Training for Translators: Blog - Page 43 of 245

Oct 24 2023
Corinne McKay

Finding other freelancers to work with

Greetings, Training for Translators subscribers! I’m headed to Miami today, for the 64th annual American Translators Association conference, and I’m excited to see some of you there! If you want to get a jump on next month’s master classes, I’m teaching How to prepare for (and pass!) an interpreting exam, and I’m teaching Breaking into the book translation market, for ProZ.com, but it’s open to anyone.

On to this week’s topic, suggested by a T4T reader: How do you find other freelancers to work with, especially if you work outside the most common language combinations? If an agency asks if you can recommend a proofreader, is it OK to just say no? How to decide who earns what, when you team up with someone else? Let’s take a look!

First, I would argue that every freelancer needs at least a couple of trusted colleagues in the same language combination, because:

You may need to split a large project
You may need a proofreader
You may need someone to refer clients to, if you get sick, have a family emergency, or want to take an extended vacation
It’s helpful to have colleagues who get it (and sometimes “getting it” involves issues specific to your language combination), when you have work-related dilemmas that could use input from another person

That being said, I don’t think it’s a disaster to tell an agency that you can’t recommend someone else. The agency may be asking this for one of two reasons: a) they want to accommodate your preference, because they want to keep you happy (I always appreciate when interpreting agencies ask if I have preferred boothmates), or b) they want you to do the work of finding someone else to work on the project, which is really the agency’s job. So, I think it’s actually fine to say that you defer to the agency’s judgment on who to work with.

However, you still need some trusted colleagues, for the reasons listed above. Here’s where I would recommend trying to find them:

Hands-down, the best source is professional associations for translators and interpreters. When I started translating, all (literally: all) of my initial crew of trusted colleagues came from the Colorado Translators Association and the American Translators Association. When you meet someone through a professional association, you don’t know whether you click with them as a work partner, but you do know that they are an established professional who is willing to invest some time and money in their business.
Next, you could try places where translators and interpreters gather online: LinkedIn (search for other people in your language combination), forums like ProZ.com (which, I think, has a higher population of people who work in less common languages), and even Facebook groups (I’m in a couple of translator/interpreter Facebook groups that are actually really good). If none of these groups exist for your language combination, you could consider starting a group, which also positions you as the go-to person in your language combination or specialization.
On LinkedIn, you could recruit for people in your language combination (“Looking for other Spanish to Swedish translators for networking and potential work opportunities”). This would also open up the option of starting some sort of group or collective of translators in your language combination, or even a single-language agency if you’re interested. Once you find a few of those people, maybe have a Zoom meetup or coworking session to get a sense of what the other participants are like as people.
If you work with direct clients, you definitely need at least an editor, if not another translator to work with you. In this case, I would consider the recruitment strategy listed above, but then give people a (paid) editing test. If you ask them to edit something like 250 words, this would probably fall into their minimum charge zone, and I think that testing two or three people would be worthwhile.

Then, there’s the question of how you split up the money. Again, I would have separate strategies for agencies and direct clients. When an agency asks if I want to bill them for my work and a colleague’s work (editor, boothmate, etc.) and then I pay the other person, I always decline. This is really the agency’s responsibility; it’s the reason they’re getting approximately half of the money that the end client pays, and I also don’t want to get in the middle of a dispute: what if the other interpreter gets sick at the last minute; what if they aren’t happy with the editor’s work.

As a rule of thumb, I typically assume that the translator will get 2/3 of the per-word rate, and the editor will get 1/3. So if I bill a client 24 cents per word, I would typically split that up as 16 cents to the translator and 8 cents to the editor. In my mind, that also equalizes the effective hourly rate between the translator and the editor, which I think is fair. A translator producing 500 words an hour at 16 cents per word is making $80 an hour, and an editor producing 1,000 words an hour at 8 cents per word is also making $80 an hour. I personally prefer to pay my editors by the hour so that they are free to do a very thorough job, but that’s a personal preference.

Bonus tip: If you work with direct clients, never (never) offer editing as an optional, add-on service. If you determine that the project needs a second set of eyes (and most do), include editing in your quote (whether it’s per-word, hourly, or a lump sum) and the client has to pay for it if they want to work with you.

I hope these tips are helpful! If you have additional ideas, post them in the comments!

Corinne McKay (classes@trainingfortranslators.com) is the founder of Training for Translators, and has been a full-time freelancer since 2002. An ATA-certified French to English translator and Colorado court-certified interpreter, she also holds a Master of Conference Interpreting from Glendon College. For more tips and insights, join the Training for Translators mailing list!

