A student in my online course asks: How do I decide if a translation specialization is viable?
Hmm, interesting question, and one that nearly all freelancers have to grapple with at some point. Short answer: nearly any specialization is viable, depending on your marketing zeal and income needs. Longer answer follows.
When you’re looking at potential specializations, here are a few factors to consider (and readers, please add your thoughts in the Comments):
- What’s your knowledge of/interest in this specialization? That’s undoubtedly the most important factor, and one that outweighs most other factors if you’re looking at a technical subject area.
- What’s the demand? Some specializations (like legal translation) are so content-heavy that having enough work isn’t much of a concern. Others (restaurant menus) may have a lot of demand in terms of the *number* of clients, but not in terms of the size of each individual project.
- Who are the clients? This is one that a lot of translators overlook. Some specializations (software, pharmaceuticals) are almost exclusively the domain of agencies, because most of the end client companies are so huge that they tend not to use individual freelancers. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there an infinite number of niche specializations that are almost exclusively the domain of direct clients. I’ve met translators who specialize in horses, cross-country skiing, stamps, cookbooks, and so on. If you’re outside the scope of the big business areas like legal, financial, medical, pharmaceutical, IT, patents, etc., you need to consider whether you are OK with working only or primarily with direct clients.
- How much are you willing to market? Again, this is a big one. Law firms and legal translation companies are easy to find, and there are lots of them out there. Cookbook publishers that need a Russian translator? They’re out there too, but you’ll have to work harder to find them.
- What’s the income potential? Of course, there’s a huge variation within every specialization. But in general, you can’t translate poetry if you need to make money from it, and you wouldn’t translate financial documents just for personal enjoyment.
- How much do you care about doing work that is meaningful to you? Again, mileage varies widely. But many clients in, say, legal or IT translation are only translating because they have to, not because they really want to. But one of the things I particularly enjoy about international development translation is that the documents affect real people’s lives, and are commissioned by clients that really, really care about the quality of the translation.
Readers, your thoughts?
Kate Hartley says
Great to read that you find international development clients tend to really care about quality translations! As a lot of NGOs (particularly smaller ones) struggle to justify using limited funds for things like translation, which can often be considered a luxury, it is fantastic to hear that it is something they value in supporting and communicating the impact of their projects on the ground.
Corinne McKay says
Thanks Kate! Most of my clients are USAID contractors or internationally-funded public health projects, so they’re in somewhat of a different financial boat. But I agree about small NGOs-they really need translation but often have really small budgets!
Morgane says
I have decided to spend more and more time looking for the direct clients I want to work with, in the fields I really enjoy working in, and otherwise let the agencies who have me in their databases come to me when they need me. It takes some nerve to spend hours not actively translating, but actively researching the web/world (and not feel that I am wasting these hours), but it is very rewarding in terms of projects dealt with in the course of a month.
alchymie2013 says
I was with you all the way through until the “and” in the final sentence at which point I lost the thread. BTW I appear here as “alchymie2013” but I am also 1stclass.translation elsewhere [and I should also add that my life and work partner shares the latter identity with me :)].
Corinne McKay says
Thank you! Missing word, now fixed!
alchymie2013 says
Yes!! 🙂
Jesse says
Dear Corinne,
I’ve been wanting a post like this, how opportune! Another thing might be, how long are you willing to invest to stick with your specialization? If you choose something you are really interested in, but don’t have the time or resources to market and get those direct clients, you may end up doing something else to make immediate money.
Maxim says
My two cents in defense of software specialization. There are many, really many indie developers who are more than willing to work with a freelance translator/localizer 🙂
Alessandra Martelli says
Interesting post, Corinne, thanks for sharing.
I’d also add “How much CPD would you need for that, and how much time would you be able to allocate?”. Highly dynamic fields (such as IT, robotics, medicine, ,,,) require a fair load of investment to “keep up with the market”, so knowing it right from the start would be useful to avoid embarking in a venture you can’t afford to continue due to time constraints.
Cheers, Alessandra
Andrew Morris (@mrstandingout) says
I’d also add that it doesn’t have to be an all or nothing decision, but a process. I realised early on that my heart was in arts and culture stuff, and I certainly went out looking for more of that, and geared my website in that direction. But I also have a background in international development (a decade in Bangladesh and Eritrea) and am this very morning translating a post-earthquake study on trauma in Haiti. So by all means set your sights on a certain field, but have a couple of secondary or even tertiary fields which also light your fire. That way you can cast your nets much wider and not put all your eggs in one cliché.
