Final Post regarding Strategies to be used by Newbie Translators

This is my last post for newbie translators on how to get started with freelance translation business.

All the strategies that I have mentioned so far (see my last two posts) can be utilized by any newbie anywhere in the world. We, however, should not put into oblivion the fact that geographical and cultural variations – a factor which, despite its determining characteristic, is normally ignored – also come to play a vital role in determining what strategies could be effective for a particular area and which are not applicable. I am now just going to talk about such a factor.

At a general level, we have two types of countries with reference to the professional practice of translation. One group consists of the countries where translation have become an established profession, and where government and private sector organizations, institutes, charities, etc. are in continuous need of having documents translated from on language to another. These are the countries which are put in the category of developed countries and where there is a constant flow of immigrants, such as USA, France, Germany, Australia, and UK. On the other hand, there are those countries where translation has not developed into a mature profession yet. These countries are mostly Asian and African (although India, Japan, China, South Africa, and some more Asian and African countries, can be identified as exceptions). In the countries, falling into the first category, besides developing professional contacts at the virtual level (through the Internet), a newbie should also strive for the same in the physical world of business. If you are based in such a country, do visit local Chamber of Commerce building, become a member (if you are entitled to), and socialize with the other members. I hope that you would get work from this channel as well. This, however, is not applicable to the translators based in the countries where local organizations hardly feel the need to convert their documents from one language to another.

For those living in the first category of countries mentioned above there is another opportunity as well. In these countries, translation-related meetings, workshops, and conferences are often held, and I would recommend you to attend all such occasions. You will not only gain first-hand knowledge but will also be able to expand your professional circle.
 

There is some more for the residents of these developed countries, and for that I am quoting Patricia Hawkins de Medina with her permission.

“Specialise, specialise, specialise.



Become a member of a professional association. Since you have to meet certain requirements in order to gain membership, and you are then included in the association's database, serious clients will look you up there.

CPD. Continual Professional Development. Professional associations have information on or run such courses.

Take a day job (even if part-time) and start to build up your clientele, doing your translation work later in the day. Preferably, and if you can find such a job, obtain employment in a company whose business is in some way related to the area of translation in which you itnend to specialise.
An example: if you intend to specialise in the engineering, construction, fashion, food and beverage, etc. then find a job in for example in an engineering or construction company, or in the fashion or textile trade, where you will gain hands on experience of vocabulary, the "way it is said", how text needs to skewed towards a certain readership. Also, a side benefit, is that you may well gain your first clients through the company contacts.”

I hope that these strategies, when combined together, would give your freelance professional journey a nice start.

Good luck!

Some Effective Strategies that Newbie Translators can make use of

This post is in continuation to my last post where I talked about the prerequisites of translation profession. I would now briefly present some of the strategies that you, as a newcomer to the profession, implement to progress as a translator. But, I would like to make a passing comment that, though professional qualification and training, as pointed out by me in the last post, are not a requirement for a person to enter into translation profession, these are certainly useful in learning better about the norms and practices of your profession, and appearing more reliable to your potential clients. Le me now come to the main point, and tell you about some of the strategies that I consider advisable for a newbie.

To begin with, you should make yourself professionally visible. You may achieve this by taking active part in ongoing discussions in translation job portals mentioned by me in my last post. Make sure that your comments should be honest, and geared towards sharing sincere and effective ideas. Neither fabricate stories (such as about your experience in the field, your experience with various translation agencies, etc.) nor exaggerate facts. Be truthful and to-the-point. Try also to give intelligent and helping comments to your colleagues' queries. Gradually, you will be able to develop rapport and solidarity with the other members active on the website. Your reputation as an intelligent, honest, and helpful person -- that you will built through your regular visibility and honest thought sharing -- may help you to grab some small jobs. And once you get hold of a job, make sure to get back to your client with the best possible work, no matter if, say, it takes you hours to translate a 500-word document.

One important thing, which normally goes unnoticed and unattended, is that you read practical views and experiences of experienced translation professionals. This will give you a strong knowledge-base in your field, and also will help you to understand linguistic needs and translation conventions better.

