Training for Translators

Classes for translators and interpreters

Productivity


Corinne McKay

A change of heart about Trados

For as long as I’ve been using translation memory tools (about 9 years), I’ve been using Wordfast and OmegaT. In general I’ve been happy with both of these tools; I love open source software in general so OmegaT has always had a special place in my heart, and I’ve always enjoyed Wordfast’s ergonomic features, excellent support and no-hassle upgrade system. For the majority of my work I do not use TM tools, both because a lot of my work is PDFs and because I feel that TM tools squeeze the flow out of my writing style, but I do have a few large recurring projects that require TM.

I’ve never been a big fan of the Trados concept: high price, lackluster support unless you buy a separate support contract, expensive upgrades, and so on. However I’ve also talked to a number of translators who I really respect, who are not in the high volume-low margin market and who are enthusiastic Trados users. So a few weeks ago, along came the perfect storm of circumstances: a client I really like approached me about a large (50-60K words) project that would require Trados Studio, I needed a new Windows computer anyway because my old XP machine was starting to die a slow death and my translation partner Eve Bodeux offered to take the Trados plunge with me. So rather than hemming and hawing about it for a year as I normally do with major decisions, in the space of a week I bought a new Windows computer, bought Office 2010, bought Trados Studio 2011 and Eve and I hired a colleague who was a Studio 2011 beta tester to give us an all-day orientation and training session before the big project started.

Now here’s where you need to sit down. Ask me what I think of Studio 2011. Go ahead, just ask. I love it. Hopefully this is proof that I’m not yet too old to change my mind, because after years of railing against the Trados business model and all things associated with it, I have to say that Studio 2011’s features are incredible, and that it was much easier to learn to use than I had anticipated. On the down side, I do still think it’s a little nutty that a piece of software that costs circa $1,000 doesn’t come with any human support unless you buy a contract, but here are some of my takeaways from about three weeks of using Studio 2011:

  • If you’re going to spend the money on this thing, learn to use it correctly from the start. I dove into Wordfast in the middle of a huge project and my abilities stalled out at using a TM, using a glossary and using the concordance feature. In 9 years of using Wordfast, I never really put in the effort to learn more, so I stayed stuck with the limited features I knew how to use. Whichever TM tool you use, don’t make that mistake: either teach yourself slowly, one feature at a time, or (my recommendation) hire a very knowledgeable colleague or Trados trainer to teach you how to use it.
  • Filter, filter, filter. The filters in Studio 2011 are fabulous. You can filter for all of the duplicate segments and translate them first, you can filter for all of the segments with a certain word in them, you can insert comments right in the segments and then your editor can filter for just the commented segments, and so on. Don’t underuse this feature!
  • Take some time to work on your settings. Here again, Studio 2011 has some really great features (see Tools>Options) that can save you a lot of hassle. For example you can blacklist your typical typing errors; for some reason I often type “tot he” when I mean “to the,” and the spell-checker doesn’t catch it because tot and he are real words. Now I’ve blacklisted that expression so that Studio alerts me if I type it. Ditto with naughty words whose non-naughty counterparts often appear in the documents you translate (i.e. pubic/public).
  • Whatever TM tool you use, or if you use no TM tool at all, just make sure that you’re making an objective decision rather than an emotional one. Definitely, when I work on something that needs to be really well written, I prefer to just open up a Word document and write. But I realized that for projects that require TM, I was resisting trying Trados for no particular reason other than that I insisted on resisting, if that makes sense.

Any other thoughts on selecting and learning to use a TM tool? Anyone tried anything new lately?


Corinne McKay

Some thoughts on rates and quotes

I really enjoyed reading The Freelancery’s recent post on whether or not to publish your freelance rates on your website. Since my website redesign a few years ago, I’ve struggled with this same dilemma: I grow weary of preparing quotes for clients whose budget turns out to be 1/3 of what I charge, so I post my rates on my website. Then I feel like having posted rates is too restrictive and doesn’t steer the conversation toward value for money, so I take my rates down. Here’s my current line of reasoning, which is, of course, subject to change!