Robin Bonthrone says
Hi Corinne,
I think I’d start by switching your points 1) and 2). In my experience, the first thing to do is to identify those areas where market demand is sufficiently strong and is likely to remain so (or preferably to grow) in the foreseeable future. There’s little point in gearing up to service a market that’s not going to be there in a couple of years’ time. That’s the way I approached translating when I first starting freelancing 25 years ago, and that’s always the strategy I’ve adopted since then when identifying new markets/segments to occupy. In that sense, the translation strategy should follow the business strategy. You have to look ahead and see if you can spot trends that are likely to produce significant translation demand.
As far as knowledge of/interest in a subject area is concerned, it’s not a precondition IMHO. I had a basic knowledge of accounting and finance when I started freelancing (like, 101 level), but learned everything else as I went along – including by investing pretty heavily in knowledge acquisition. Subject area training courses cost many times more than translator training, but they’re generally worth the money. Of course a lot depends on the areas you want to specialize in: if you put your mind to it, you can learn a lot about law and finance, for example, without having to study the subjects at advanced degree level (certainly enough to hold your own with subject-area experts), but that’s unlikely to be the case with biochemistry or particle physics.
I think we also need to discuss the “terminology of translating”: from where I stand, “legal” or “financial” translation aren’t specializations, but general work areas. I’m a financial translator, and my main areas of specialization are financial accounting and reporting (IFRSs, German GAAP) for German commercial & industrial preparers, banks and other financial services providers, and insurers; German tax; accounting standards; and financial supervision and regulation. However, you do need to find the right balance between depth of specialization and depth of market if you want to improve your changes of securing a healthy income in the long term. To a large extent, it’s a matter of identifying and occupying a sweet spot, and that’s something even experienced experts don’t find easy to achieve. As somebody told us a long time ago, being a successful specialized translator is “a hard way to make money”.
How much do I care about doing work that is meaningful to me? Well that’s a loaded question. I’m not exactly passionate about my subject areas – let’s face it, they’re not exactly areas that stir up a lot of feelgood emotions. I’m happy to accept that certain clients only want translations because they have to publish them. As long as they’re willing to pay for premium quality and won’t jerk us around, the question of why they’re paying for a translation is pretty irrelevant IMHO. But what I am obsessive about is getting the translations right. Perhaps “conscientious” would be a better term, as elaborated by Lucy Kellaway in her column in yesterday’s FT.
But it’s also been my experience that every successful translator I’ve ever met seems to have a different story, to have reached the pinnacle of the profession by a different route. So maybe we should be focusing more on the “don’ts” than the “do’s”, because perhaps it’s the negative experiences that willi be of greatest use to up-and-coming colleagues.
Robin
Emma Paulay says
Hi Corinne, I think an important point is that you can have more than one specialisation. With careful marketing you can be different things to different people. There’s nothing to stop you specialising in pharmaceutical work for agencies and clicker training for dogs with a handful of direct clients.
Beatrice Hendon says
This post is very helpful. Glad you’ve shared it. 🙂
Veronica Sardon says
Thanks, Corinne. I once read in Marta Stelmaszak’s blog something that I found quite useful. She suggested that, in choosing a specialisation, one should look for a mix of something to do for money, something one is particularly skilled in, and something one really enjoys. That mix would ideally be sustainable in financial and mental terms.
I have found that take helpful myself, and I was wondering whether you think it would hold, based on your own experience. Of course, one could also lead a very happy and balanced life translating only for the money and doing a lot of other nice things out there in the world for enjoyment. However, I think choosing a specialisation and seeing whether it is viable is a long process, so a mix may be good to start with.
Monika Crooks says
Thanks for a very thought-provoking article. I work with a network of self-employed linguists, dealing with clients in business, the law, medicine and governmental departments and agencies. Many of the points you raise are just as relevant to us as to other freelancers.
Because of the sizes and complexity of some projects, as well as the sensitivity of some of the information, specialization is the only way to ensure the projects actually get completed.
Even though our network deals with getting the clients, and although we may not go through your list on a formal basis, as “contacted freelancers” we still have to decide if we can and want to do each individual job.
Sorry if this is in twice but computer crashed.
Judy Jenner (@language_news) says
Great post and interesting discussion; many thanks! I think this will be particularly helpful for my students at UC San Diego-Extension and gives them great perspective. I will share it with them. 🙂
Zack says
Hello Corinne –
First of all this is a great post. Secondly, I would say that 2nd and 4th points in your post are the most important that needs to be addressed before jumping into translation specialization activities.
Onething more is that I recently find your website and I would say you have written a lot good about translation.