Build a comprehensive profile on LinkedIn, and start connecting with translators and translation agencies. I have experienced that a strong and active profile on LinkedIn can be of great help to you in that some job offers come directly from clients who have visited your LinkedIn profile.

Mind you, building your freelance reputation will definitely take time, but once, through hard work and talent, you have made a strong footing, you will enjoy the satisfaction brought about by your self-achievement.

I will like to touch upon a couple of more points in my next post before concluding this topic.

What should a Novice Translator do in the Early Days of their Career?

A novice translator, because of fierce competition in the market, may find it almost impossible to forge a good reputation and income for himself/herself. In this regard, I would say that the a newbie should keep the simple saying in mind that there is no easy road to success. Perseverance, regularity,  honesty, and luck are some of the key factors which lead one to success, but what should be of prime importance to a translation newbie, at least, is to put in patient struggle; it mostly takes time to build a good name for oneself.

Through this post, I wish to share certain primary 'weapons' that my newbie colleagues need to be accoutered with in order to forge their way up in freelance translating. 

Be Active at Professional Websites:

The first thing that a you, as a newbie, need to do is to get yourself registered on a professional website, whereby you could find relevant jobs and meet colleagues, a good many of whom may be in the industry for years and whose experience may be quite beneficial to you. The two top websites for this purpose are http://www.translatorscafe.com and http://www.proz.com. These websites are the largest online job portals with reference to translation, transcription, interpretation, and the like. A newcomer can find several job opportunities on these websites. There is, however, one thing that one must bear in mind: At the initial stages, when you are not equipped with necessary translation experience, you may not be able to get hold of some job, because you are confronted with competitors who have better experience in the field. There is, nonetheless, no reason at all to lose heart. What you need to do in the early days of your registration with these websites is to pay close attention to the requirements that are demanded by the job posters. This will give you a workable idea as to what areas you need to target in order to become a successful professional. What is even more important for you is to read forum posts and take active part in ongoing forum discussions. The forums on TranslatorsCafe and Proz are a great source of learning several basic things, including:

• Nature of translation jobs
• Translation tools to learn
• Standardized rates

Another website of note is http://www.translationdirectory.com. Though you may not find many job opportunities on this website, but you definitely will find a rich source of translation related articles, written by both academic researchers and professionals, which will help you to enhance your knowledge of the research and practice of translation.

Populate your CV:

Do mention whatever linguistic skills, experience, certificates, and degrees (such as Master's in Linguistics, language learning courses and diplomas, ability to speak and write more than two languages, etc.) you already have gained, and remember to keep adding to this detail any further achievement, certificate, etc. that you gain along the way.

I hope that this account of preliminary translation requirements will be found useful by translation newbies. I will take up this topic further in my next post, and will talk in a bit more detail about the various strategies that you, as a newbie,  may adopt to establish a firm reputation for yourself in translation profession.

Regards.

About Me

Hello,

I am a freelance linguist, providing translation, transcription, editing, and language test development services. In my freelance career, I have been through many good, but some bad, experiences. I thought to create this blog where I could share my experiences as a freelance linguist, and also benefit from the views on my posts. I hope what I will share on my blog will be found useful for all in general, and the freelance linguists in particular.

Translation is my passion, and I love my work. I know that many others would share with me the same feelings about translation, but the thing is that this passion, this love, is not easy to satiate as it might appear to some. It is a world, where you have to put in a lot of struggle, along with consistency, to establish a good reputation for yourself in the industry. You need to be active at some important translation-related websites and job portals, about which I will talk in a bit detail in my next post, and you need to keep growing your online professional contacts. And, above all, you need to present distinguishing talent and excellent work to your clients, so much so that each of them for whom you do a job once should are impressed enough with your work to become your references. It is a slow process of building fame -- perhaps too slow for some, especially those who translate in a language which already have a great number of translators -- but it is definitely the one which will establish a firm foundation on which you can gradually build a skyscraper of your reputation as an ingenious and expert translator.

Last, but not least, be patient, and keep putting in indefatigable struggle. Wait for the heyday of your success, and do not lose hope on experiencing failures. Failures do hurt, but they soon turn into golden experiences on which you base your future actions.