No question about it, handling inquiries from prospective clients who have little to no budget can be draining. Sometimes the slim to nonexistent funding isn’t mentioned until 25 minutes into the phone conversation (this happened to me recently), and sometimes it’s brought up with a tone of righteous indignation on the prospective client’s part (“If you can’t do it for $25 an hour, our marketing manager’s son who studied abroad in Belgium will be happy to do it for $15”). It’s just a bummer to spend so much time talking to prospective clients who expect so much for so little. However, I agree with The Freelancery’s suggestion that these interactions are also opportunities: maybe an opportunity to refer work to a beginning translator who charges less, maybe an opportunity to mention that professional translators don’t generally work for what the client’s budget is, etc. In the end, I do think that we perform a service on behalf of the profession when we have these types of conversations.

In terms of posted rates, I feel that I’ve found somewhat of a happy medium that works for me.

  • I removed my general “Rates” page from my website and I ask prospective clients to call or e-mail for a quote. However, I don’t prepare a detailed quote until they confirm that my rates are at least somewhat within their budget. This avoids the time-suck of preparing a full quote only to find out that the client’s budget is less than half of what I charge.
  • I left my rates for “fixed-price” items on my website. For example for certified translations of official documents, I always charge $50 per page for the translation and $15 for a notarized certification, and most of these clients are first-time, one-time clients. The Freelancery’s post hits this one on the head (and they mention translation in their examples!); clients who want their birth certificate translated into English don’t want to call for a quote, they just want it done fast and for a not exorbitant amount of money. My rate to translate official documents might be more expensive than some other freelancers, but I know it’s much cheaper than most agencies’ minimum charges, so I feel fine about posting it.

In closing, although I think of myself as a kind and understanding person and as someone who tries to be helpful whenever it’s possible, two aspects of rates and quoting really raise my blood pressure. I’ll admit them publicly in order to get them off my chest:

  1. Why do so many prospective clients seem to lose the ability to do math when it comes to translation quotes? If I give the example that at 25 cents per word, a full page of single-spaced text would cost approximately $125 to translate, why is it then a surprise that a 10-page document costs $1,250 to translate?
  2. Why do so many prospective clients feel that it should take a couple of hours to translate something that took months or even years to write? I get this a lot from authors: “But the book is so short! It will really take you 10 hours to translate it?” I can’t decide whether it would be helpful or nasty to ask if it really took them more than 10 hours to write the book, but I try to just answer the question objectively since I enjoy doing literary translation and working with authors.

Feel free to add your own observations on rates and quotes too (or associated issues that you need to get off your chest!). Thanks for listening, I feel so much better.


Corinne McKay

My favorite mistake

No, not the Sheryl Crow song, the Newsweek/Daily Beast Column. Maybe I just love reading about other people’s mistakes, but the last-page “My Favorite Mistake” essay is my favorite part of the redesigned Newsweek. Written by famous people of various flavors, these columns just reinforce the fact that whether it’s Madeleine Albright wearing her “three monkeys” pin for a meeting with Vladimir Putin, Ricki Lake doing online dating or Dennis Quaid using cocaine, we are, as my yoga teacher would say, all on the path.

This week’s essay, by violinist Joshua Bell, particularly grabbed my attention. Although I’m not a rabid fan of Bell’s music, he’s the subject of one of my favorite newspaper articles ever, Gene Weingarten’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Pearls Before Breakfast, in which Weingarten chronicles Bell’s incognito performance in the Washington DC subway at rush hour. Bell’s “My Favorite Mistake” column tells the story of his first international violin competition performance, in which he flubbed the opening of his piece and decided to stop, apologize to the audience and start over rather than soldiering on through the performance. This got me thinking that we translators and interpreters, who by nature thrive on being right about everything, could also benefit from hauling our favorite mistakes out of the archives. Here’s mine. I told this story during the “Smart Business” panel at the Boston ATA conference so it’s not totally fresh, but this is its first time in writing!

I started freelancing in 2002, right after my daughter was born. I had a Master’s in French and had done a translation internship, but I really had no clue about the conventions of the translation industry. Plus, I was very, very hungry for work because I knew that my goal of working from home to be with my daughter was completely dependent on my success as a freelancer: if I didn’t make it, it was off to full-time daycare for her and off to a cubicle for me.

