Romina Bona of ProZ prepared a very nice podcast interview with me and it’s online today. The interview talks a bit about the new edition of my book and also includes some of my tips for beginning freelancers, based on my experiences starting my own freelance business. Thanks to Romina for these great questions; the interview was a lot of fun!
A bit about ProZ, since one reader asked if I am now working for them. No; I don’t have any financial ties to ProZ and whenever they raffle off my books, they are books that I’ve donated at my own expense. I’ll be the first to say that the job boards on auction-style sites are often a grim place; just the thought of people translating for 2 cents a word makes me sad. In addition, I don’t support ProZ’s policy of prohibiting people from posting links to their own websites in the ProZ forums; I think this is counterproductive as long as the person is not a spammer.
However, I want to put it out there that in terms of the free information they offer and the professionalism of their staff, I have found ProZ to be outstanding. For example, I translate a lot of official documents for African immigrants. These certificates often contain wording that is specific to those countries (Senegal, Mauritania, etc.) and is really hard to find in standard French terminology sources. However, ProZ’s terminology forums are a gold mine for this kind of thing, because they attract users from all over the world. Absolutely, you need to be a savvy user of any user-generated content. There’s a lot of noise in those forums, but they have also saved me many times when I’ve found a submission from (for example) an attorney in Burkina Faso for just the term I need.
Also, ProZ’s staff (at least everyone I’ve dealt with) is awesome. Totally professional, efficient and smart! So that’s my $0.02 on ProZ; enjoy the podcast!
Great interview! Your comment about all translators, no matter how long they have been in the business or what level they are at having to deal with essentially the same issues certainly struck a chord.
Definitely really good interview! I am trying to “get in the business” myself and it was indeed comforting to hear you talking about the challenges more experienced translators face. I do feel intimidated and a little “scared” about getting out there and trying to find a little spot among such great translators who I truly admire, but listening to you talking about your determination with the yellow pages and 400 resumes was definitely inspiring. Can I order the book online?