Training for Translators

Classes for translators and interpreters


Corinne McKay

My new twins

Earlier this year I decided it was time to upgrade my primary computer setup. The idea centered around the installation of twin 20-inch LCD monitors (replacing the old twin 19-inch CRT monitors, which each took up about as much space as my late grandmother’s console television, only she had just one) and an operating system upgrade. Fortunately there is not a huge amount to report since everything went uncharacteristically (for a technology improvement project!) well.

I’ve been a fan of the twin monitor system since my husband, a recovering Unix sysadmin, showed it to me about four years ago. As long as your motherboard has slots for two video cards, you just snap two cards in there and then set up two monitors, and let me assure you that once you’ve experienced twin monitors, you won’t go back. Another option is to purchase a video card that has two video outputs, which is what we selected this time. Think of it; you can have your source document on one screen and your target document in the other, or your TeNT (translation environment tool) on one screen and your electronic dictionary in the other, or whatever configuration you would like; the point is no more Alt-Tab’ing back and forth between two documents, or scrunching each document so that it takes up only half the screen as you struggle to read the text in each pane.

I purchased two 20-inch Acer widescreen LCD monitors for $189 each from Newegg and I’m quite happy with them. Yes, when you put them next to each other, you have over three feet of continuous screen real estate… We also upgraded my operating system to Ubuntu Linux 7.10, Gutsy Gibbon, which is working really well too.

So, in the name of increased productivity, decreased eyestrain and general home office thrills, I highly recommend twin monitors, and LCDs have come down in price to the point that I think they’re a good investment for most freelancers.


Corinne McKay

Let out the book inside you

I’m starting to work on the second edition of my book How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator, and it makes me realize that more translators really should write books. Really, the market for specialized glossaries, translation technique manuals, translation business practice guides and more is wide open. So, if you have a book inside you that’s crying to get out but you don’t want to go through the whole process of writing up a book proposal, finding an agent and finding a publisher in order to earn a relatively small percentage of your book’s gross earnings, it’s time to think about self-publishing.

For the first edition of my book I used, and I’ll be using again, Lulu, a print-on-demand service that I have really fallen in love with (and no, I don’t have an affiliate deal with them, I really do just love them!). Lulu offers a number of publishing and distribution levels depending on what you want to do with your work. At the most basic level, Lulu will print bound copies of almost anything that you can upload as a PDF, and you can purchase these yourself or sell them on Lulu.com at a price that you set, and you pay nothing unless you make a sale. For the modest sum of $99.95, you can purchase a distribution service from Lulu that gives you an ISBN for your book and makes it available on online marketplaces such as Amazon and Barnes&Noble as well as in wholesale book catalogs.

So, say that you have compiled a glossary of terms related to one of your translation specializations (we’ll assume that these terms are not proprietary and that you have the right to publish them) and you have a hunch that other translators would be interested in purchasing this glossary. You can create a PDF of your document, upload it to Lulu, choose one of their standard covers and a binding style and with a very minimal amount of work, your work is published and available for sale. It really is that easy.

Print-on-demand books generally cost more per copy to produce than books that are printed in bulk by “traditional” self-publishing companies. On the other hand, one of the joys of print-on-demand is that you can update your book at any time and put the new edition out for distribution at a minimal cost, and you don’t have the issue, which you do have with traditional self-publishing, of either arranging for a separate distribution service or finding a place to store all of the printed copies of your book.

Preparing a book to meet the criteria for wider distribution is a bit more complex, but definitely within the capabilities of most translators. In order to purchase wider distribution (which used to be called Global Distribution and is now called Published by You or Published by Lulu, depending on who owns the ISBN), your book must meet certain size and formatting requirements, which you can find here.
For a book that will be widely distributed, you probably also want to have your copy professionally edited and laid out and have a custom cover designed (in the spirit of disclosure, my husband did all three of these tasks for my book, and several reviews have specifically commented on the quality of the layout and editing, so it’s definitely possible to do these jobs “in house,” so to speak).

In addition to giving you greater control over the content and quality of your book, self-publishing is a huge win over most traditional publishers when it comes to royalties, as long as you are willing to do your own marketing. For example, many authors I know who have been published by traditional publishers have earned 10% royalties at most (and have still done most of their own marketing). Self-publishing allows you as the author to earn between 20% and 50% royalties, and to have those royalties paid monthly. For example, the cover price of my book is $19.95; for every copy that sells directly from Lulu’s site, I earn a little over $10.00 and for every copy that sells through the distribution network (Amazon, bookstore orders, etc.) I earn a little over $4.00. Then, Lulu pays me those royalties every month by PayPal. Also, I can order unlimited copies of the book at a greatly reduced cost (for my book it’s about $7.00 per copy) and then sell them myself to bookstores, at events and book signings, etc.

I’ve been so happy with Lulu’s services that I haven’t investigated any other print-on-demand publishers, and I would be interested in hearing from other people in the translation industry who have self-published books either through print-on-demand or through “traditional” self-publishing!


Corinne McKay

Paid by the word or paid by the hour?

At last year’s American Translators Association conference in San Francisco, I overheard a few conversations about how the translation industry would be affected if translators started billing by the hour rather than by the word. In some cases and for some jobs, translators do bill by the hour, but the tried-and-true per-word charge is still the norm. Here are a few thoughts on charging by the word versus by the hour.

