1st steps to becoming a freelance translator Thread poster: James Hammac (X)
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James Hammac (X) 
United Kingdom
Local time: 04:36
French to English
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Hello there!
My dream is to work as a freelance translator and I have worked hard so far to try and make it happen. I am UK based, English native, speaking French and Italian. I have my MA degree, a BA in my target languages and I have attended courses on "starting out on one's own".
But everything seems to be a bit of a muddle. Should I be focusing on a website? Should I start with funding? Or CAT Tools? What about HMRC, and registering as self-employed?
... See more Hello there!
My dream is to work as a freelance translator and I have worked hard so far to try and make it happen. I am UK based, English native, speaking French and Italian. I have my MA degree, a BA in my target languages and I have attended courses on "starting out on one's own".
But everything seems to be a bit of a muddle. Should I be focusing on a website? Should I start with funding? Or CAT Tools? What about HMRC, and registering as self-employed?
I already have an idea of what I'd like to specialize in (based on my current job amongst other things).
What I would really like help with, if possible, is a list of steps from current translators. How did you start up? and in what order?
Any help at all would be really greatly appreciated.
Thank you! ▲ Collapse
| | | | ATIL KAYHAN
Türkiye
Local time: 06:36
Member (2007)
Turkish to English
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Hello,
I see that you already have a ProZ profile, and you are already a ProZ member. So far so good. You have already started. However, I do not see your CV in your profile. My suggestion is to work on your CV. I would not make it any longer than one page. There are millions of documents on the Internet regarding CV preparation. After you put your CV in your ProZ profile, the next thing I would recommend is to check out the jobs advertised at ProZ. Getting a hands-on experi... See more Hello,
I see that you already have a ProZ profile, and you are already a ProZ member. So far so good. You have already started. However, I do not see your CV in your profile. My suggestion is to work on your CV. I would not make it any longer than one page. There are millions of documents on the Internet regarding CV preparation. After you put your CV in your ProZ profile, the next thing I would recommend is to check out the jobs advertised at ProZ. Getting a hands-on experience in translating would not hurt at all. Every job is a different experience in itself. That is all I can think of right now. Best of luck. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Henry Hinds
United States
Local time: 21:36
English to Spanish
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In memoriam
And don't give up your day job. Miracles don't happen overnight, I kept mine for close to 15 years.
| | | | Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 04:36
Member (2007)
English
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| Have you browsed this forum? | Mar 24, 2014 |
Someone recently listed the points he (or maybe it was a woman, can't remember) thought he had to address before starting out. It was a long list and we were able to say that most could be put off for tomorrow. That will help you too, I'm sure. You just need to find it.
Basically, risk management has to be N°1 and ProZ.com can help you there. Visit the Scam alert centre with its link... See more Someone recently listed the points he (or maybe it was a woman, can't remember) thought he had to address before starting out. It was a long list and we were able to say that most could be put off for tomorrow. That will help you too, I'm sure. You just need to find it.
Basically, risk management has to be N°1 and ProZ.com can help you there. Visit the Scam alert centre with its links to other useful areas here: http://www.proz.com/about/translator-scam-alerts/ and sign up for alerts. The last thing you need is to be scammed on your first job and done out of your first payment.
Then you'll be ready to try going for a job. If you get one, you can invoice using the ProZ.com invoicing interface here: https://www.proz.com/invoice/try or just set up an Excel spreadsheet. If you don't, or whenever you get a moment free, start looking through all the good advice in the Site Guidance Centre here: http://www.proz.com/guidance-center. A beginner has to spend an awful lot of their time marketing themselves, up to 30% in fact, so the sooner you learn the best ways the better. You'll need an excellent freelancer's CV (advice in the Wiki section of the site: http://wiki.proz.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page), you'll need to do all the right things to be seen here on ProZ.com, and you'll need to bring yourself to the attention of agencies and direct clients outside of ProZ.com too.
I can't be sure but I don't think you absolutely have to say anything to HMRC just yet. Just keep clear records of everything you earn and pay out.
Why not have a look around the site; answer all the questions you can for yourself; then come back with specific ones later? Don't forget that research is one of the most important skills any translator can have: now's the time to start honing that skill. ▲ Collapse
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Rintaro Itoh
Japan
Local time: 12:36
Member (2013)
English to Japanese
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| Maximum actualization of maximum potential | Mar 24, 2014 |
Hi James, hope you are doing fine.
I'm a beginner, too. However luckily enough I have a constant job.
The very idea I can share with you is that you have absolutely infinite potential to realize in its maximum actualization. By which I mean, just do what you think is to be good or helpful to advance your chance and reach out to many/potential agencies/customers.
