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Feb 04 2008
Corinne McKay

The chicken or the egg

I’ve noticed that for many beginning translators, getting those first few clients is a chicken and egg issue; most agencies, which form the bulk of most beginners’ client bases, aren’t eager to work with translators who are very inexperienced. But if clients won’t work with you, how do you ever get enough experience to make your business viable? Here are a few suggestions, and feel free to add your own in the Comments section.

  • Volunteer On an international level, organizations such as Translators Without Borders use volunteer translators in a variety of language combinations. On a more local level, places such as legal aid agencies, refugee assistance centers, public health clinics and schools are often in need of volunteer linguists. Or, think strategically: that cute little B&B you stayed in on your trip to France last summer might love to have an English website done for free in exchange for a glowing testimonial about your work. Just make sure to treat volunteer assignments with the same care you would paying ones.
  • Start small Many individuals need a translator for a project that is too small to be worth an agency’s time, for example a birth certificate, driver’s license, school transcript, etc. These projects tend to be very straightforward and can be very profitable because the actual amount of text is small. I get a lot of inquiries from my website for work like this, and you could also promote your services through your local consulates, cultural associations, bilingual schools, immigration attorneys, etc.
  • Team up Working with an experienced translator in your own language combination can work in a few ways. First, you could offer to pay an experienced translator’s hourly rate to give you small practice translations and then edit them until your work is client-worthy. Not everyone is going to be interested in doing this, but I think some experienced translators might be willing. Second, if your translation skills are strong but you don’t have much experience, you might find an experienced translator who needs a backup translator to work on small projects, overflow work, etc. Obviously this kind of arrangement has to be carefully crafted between two people with similar work styles and personalities, but it’s a good reason to network in your local translators association.
  • Start big This requires careful planning, but I think that in some cases, people with high-level skills in specialized subject areas can do better by bypassing the standard paths completely and going straight for high-paying work with direct clients. For example, I’ve had two bilingual attorneys as students in my online translation class. Both of them had excellent language skills and a lot of experience in very specialized legal work. For them, I felt it might be a better option to market themselves as “bilingual legal consultants” or look for work directly with law firms rather than working their way up the agency ladder.

I’m sure there are many more suggestions on how to find your first translation clients, feel free to add your thoughts in the Comments section!

Written by Corinne McKay · Categorized: Freelancing

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Marianne Reiner says

    February 4, 2008 at 4:45 pm

    Bravo Corinne!
    Your blog is wonderful and I look forward to reading your posts regularly.
    You continue to be an inspiration for “newer” freelancers like me!
    Merci.

    Marianne

    Reply
  2. Rosemary Carstens says

    February 4, 2008 at 5:01 pm

    Corrine: I love what you are doing on your blog! It’s very helpful to someone like me who is facing a project that contains some research in another country–things to think about where I need a solid translation and not just a general idea. I an read Spanish fairly well, keep up a conversation, but can’t write in the language or translate dense documents. That’s where a translator’s services would come in very handy and I might be able to keep cost down by using someone starting in the business who needs practice and a recommendation for future work.

    Keep on blogging! I find it really helpful to focus my blogs on different goals or purposes.

    Rosemary Carstens
    http://carstensFEAST.blogspot.com
    http://artistspotlight.blogspot.com

    Reply
  3. Cathy Steiner says

    February 4, 2008 at 5:14 pm

    Congrats Corinne!
    This is great information for anyone wanting to get into translation. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience. Can’t wait to read more.
    Cathy

    Reply

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