One of the first assignments that I received was from an agency, a very simple birth certificate translation, maybe 100 words total. I think that my minimum charge at the time was $30, and the agency didn’t give me any special instructions, just asked me to “translate the birth certificate.” So there I am at my computer, thinking that this is the easiest $30 I’ve ever made. I mean, for 100 words, why even put the translation in a Word document? Why not just type it into an e-mail to save the client some time dealing with the attachment. Obviously the missing link here is my lack of knowledge of the conventions of translating an official document: the big time investment isn’t translating the 50 or 100 words, it’s re-formatting the translation to look as much as possible like the original. So off I go, typing the translation into an e-mail and firing it off to the client, feeling really proud of myself (aren’t I efficient?!).

I have to say that the client was fairly understanding; probably more understanding than I would have been had I been on the receiving end of that e-mail. In any case I think they paid me the $30 we had agreed on, which was more than generous on their part since they ended up hiring another translator to do the job. But when I think back on this Favorite Mistake, I think that it really helped me. Obviously I learned something about official document translation, but I also learned a few larger lessons:

  • Knowing how to translate and knowing how to run a freelance business are completely different things; to succeed as a freelancer, you need to know both.
  • Try as we might to forget it, we were all new, inexperienced freelancers once. Maybe someone else’s stupid mistake wasn’t quite as stupid as mine, but we’ve all made them.
  • When translation newbies ask uninformed questions (Why doesn’t my TM tool spit out a translation after I type something into it? How much do I have to pay to get work from an agency? I charge 2 cents a word, is that about the industry standard? I’m looking for a business that’s easy to run in my spare time, would conference interpreting be good?), it’s hard not to be condescending, but it’s important to at least try. Whenever I answer a question like these, I think back to my “this is the easiest $30 I ever made!!” moment and try to give a thorough and non-condescending answer. Although these questions (and my birth certificate mistake) are completely off the mark, I also think it’s fair to ask how someone who’s never worked as a translator would know that TM and MT are two different things, or that agencies don’t charge up-front fees, or that the highest-paid freelancers make 40 or 50 cents a word, or that conference interpreters go to school for years  just to learn the basics of the job.

Readers, any other Favorite Mistakes out there?


Corinne McKay

5 things to do before 2012

Hello readers! Thoughts on Translation is back from an incredible two weeks in Costa Rica: we visited Corcovado National Park and the Arenal volcano area and it was truly amazing. I highly recommend Corcovado Adventures Tent Camp and the Sirena ranger station for a truly off-the-beaten-track experience. Think wild tapirs wandering down the beach and 10-foot crocodiles floating in the surf (seriously!). We rented a small but beautiful house in Arenal and had a lot of fun rafting with Costa Rica Descents, paddleboarding with Desafio and zip-lining with EcoGlide; I skipped their famous Tarzan Swing but my husband and my daughter loved it! And now…it’s seven degrees here in Colorado and we have eight inches of snow in our front yard. I’m not completely sure why we came back from Costa Rica but there’s plenty of translating to be done, so I’m trying to focus on the positive and look forward to ski season!

While I was on vacation, I started thinking about wrapping up 2011 and setting goals for 2012. I’ve assembled a list of five things I think every freelance translator should do before 2012, and I hope that you’ll add your own in the comments! Addendum: In catching up on Google Reader, I just found this post on the same topic from Sara Freitas-Maltaverne. Excellent suggestions for those who read French!