Pricing translation by the word has some advantages: Especially if you charge by the source word, everyone knows up front how much the translation will cost, down to the cent. No surprise overruns to deal with and no estimating how many hours a project will take. Per-word pricing encourages translators to maintain their skills and technology, since efficient translators effectively earn more per hour. In some sense, per-word pricing may also drive translation technology innovations, since translators may be more likely to purchase a tool that allows them to work faster. Also, skilled and efficient translators can probably earn more by charging by the word than clients would be likely to pay by the hour. Say that you’re translating 600 words an hour at 14 cents a word, not out of the question for many translators, but I’ll venture a guess that those same clients might balk at paying $84 an hour for translation.  Per-word pricing also allows translation buyers to compare apples to apples when it comes to costs, rather than weighing a higher per-hour quote from a translator who claims to work faster versus a lower per-hour quote from someone who works more slowly.

But then again…:Pricing by the word has an obvious disadvantage from the translator’s side, which is that you are agreeing to work for a flat and fixed rate. So, when you get to those three pages of barely legible handwriting, or the document that’s been scanned, faxed and photocopied eight times before arriving in your inbox, you have to decide whether you need to negotiate a higher per-word rate. This can be a particular problem when it comes to editing, which is why I personally decline to be paid by the word for editing.

So then maybe pricing by the hour is better?: Well…yes…no…maybe! The main advantage of pricing by the hour is that there is no risk of loss on the translator’s part; if you charge $50 an hour and you work ten hours, you make $500. If you charge 20 cents a word and think you can translate 600 words an hour but the nature of the document is such that you really translate 250 words an hour, you’ve just taken a big hit. However, my main reasons for continuing to believe in pricing by the word are: a) the client knows up front how much the translation will cost and b) I think that most experienced and efficient translators can earn more by the word than what most clients will pay by the hour. Just don’t forget to agree in advance on whether the billable word count is source or target!


Corinne McKay

The art of saying no

Recently, several newly established freelance translators have asked me about how and when to say no to clients who are offering translation projects. It’s a delicate topic, since as freelancers we need to accept work in order to stay in business, but we also need to decline work in order to maintain a good quality of life to avoid taking on projects that are outside our areas of expertise. Following are some tips on how to say no to clients without harming your future relationship with them.

When I decline a job because it is outside my area of expertise or because I think the deadline is unrealistic, I tell the client what the issue is, because I think that this builds an honest relationship with the the client, who is then more likely to believe me when I say that I can take something on. For example if the project involves very technical documents or hard science, I simply say, “It’s not my specialization; the end result will be much better if you use a translator who specializes in that area.” If the deadline is more than what I can take on, same plan of action: “I’m concerned that I can’t do a quality job in that amount of time. Of course if you can extend the deadline…”

One advantage of this strategy is that I offer it as evidence to new clients. If the client seems nervous about using me and I want the project, I tell them that I regularly turn down work that is outside of my specializations, or I say “I never take on a project that I feel I can’t do a good job on. I wouldn’t give you a quote for this project if I weren’t confident in my ability to produce a high-quality translation.” This way, the client knows that I don’t automatically say yes to everything.

Personally, I try not to refuse a project because of rate or deadline issues without at least putting forth a counter-offer. For example if a client says “we can pay X cents a word,” where X is much lower than my rate, I might say “I would be very interested in this project if you can pay my base rate of Y cents a word.” Depending on the situation, for example if I can tell that the client is new to purchasing translations, I might also suggest that “Of course you’re welcome to look for someone who will work for that rate, but I would be concerned about quality since most established professional translators don’t seem to be working for that rate.” If the issue is deadline, I usually take a similar approach, “It sounds like a really interesting project, but I find that in order to produce a high-quality translation, I need to limit myself to 2,000-3,000 words per day. If you could give me 4 days to translate your 10,000 words, I would be happy to help out.”

When you’re weighing your decision on whether to accept a project, I think it’s important to differentiate between a rush deadline and an unrealistic deadline. For better or worse, rush deadlines are the reality in many translation specializations. However, I think there’s a difference between doing 10,000 words in three days (a real squeeze, but possible if you are very familiar with the subject matter and the documents are either in a read/write format or a very legible PDF and don’t involve complex formatting) and doing (or more likely trying to do) 10,000 words in two days; at that level, I think it’s almost impossible to work accurately enough that quality doesn’t suffer.

I think it’s also important to differentiate between going the extra mile/kilometer for your regular clients and allowing yourself to be exploited by new or infrequent clients who are in a bind. Not all translators share this view, but I feel that my regular clients deserve some special treatment for the quality of life that they allow me to enjoy, working on my own schedule, on interesting projects and earning a healthy income. So, if a regular client needs 10 words translated, I do it without charging. If a regular client’s project requires a few hours of work on a weekend, I charge my regular rate instead of a premium rate. However, I don’t do these favors for non-regular clients; the “royal treatment” is reserved for my top few (very few!) clients on whom my business depends. That’s a post for another time, “The Art of Saying Yes!”


Corinne McKay

A new header image

WordPress’ MistyLook theme makes it very easy to change your header image, here is a new one from iStock. This is called “Way to Everest,” by iStock member “weareadventurers.” It reminds me of one of my favorite places (Nepal) and also that sometimes, translation feels a little like climbing Everest!