Oct 17 2023
Corinne McKay

MT/AI: Where do I think this is all headed?

These days, so many people are asking “Where is this whole machine translation/artificial intelligence (MT/AI) thing headed? Are we all going to be out of a job in a couple of years?” So I decided that for this month’s master class on direct client marketing, I would just prepare a few slides on this whole topic. People seemed to find it helpful, so I thought I would share a summary with you in this week’s post.

On the one hand…

Our imminent demise has been predicted for over 30 years. I graduated from undergrad in 1993, and one of my professors told me, “I wouldn’t encourage you to go into translation, because I think that computers are going to completely take that over pretty soon.” And, 30 years later, we’re all still here!
I’m 52 years old. As long as my body and mind hold up, I plan on working full-time until I’m 70ish, and I’m not looking for another career. Likewise, if my 21 year-old university student daughter wanted to become a translator or interpreter, I would perhaps give her some caveats (the language industry is a lot different from when I started 20+ years ago), but I would feel very positive about that decision, and I would encourage her to pursue a career in translation or interpreting.
DeepL and similar tools have gotten a lot better, particularly for information-only translations (“What does this say in German??”), and I still feel that any good translator can tell you in about three sentences that a translation was done by a computer. To me, MT has no style, no flair, no creativity, and that is a lot of what my clients pay me to do.
I also think that interpreting is, in general, more future-proof than translation. I do think that automated captioning of recorded materials is getting a lot better, and that in very controlled settings, we could see automated foreign-language captioning making some inroads. But I think that when it comes to “the magic earpiece” that turns a live speech or presentation into another language in seconds, those of us working in the industry today don’t have a lot to fear.

On the other hand…

When people say that this iteration of MT/AI feels different, I agree. This iteration is not so much “eating the market from the bottom up,” as it is making inroads into the part of the market that most translators want to work in: mid-market agencies. It seems to me that most mid-market agencies are moving toward (or already using) a model where almost any file that is computer-readable is going to be translated using MT and then edited by a human.
I think that there are lots of freelance translators who have cruised along for years, if not decades, working for a few mid-market agencies paying maybe 11-15 cents per word, with the translator doing little to no marketing and essentially having a steady job where they set the hours. I think that many of these agencies are now offering mostly editing work, at hourly rates that are a lot lower than what their translators were making per-word for translation. Lots of these mid-career translators have never worked with a direct client and, honestly, have no desire to do so, because they just want to translate.

And where do I think this is headed?

Most importantly, I may be totally wrong. People much smarter than I am get technology predictions wrong all the time. I mentioned in the master class that I recently saw a reference to an article from 2012 (!!), in which Google co-founder Sergey Brin said that he thought self-driving cars would be so ubiquitous by 2017 that human drivers would be in the minority. Annnnnd, that’s not true by a long shot, even 11 years later. But, with that caveat, here’s what I think we may be looking at.
I think that translation may follow a similar trajectory to what happened to web designers between about 2000 and 2015. I had a website in 2002. At that time, the only way to get a website was to hire a web designer who hand-coded the HTML for you in a fairly artisanal manner. Then came the earliest versions of WordPress (2003) and Squarespace (2004), and pretty soon, most people who wanted a basic website didn’t hire a designer at all; they used a website creation tool.
However, it’s not like web designers disappeared as a species. And in fact, I would hazard a guess that the work done by most web designers in 2023 is both more interesting and more lucrative that the work they were doing in 2002. I honestly think that if the cream rises to the top of our industry, so to speak, it’s the most interesting and lucrative work that will continue to be sent to human translators.
I also think that in the future, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to earn a healthy income (let’s say 90-110K or higher) without working for direct clients, and most importantly, without having good business skills. I think the world of “like a regular job where you set the hours,” where you’re going five years without doing any marketing, is going, if not gone, and we’ll probably see a fair number of translators drop out of the market or change careers because of that factor alone.

I hope you find these unscientific predictions (!!) helpful. If there’s anything you want to tell me, just put your reply in the comments!

Oct 03 2023
Corinne McKay

Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies quiz, and how it can help you

This week, I wanted to introduce you to a tool that may help you figure out why you do what you do; or why you don’t do what you should do or what you plan to do. It’s Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies quiz, which you can take for free right here (none of this is an affiliate deal, I just really like Gretchen Rubin’s stuff).