  1. Do a searching and fearless assessment of 2011. Did you meet your financial goals or did you fall short? Did you finish the major items on your business to-do list or are they still taunting you from the sticky note on your monitor? Think about what needs to change. If you’re like me, some of the same goals appear on your goal list over and over. It took me years (literally) to realize that when that happens, it means that my current method for achieving those goals is irreparably broken. For example I had been trying to finish the second edition of my book for literally three years. Finally I decided that I just had to block out an hour a day and treat that time as sacrosanct, only to be used to work on the book. I won’t say it was easy to follow through on that, but the project got finished! So if you keep saying you’re going to… (upgrade your computer, learn a new TM tool, use your speech recognition software more, attend more client networking events, have a face-to-face meeting with at least one client a month, or whatever) and it hasn’t happened yet, don’t just write it on the list for 2012, make a new plan for actually accomplishing it.
  2. Make any end-of-year purchases or contributions. Before you make your final tax payment for 2011, it’s a good time to burn some money out of the business account if you have a surplus. If you pay your 2012 professional association membership dues before December 31, you can deduct them from your 2011 income. If you need a new piece of durable goods (printer, expensive software, office furniture, netbook, etc.), you can decrease your 2011 taxable income by buying it now. Ditto with contributions to most, although not all, retirement accounts. I have an individual 401K for my corporation, which has the advantage of having a very high contribution limit but the disadvantage that the withdrawals will probably be taxed as ordinary income once I’m old enough to take money out of the account. Other investment vehicles such as the Roth IRA work in the opposite manner: your contribution may not be tax-deducible, but your withdrawals may be. Definitely ask your accountant or financial planner about the pluses and minuses of various year-end contributions.
  3. Get your 2011 deductions in order. Make sure that if you are claiming more than $600 of subcontracting expenses to any one person or corporation, you get their tax data and send them a 1099. And make sure to claim every legal deduction that you can. I don’t like to stretch the rules, but I’m always finding new deductions that I was unaware of. This year’s: if you have kids age 12 or under, you may be able to deduct up to $3,000 of summer day camp costs per child as work-related dependent care. Make sure to get the camp’s tax ID information and make sure that you meet the requirements for the deduction; for example in most cases you cannot claim any work-related dependent care expenses (day care, summer camp or otherwise) if your spouse doesn’t work, and if your kids go to sleepaway camp, you may have to research whether the deduction applies.
  4. Decide whether you are going to raise your rates. I find that with my agency clients, it’s helpful to raise my rates a little bit every year rather than trying to impose a large increase all at once. If you’ve been thinking of raising your rates, the end of the year provides a good reason to do so. You can even prepare a rate sheet with your 2012 rates and send it out to your clients individually.
  5. And of course…start setting your goals for 2012! Whether it’s to earn more, work less, diversify your client base, upgrade your skills or attend some new conferences, now is the time to think about next year. Think about how quickly 2011 went: doesn’t it seem like a short time ago that you were setting your 2011 goals?

Overall I feel quite positive about 2011. In contrast with the larger world economy, the translation industry is still booming and I’ve had as much work as I could handle for most of the year. In terms of goals, I finally (finally!) polished off the second edition of my book, but I could have done more with my direct client marketing campaign. That’s the other advantage of reviewing 2011 in early December: still three weeks left to salvage those lingering to-do items!


Corinne McKay

The ten essentials of freelance translation

There’s something about the number 10. Not just the connotation of “perfect 10,” but the number has an undeniable appeal. This year’s American Translators Association Translation Company Division conference was focused on the number 10 (10 sessions that each featured 10 tips on a certain topic), and people really seemed to enjoy the manageable scale of the presentations.

In my non-translation life I spend a lot of time in the mountains, so I’ve long abided by the guideline of The Ten Essentials that everyone should take into the backcountry. Outdoor enthusiasts are advised to equip themselves with a map, compass, sun protection, food/water, extra clothes, headlamp, first aid kit, fire starter, matches and a knife. This got me thinking about The Ten Essentials as applied to other areas of life, specifically freelance translation. What 10 must-have items would you recommend that every freelance translator arm herself or himself with? I’ll go with (in no particular order):

    1. Business cards; the kind without a “Get your free business cards at…” imprint on the back
    2. A reliable computer
    3. A computer backup system and potentially a backup computer
    4. A good office chair, yoga ball or treadmill desk
    5. A separate business bank account to keep business and personal finances separate
    6. A membership in at least one association for professional translators
    7. A high-quality computer keyboard; it sounds like a minor thing, but it’s important when you’re tap-tap-tapping away at those keys for 30-50 hours a week!
    8. A few good dictionaries in various flavors; print, online, general, specialized, etc.
    9. A thesaurus; some days I use mine more than my French-English resources. For those times when you just need another way to say it!
    10. At least one trusted colleague. I realize these aren’t available at Office Max, but I do think it’s hard to reach your full freelance potential without a good network of colleagues.

Readers, over to you! What 10 items should go in every freelance translator’s survival kit?