.

What aspects of the course do you enjoy the most?

Here is the best part of this course, it is so well integrated and connected to all the subjects and you need to apply the knowledge gained from one subject into the other. You can literally see the various parts that you study coming together as one. It pushes you to think differently yet practically.

Ting Zeng - MA Linguistics and English Language Teaching

What made you want to apply to your course and to Leeds?

During the process of learning English and French I found many similarities and differences between these languages and my native language, Chinese. This made me curious about the amazing world of linguistics. In addition to this, my own experience of learning English has shown me that learning a language is not just about memorising vocabulary and grammar rules; it involves a systematic process. One field of linguistics, language acquisition, deals with this process, which increased my interest in studying English language learning from the perspective of linguistics, instead of from the perspective of education. Leeds is one of the few universities in the UK to have a course that combines these two areas.

What aspects of the course do you enjoy the most?

My favourite part of my course is the way it gives you critical reading skills. The major difference between postgraduate and undergraduate study is that postgraduate courses require you to think deeply and broadly, so that you can design your own research project to investigate a new or old problem which hasn’t been solved.

Developing these skills not only helped me to gain a lot of ideas about my essay and dissertation, but also enables me to read clearly, carefully and critically in my everyday life. When I am reading newspapers and magazines, for example, criticality helps me to avoid being misled by the words and opinions of others.