I had never heard of Gretchen Rubin until one of my close friends participated in The Happiness Project. As part of my friend’s Happiness Project work, she asked me to have dinner with her once a month for a year (in 2022). And, minus the month that my friend had COVID, we did it! After learning more about Gretchen Rubin’s work, I became really intrigued by her Four Tendencies concept and how it can help us better understand ourselves and other people.

Basically, Gretchen Rubin theorizes that there are four main personality types when it comes to meeting external and internal expectations or demands:

Upholders find freedom in discipline, and usually have no trouble meeting external or internal expectations (I’m an Upholder; more on that below)
Questioners meet expectations if (and only if) the expectation makes sense to them
Obligers meet expectations that are set by other people, but struggle to meet expectations that they set for themselves
Rebels resist both external and internal expectations (tagline: “You can’t make me, and neither can I”)

Like other personality tests (Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, etc.), some people aren’t going to be easily categorized, or are going to answer “it depends.” But, knowing my “expectations-meeting personality” has helped me so much, in the following ways:

As mentioned above, I’m solidly in the Upholder category. If someone else tells me to do something, I’m going to do it. If I tell myself to do something, I’m also going to do it. This seems like a positive thing overall, but reading more about the Four Tendencies has helped me see some ways in which it’s actually a hindrance.
I often struggle to understand or give advice to people who can’t get things done. While I know, intellectually, that people who fall into the Rebel or Questioner categories don’t always “just do it,” and I really, really know that neurodivergent people (including several of my close friends) often cannot “just do it,” I still find myself thinking, “Make a list! Set a timer! Get the Todoist app! It’s not that hard!” And in reality, it is really hard or even impossible for a lot of people to do what Upholders find totally normal and natural: break a daunting task into sub-goals and chip away at them consistently. Knowing this has prompted me to “pause and understand” people whose productivity wiring is very different from mine.
I have a lot of fun and joy in life, annnnnnnd a great deal of that fun and joy involves checking a box, which is something I’d like to work on. I do a lot of box-checking in both my personal and professional lives: I’m highly motivated by the trackers in my apps, whether it’s getting the pat on the back from Todoist for accomplishing all of my tasks for that day, or seeing how many times I’ve gone to yoga in a month. If I blow off work to do something fun, it’s often (OK, Rebels, don’t laugh), because I have a policy of blowing off work in a particular situation. For example, I did actually blow off work a few weeks ago to go out for ice cream and get my nails done, but only because I have an internal expectation that when an interpreting assignment gets cancelled, I don’t work during that time. So, while I was definitely having fun and putting the “free” in freelance, I was also checking the box, “Don’t work during a cancelled interpreting assignment.”
And by this, I don’t mean, woe is me…my biggest flaw is that I can’t stop being productive, I mean that all of these Tendencies have their pluses and minuses, and I think that learning more about yourself and how your brain works is always a good thing.

If you poke around online, you’ll also find various people’s tips related to these Tendencies. I found it particularly helpful to look at tips for people who are Rebels (the exact opposite of my personality), like this article, which suggests that if you’re a Rebel, you should try working in small bursts, always keeping your “why” in mind, and having a robust accountability system.

Whatever type you are, I hope that these tips are helpful!

Sep 27 2023
Corinne McKay

Smart habits for taking a workcation

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I’m the guest on this week’s episode of Smart Habits for Translators (Madalena Sanchez Zampaulo and Veronika Demichelis’ really awesome podcast about the language professions!)

Madalena and Veronika interviewed me about smart habits for taking a workcation. My husband and I spent the month of July in Fernie, British Columbia (a small town in the East Kootenay region, about an hour over the US border from northern Montana). We worked pretty much full time and spent evenings and weekends mountain biking and hiking. In the podcast episode, we talk about:

How to take a workcation
Why to take a workcation
How to choose a location
What to take with you
How to make this work if you have kids

You can listen on the Smart Habits website, or find the podcast in your favorite podcast app!

Sep 26 2023
Corinne McKay

Travel: A week-long work trip with an underseat bag

Greetings, readers! We have a good group signed up for this Friday’s master class with Karen Tkaczyk, Editing and proofreading for into-English translators, and there’s still room for you! This class always gets rave reviews, so sign up now if you’d like to level up your editing and proofreading techniques and processes!

This week’s topic relates to the logistics of work travel (or, honestly, any travel!). Short version: last week, I traveled for a week-long interpreting assignment, with only an underseat bag (including bringing my laptop!) and I’m now pretty much a convert to this style of packing. Read on if you’d like to know the details!

