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Last night I was working on a translation of a news article; there was a quote from an expert in the article, so I Googled it to see if the quote appeared in English somewhere on the web. Interestingly enough, what popped up was a translation of the entire article. Enter a dilemma, and one that has various ethical and financial gradations. In this situation, I was able to talk to my client on the phone and explain the situation; since the translation was a rush job and due in a few hours, we decided that I would simply go ahead and do the translation as if the online version didn’t exist, but the situation is not always this clear. Following are a few “déjà lu” (already read!) experiences I’ve had and how I’ve handled them.

Situation: You find a translation of your document online. Some people would argue that if the client isn’t willing to spend a few minutes searching for an existing translation, it’s not unfair to go ahead and translate the document and charge the client for it. Personally, I always alert the client in a situation like this and offer to stop translating and be paid only for what I’ve already done, because if the existing translation is high-quality, it seems like a waste of effort to produce another one.

Situation: You have previously translated a document that’s very similar to what you’re working on, but for another client. Here, I think that it’s a case of “leveraging your previous work” and it’s fair to charge the client your full rate. I’ve run into this situation with insurance contracts, where two different clients sent me two insurance contracts that were 90% similar because they were issued by the same company. My take on this: when you have your will written up, the attorney doesn’t charge less because she already has boilerplate documents prepared. As long as the document was for another client, I don’t see a problem with charging full price.

Situation: You have previously translated a document that’s very similar to what you’re working on, and it was for the same client. Here, I’m inclined to err on the side of honesty. I would probably explain the situation to the client and offer to charge by the hour for reviewing the new document and making the changes. I think it’s a little greedy to ask a client to pay you for 8,000 words when they already paid you to translate 7,500 of the same words.

Situation: You’re translating a corporate document, and the text, or something close to it, is already on the company’s website. I think this issue can be argued from both sides. In one sense, the company should be checking that it doesn’t already have a translation of what it’s sending out. In another sense, if the document is sent out for translation, there may be a reason the company wants a new or different translation. I would probably verify with the client, but I don’t think it’s absolutely dishonest not to.

If you’re looking for some educational and enjoyable reading, have a look at German to English translator Jill Sommer’s newly hatched blog Musings from an overworked translator (don’t you love the title?). Her first post is on “The ebb and flow of the translation industry,” something I think all of us can empathize with!

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!”