Here are some suggestions that worked well (personally speaking):
1)Set your rate... See more Hi James, hope you are doing fine.
I'm a beginner, too. However luckily enough I have a constant job.
The very idea I can share with you is that you have absolutely infinite potential to realize in its maximum actualization. By which I mean, just do what you think is to be good or helpful to advance your chance and reach out to many/potential agencies/customers.
Here are some suggestions that worked well (personally speaking):
1)Set your rate as low as possible. However keep in mind the general average rate among supply market, i.e. (professional) translators. By doing so you can be competitive.
2)Be generalist at the first place and then later on choose your specialization. It's like sophomores at US universities deciding their major after 2 years of what they call "liberal arts."
3) enrich your profile page
4) follow the instruction by Proz, which undoubtedly enhances the probability of your reaching the 1st job and more.
5)Self-marketing. Ponder on it and just do what's good for you immediately.
More intel I would like to share with you if you like ▲ Collapse
| | | | Sian Cooper
France
Local time: 05:36
French to English
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In memoriam | You will get contradictory guidance... you have to choose your own path to some extent | Mar 24, 2014 |
Hi James. I'm a relative newby, too. This site was my saviour when I started out, but you do have to read and digest and make your own choices.
My personal advice is
a) listen to Sheila! (she helped me out at the start!) and
b) There are different sectors in the industry, like in any other. One sector is the low-paying, high-turnover and generally lower-quality one. It is a good place to start: you have good qualifications, so your lack of experience will be balanced ... See more Hi James. I'm a relative newby, too. This site was my saviour when I started out, but you do have to read and digest and make your own choices.
My personal advice is
a) listen to Sheila! (she helped me out at the start!) and
b) There are different sectors in the industry, like in any other. One sector is the low-paying, high-turnover and generally lower-quality one. It is a good place to start: you have good qualifications, so your lack of experience will be balanced by that: if you take a few tests, you should also be able to get work with some of the mid-sector agencies.
c) Practice. Make sure you have the tools (do you know any CAT tools? do you have Office?). You need to get up a reasonable speed (at least 2000 words a day)
d) network - use here, LinkedIn - lots of translation groups on LinkedIn, good to read the discussions. You might look for a mentor here (but ensure you have a proper mentoring program set up, with a time limit, goals etc: don't just be a source of cheap labour for them!)
I personally had neither experience nor qualifications, although I had strong language and other professional experience. I applied to anyone who didn't demand qualifications or experience. I posted wails of despair on here and got helpful feedback and pointers. I asked low-ish prices at the outset (but not the lowest). I sometimes accepted lower price offers. I got some work. I updated my CV. And applied to more. I gradually upped my prices, honed my CV, got a direction to specialisation. I am still doing that.
I still have doldrum times, but at the moment it is going ok. But you can't stop marketing yourself, contacting new agencies, reminding the ones you work with that you are available.
If you don't know which agencies are which, or indeed what agencies exist, the Blueboard here is as good a place to start researching as any.
Remember: the worst that can happen is they say No. But they might not! ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Enrich your portfolio | Mar 24, 2014 |
In order to test and improve your skills and to gain a solid portfolio, you could do some work as volunteer translator.
For example I translate for TED, (www.ted.com) where you can find a good deal of industries (tech-engineering, design, medical, city planning, and so on), even better you can learn to work in couple with a reviewer.
| | | | Phil Hand
China
Local time: 11:36
Chinese to English
There are a lot of things you might want to do, but everything feels easier and more natural once you start work. Start applying for jobs, tell the people around you that you're a translator. Once you've done your first job, you'll have a much clearer idea of what you need.
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Rob Prior
Germany
Local time: 05:36
German to English
| James Hammacott of Cardiff Uni fame I see... | Mar 25, 2014 |
Hi James,
Good to hear from you and good to see you want to get into translation. I'm in a similarish position to you - have been working in-house for the last couple of years and am looking at going freelance this time next year-ish. I'm using this year to research everything on the business side and from what I've learned I can tell you a few things:
- The "start with low rates" advice is a bad idea, because you will struggle to raise them. Also you will be underminin... See more Hi James,
Good to hear from you and good to see you want to get into translation. I'm in a similarish position to you - have been working in-house for the last couple of years and am looking at going freelance this time next year-ish. I'm using this year to research everything on the business side and from what I've learned I can tell you a few things:
- The "start with low rates" advice is a bad idea, because you will struggle to raise them. Also you will be undermining the industry, which is never nice. If you are a qualified translator and have done professional translations for work, you should charge accordingly. Take a look at the rates calculator on proz which will give you average rates for language pairs and subject areas (agency rates btw).