**None of the links below are affiliate links; they are just products that I really like**

For a long time, I traveled primarily on Southwest, where overhead bin space is rarely an issue because it’s free to check bags. I’ve always been a pretty minimalist traveler and I essentially never check luggage other than something like a bicycle that absolutely cannot be carried on. I got into the habit of taking a rollaboard suitcase and my laptop backpack and those basically always fit in the cabin on Southwest. However, lately I’ve been flying United a lot more, and baggage suddenly became a huge problem. United doesn’t check bags for free, and they really want you to pay for an upgraded boarding group; if you don’t do that, there’s a high chance of ending up having to check your bag at the gate (which is free, but also annoying and time-consuming) because the overhead bins are full. With two week-long interpreting assignments and the ATA conference coming up, I decided to investigate some better options.

As luck would have it, various luggage companies have capitalized on this phenomenon and now make underseat bags with approximately the same carrying capacity as a rollaboard suitcase. This works, because you’re eliminating the bulk of the suitcase itself. After doing some research, including watching this YouTube video, I settled on the Underseat Pro backpack, which costs about US $50, and according to the company, has been tested to fit under the seat of most major airlines as long as it’s not overstuffed. I purchased the one with the laptop sleeve since I’m often traveling with a computer.

Cut to the chase: it worked! I was able to fit a week’s worth of work clothes (more on this below), my laptop, and everything else I needed into the backpack, and with a little jiggling, it did fit under the seat on a United flight! Better yet, I was in boarding group four, and the gate agent was checking all rollaboard bags in that group, while I got to breeze onto the plane with my Underseat Pro!

Here are the details on how I did it:

It goes without saying that if you’re trying to travel for a week with an underseat bag, you’re paring down to the must-haves, not the nice-to-haves. I really love my B.R.U.S.H curling iron (…there, I said it), but it was definitely not making the cut. You also need really good shoes because you’re probably going to wear a pair and take a pair, and that’s it. My Naturalizer Flexy ballet flats go with pretty much any outfit, and are comfortable enough that I can wear them for an entire week, then I took my cream-colored Vans Ultrarange shoes, which are comfortable enough for long walks after the work day, but can also kind of/sort of pass as “business casual” shoes.
For work clothes, I took a “capsule wardrobe” consisting of one pair of plain black pants, one plain black skirt, and four dressy shirts that could be worn with either the skirt or the pants. I wore the black pants and one of the shirts on the plane, and packed everything else. Pro tip on shirts: as part of my year-end bonus to myself last year, I splurged on some made-to-measure wrap shirts from OdaLux, and they are my absolute favorite thing for work trips. They’re super comfortable but also dressy enough for work purposes, and the wrap belt is great because it’s sturdy enough to hold a microphone transmitter/battery unit, which we use the entire time at one of my travel interpreting assignments. I rounded the clothing out with a pair of yoga leggings and two light, long-sleeved t-shirts to wear in the evenings, a small purse to use during the day, a bag of toiletries, pajamas, a book, and my interpreting notebook and pens, plus my wallet and phone and a small bag of electronics accessories (phone charger, earbuds). All of this fit in the Underseat Pro with even a little room to spare.
Obviously, a lot of this is situational and personal. I didn’t need to bring heavy outerwear or very warm clothes on this trip, and personally I’m OK with wearing pretty neutral, nondescript clothes that look professional but aren’t anything special. If you’re the person who wants to be wearing a different snazzy outfit with different shoes every day, this technique will definitely not work. For the record, one of the attendees at the conference I was interpreting for came up to me in the cafeteria on about the fourth day, and said, “You came with only that tiny backpack and you’re always wearing different outfits! Where did you put everything??” So, if you’re worried that people will notice that you brought a limited wardrobe, I would let go of that fear! I think most people don’t really notice or care, and the technique of totally plain pants/skirts with different shirts seems effective!

I’m looking forward to continuing this packing technique on my other upcoming trips. The Underseat Pro backpack is 18 inches long, by 14 inches wide, by 8 inches deep. Not surprisingly, these are the exact dimensions allowed by many major airlines. Interestingly enough, United’s dimensions are actually significantly smaller (17 x 10 x 9) so I think you really don’t want to overstuff the bag, but mine fit quite well. I think that sometimes, you’ll encounter some annoying obstacle (literally and figuratively). I flew on Icelandair in June, and on the return flight, my underseat space had the cable box for the entertainment system, and even my very small backpack had trouble fitting. But otherwise, I highly recommend this style of travel!

I hope these tips are helpful in your upcoming travels!