Here's the no bullshit answer:
1. If you don't mind leaving Sydney, go to ANU: Its program is massive, massive funding, massive opportunity to go overseas, massive name for itself in Asian languages. Doing something like BAsian Studies (Specialist) / Bxxx allows you to come out of uni as a very competitive prospective employee.
You really do need to be very competitive as jobs are really scarce -- most companies will naturally prefer to hire a fluent native speaker who lives here. Having an Aussie-born Jap who has no accent, who knows the customs, and can generally blend in will be 100000x better than some white Aussie who is fluent. The problem with a multicultural society, I'm afraid, is that other people bring incomparable skills... I suppose branching out a bit (they have a 'security' program, translation program, law, public policy, history, etc etc) would be good in terms of employment. K, I seem to be drifting...
2. I'm not sure whether you'd need a 'linguistics' major as such to become a proficient translator. Certain areas of linguistics would be totally wasted on someone who just wants to translate. Yes, having a metalinguistic mind is a must for a translator, but having the ability to quickly translate is more important. In fact, I think that introducing linguistics early into your career of speaking an Asian language would be a bad idea -- you'd be too hung up on linguistic theory when you'd just need to be able to communicate. All the universities seem to agree with me, because Asian languages are taught using the 'communicative' method. Introducing linguistics is something better to do once you're a bit more proficient. Assuming that you are proficient, and that you do want to do linguistics and Jap or Chinese...
3. If you want to stay in this city, go to USyd: It really depends on personal preference, but I'll just give you the real deal here
. Macquarie, UNSW, and USyd all offer programs which will allow you to do Japanese, Chinese, and linguistics, but USyd is the best in my opinion.
If you're after a good language/linguistics combo, you really can't got past USyd. Linguistics at Macquarie is focused hugely on its awesome phonetics/phonology/audiology centre - ie, speech problems - as well as psycho-linguistics. We're talking about speech pathology, really. Outside of that, undergrad's generally mediocre. Our MTrans is great, but that's postrad.
UNSW linguistics is a watered down version of what you will get at USyd, roughly on par with that at Macquarie. You have a similar general structure, but the detail is really missing. The lack of higher level subjects makes it slightly worse than Macquarie, imo.
Basically let's do a simple study:
UNSW 2007 with
two first year units,
eight second year units, and
three third year units. Reasonably broad spread, not much choice in units, though.
Macquarie 2007 with
three,
six,
ten. A lot of which focus on psycho-linguistics (snore) and phonetics/phonology/audiology.
USyd 2007 with
three,
six, seven. It is a very even spread. The subjects go into a lot of depth.
I know this is contrived and a bit superficial, but the more choice you have at a higher level, the better. The more in-depth the units go at a junior level, the better. I'm definitely looking at doing some cross-institutional study at USyd, and I've looked into it a fair bit.
4. Something worth noting as well is the opportunity to go overseas. Apparently Macquarie funds more than any other NSW uni for its students to go overseas. That being said, it can't compete against the infamous ANU year away, or the awesome linguistics courses at USyd. All unis have oppurtunities to go away.
5. If you're happy to go overseas, you have lots of money, and you want to leave home and study Japanese, go to Waseda: Waseda university takes on thousands of students a year just to teach them Jap. One of my friends is there at the moment, and he's loving it. Their intensive language classes are great, and you can take subjects in English so you don't get bored. This is stupid, in my opinion, as you can get the same experience whilst still being enrolled in an Aussie uni.
6.Instead of applying directly, enrol in an Aussie uni and go away for a year: Applying directly to the Asian uni itself is a bit difficult, and without backing from an Aussie uni, it's expensive. Rather, if you want to spend time overseas (which you really should), I'd definitely recommend enrolling in an Aussie uni and then applying to go overseas for a year. This is what my friend's doing for a year via a Macquarie travelling scholarship, and it's not costing him much at all. There's also problems of visas, citizenship and such if you want to apply directly for an Asian uni.
I have no idea where you'd go for Chinese, sorry, although I'd assume somewhere in China or Taiwan.
Okay, I didn't mean to type that much, but I hope it helps..
