Training for Translators

Classes for translators and interpreters


Corinne McKay

Vetting prospective clients and job offers

One of the most frequent questions that I see from beginning translators is how to decide if a new client or a job offer is legitimate. It’s a delicate process, and it’s not an exact science. Sometimes even experienced translators get scammed, and sometimes a client that seems a little shady during the first contact turns out to be quite trustworthy. Following are a few tips on this issue.

First, always (always!) use a translation industry client rating list to see if the prospective client has been rated there. About Translation has an excellent post on this very topic, and it’s well worth a read. I belong to and swear by Payment Practices and I check it immediately when a new client contacts me. In my experience, known non-payers have generally been rated on Payment Practices or a similar list, so these services are an invaluable resource.

I also think it’s completely acceptable to ask a prospective client for references from other translators as long as you as the translator offer the same in return. Ask if the client is a member of a professional association for translators or translation companies. This is not an absolute guarantee of legitimacy, but it indicates that the client is at least willing to invest the time and money in joining such an association. In addition, never work for a client without getting full contact information including physical address, telephone number, and the name and contact information for the person who handles accounts payable.

Asking for advance payment is also an option, especially if you are not in dire need of the work that the client is offering. This type of arrangement might involve full advance payment, partial advance payment, or a partial advance payment and then another installment once you’ve submitted part of the translation. Some clients will agree to this type of payment plan and some will not, since the client then runs the risk that a translator who has already been paid either does not return the translation or returns an unacceptable translation. In my case, I ask all clients who are not established businesses to pay in advance, since (don’t ask me how I learned this!) it’s actually not very hard for an individual to disappear after receiving the translation, for example by moving without a forwarding address or phone number.

Part of the vetting process is not quantifiable, but rather involves using your intuition about a client. I’ve found that just the process of politely asking a client about some of the issues above can go a long way toward avoiding a non-payment situation before it starts. When a less than solvent client knows that they’ve landed on a translator who checks industry rating lists, asks for references from current translators and clarifies the payment terms and methods up front, they’re likely to seek another, less savvy translator.


Corinne McKay

And just one more tip…

During Jamie Lucero’s computer seminar that I mentioned below, he gave a small but incredibly useful tip that very few of us had ever seen. In Microsoft Word, highlight some text and then press Shift+F3. The text will toggle between CAPS, no caps and Initial Caps. This prompted such a “wow” from the audience that we made Jamie run through it several times on the projector. It’s little moments like these that keep technology interesting!


Corinne McKay

Some interesting tools

This weekend, the Colorado Translators Association brought FR>EN translator and translation tools expert Jamie Lucero out from Seattle to present his workshop “Computer Tools and Methods for Great Translation Performance.” It was definitely a day well spent, and I’ve already started applying a few of the tips that Jamie offered. He also clued us in to a variety of useful tools for translators, and I’ll list a few here:

  • Werecat, a Word template with two uses: Red Werecat extracts text from PowerPoint to Word and then re-inserts it, and Blue Werecat extracts text from text boxes in Word and then re-inserts it.
  • Complete Word Count, a Word add-in that gives a full word count including text boxes, headers, footers, etc.
  • Word MVP Macros site, where you can learn about macros, how they can speed up your work, and how to write Word macros for tasks such as changing dates from US to European format, changing the order of first and last name, etc.

Have fun with them!


Corinne McKay

Moving on up

Sooner or later, a hardworking and capable translator in an in-demand language pair is ready to take the business to the next level. Let’s say you’re someone who has been in the industry for 5+ years, you consistently have enough or more than enough work and you’d like to transition from working for Your Average Agency (we’ll call them YAA) to working for High-Quality Clients (we’ll call them HQCs) who may be agencies or direct clients. Despite the generally gloomy economic mood in the U.S., recent information from sources such as Common Sense Advisory shows that the translation industry isn’t feeling the recession pinch as of yet, so now is a good time to move on up! How are you going to do it?

Take a course in one of your areas of specialization. The majority of YAA’s translators are probably self-taught in their specialization areas; you’ll stand out when you contact HQCs and let them know that you recently took a course in medical terminology, contract law, php programming or stock trading. Look at your local community college, or online/correspondence offerings by the Graduate School USA or similar organizations.

Go see the stuff you translate about in action. Make some phone calls and see if you can spend a few hours with a patent agent, at a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility or a coffee roasting plant. Go look at how that gizmo you translated the manual for actually works. Sit in court for a day or watch a local legislative body in session.

Write an article and send a copy to the HQCs you’d like to work for. Most of YAA’s translators are too busy working at moderate rates to do this. Write for a translation industry publication such as the ATA Chronicle or your local translators association’s newsletter, or better yet, for a trade publication that your prospective HQCs might be reading. Give them a little introduction to how the translation process works, how to find a high-quality translation provider and some pitfalls and best practices for having their materials translated.

Proofread on paper. I’ve done editing work for some YAAs, and I would estimate (and other translators I’ve talked to have agreed with this) that probably 70% of YAA’s translators aren’t proofing their work at all. Evidence: the “finished” document arrives with errors that have already been marked by the spell-checker. Maybe 20% of translators are proofing on the screen. Evidence: errors that the spell-checker didn’t catch, but an “on paper” reader would have. Then there’s the final 10%, who do the full three-step process of doing the translation, proofing the draft on paper, inputting the changes and then reading the finished target document. Be one of those 10% and HQCs will be impressed.

Become a better writer in your target language. I think that English-language writing and editing courses are some of the best money I’ve ever spent on professional development, and good writing skills are something that sets HQC translators apart from YAA translators.

Give excellent customer service. When an HCQ calls, be pleasant and easy to work with. Bail them out of a bind, iron out their nightmare documents, fix what the cheap translator broke and…charge what your time is worth! To me, this is one of the key points of working for HQCs; you go the extra mile for them, because when you ask yourself, “Am I really getting paid enough to deal with this?” the answer is “Yes!”