- Flesh out your profile a bit (in fact a lot). If you worked in customer service, what type of industry was it in (finance, exports, exotic pets, etc.)? If it's something that is commercially viable, you have your specialisation right there. You then work at improving your knowledge in this sector to the point that you can translate texts related to it in your sleep. Being a generalist in this industry is a bad idea because whatever subject a text focuses on, there is guaranteed to be someone who will do it better than you. If, however, you become the best FR>EN translator for customer service in exotic pets in the world (I'm exaggerating here), there will be less competition, meaning more work and better rates. Try to focus on 2-3 specialisms and get good at them.
- How are you on TM systems? Your profile says you can use TRADOS (studio?), DejaVu and OmegaT. Good stuff, especially OmegaT as its free and you can use it to translate xliff files.
- Re. website etc.: It's not an absolute must when you start out but probably something you should sort out when you have an opportunity, as it gives you better visibilty. A good Proz profile is fine, but having your own website looks more professional and if you give it the right search engine optimisation pixie dust, clients will find you quicker.
- I would advise against chucking in the day job just yet until you are clued up and know how you want to go about things. I can recommend two books: "The prosperous translator" by Chris Durban, and "How to be a successful freelance translator" by Corinne McKay. Read those two cover to cover 37 times, check out some of the better translation/freelancing blogs around and then go and stake out your territory. ▲ Collapse
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Reading the post on how to start out, I found that the link doesn't show any results?
@ You'll need an excellent freelancer's CV (advice in the Wiki section of the site: http://wiki.proz.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page)
I would be happy to get more advice on how to write an excellent CV.
Thank you. BR Joseann
| | | | Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 04:36
Member (2007)
English
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| Link is to the main page for all Wiki articles | Mar 26, 2014 |
| | | | | From one beginner to another | Mar 27, 2014 |
Concerning websites: thanks to search engine optimization, individual freelancer websites are almost never found by clients, direct or otherwise- Lionbridge, Transperfect, SDL, and others have that cornered. A website should be used as a "credibility enhancer," that is, to show that you are serious about what you do and not a fly-by-night/leisure translator who might bail at any moment. So, when you bid on a job, or apply to an agency, say, you can include a link to your website to establish tha... See more Concerning websites: thanks to search engine optimization, individual freelancer websites are almost never found by clients, direct or otherwise- Lionbridge, Transperfect, SDL, and others have that cornered. A website should be used as a "credibility enhancer," that is, to show that you are serious about what you do and not a fly-by-night/leisure translator who might bail at any moment. So, when you bid on a job, or apply to an agency, say, you can include a link to your website to establish that fact. If you have a specialty, try to make your website look and feel like a website from that industry - the more anyone feels like you "get" them, the more they will trust you.
The real number one thing is networking- the more personal, the better. If you feel confident enough to put on a suit and tie and walk into a legal office/financial institution/etc that you think might need your services and talk to a manager, I say go for it! ▲ Collapse
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James Hammac (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 04:36
French to English
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TOPIC STARTER | Thank you all | Apr 5, 2014 |
Thank you very much to every one of you who has responded, the help and advice has been great. I have a better idea now of which direction to go in. Luckily I have a full-time language-based job to hang on to until I'm ready to start-out properly!
| | | | DZiW (X)
Ukraine
English to Russian
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| Giving it a second thought | Apr 7, 2014 |
I strongly believe that nowadays it's about a "SPECIALIST+TRANSLATOR", not "TRANSLATOR+SPECIALIST" combo, let alone those notorious 'pure' TRANSLATORs. Say, a decent engineer/worker/doctor/etc (a SPECIALIST with both theoretical and hands-on experience) with so-so knowledge of a foreign language is MUCH PREFERABLE (for an employer) than a genius linguist (TRANSLATOR) with decent theory behind (SPECIALIZATION). Of course and certainly, for sure--it depends, yet wages and salaries speak definitely... See more I strongly believe that nowadays it's about a "SPECIALIST+TRANSLATOR", not "TRANSLATOR+SPECIALIST" combo, let alone those notorious 'pure' TRANSLATORs. Say, a decent engineer/worker/doctor/etc (a SPECIALIST with both theoretical and hands-on experience) with so-so knowledge of a foreign language is MUCH PREFERABLE (for an employer) than a genius linguist (TRANSLATOR) with decent theory behind (SPECIALIZATION). Of course and certainly, for sure--it depends, yet wages and salaries speak definitely and ultimately. Drastically.
Frankly speaking, it does make sense: a specialist can already do the job and master a foreign language (if required) whereas a linguist neither can do the job nor can understand it properly.
As my lecturer used to say: "Even a beggar in a foreign country can speak flawlessly," yet still...
IMO. ▲ Collapse
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