I have some excellent news for all you freelance language translation professionals out there who have been dreading the recession. Global Watchtower recently carried out a survey of 277 professional freelance translators and came to the conclusion that overall business was not really all that bad.
A majority of the participating translation professionals rated their business between good (27.8%) to satisfactory (49.8%). This in-spite of the fact that the fourth quarter of 2008 was among the worst quarters in recent times from the financial point of view.
But what clinches the deal is the admission of many respondents that they did undergo the pressure to reduce their rates but most of them that’s about 76.9% intended to carry on without comprising on their charges in the next quarter. In fact about 13.7% of the respondents reported raising their rates in the last quarter of 2008.
I am really elated at this piece of news – though the recession was not bad on me, I really hope that this piece of news would be able to bring a smile on some of my fellow language translation professionals’ lips.
I have frequently come across translation buyers who think that back translation is a sure shot method of getting to know whether a language translation is accurate or not. However, from my professional translation experience I am sure that it couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Back translation is probably one of most ineffective or misleading ways of judging a translation. The reason behind this is every language has its grammar, structure and vocabulary. Now the process of language translation doesn’t simply involve replacing the words in one language with equivalent words in another language. That would render the translation awkward to read, as well as incorrect. A decent translator always adapts the translation to the target language. This is why when a back translation is carried out it would not yield the original text of the translation.
It is important that language translation buyers realize that back translation is misleading and ineffective. It would save them from paying up for such useless services.
I take my client briefings very seriously, irrespective of the fact whether its an old client or a new one. Okay, old or regular ones don’t take much time because I am more or less aware of their language translation requirements due to our past work together. But that’s not the case with new clients.
Translation subjects can be same but that does not give me the reason to treat them all equally. Clients have their own unique requirements from each project. It is important to nail those requirements if you would like to satisfy your clients. So how do you go about it?
I suggest developing your own questionnaire. Indulge in some free thinking associated with the kind of things you should know about a project before you start working on it. First write down as many questions as they come to your mind. You can do the editing later.
Once you’ve collected a large number of questions and feel you are done with it, you can set about cutting the list down to a manageable length. Now projects and clients are all different from one another so you might not need to ask every question from each client who comes to you. You have to create your own strategy based upon the requirement of individual translation projects.
I would suggest keeping copies of the questionnaire on your work station and a few other places where you can have a look at it every now and then. Soon enough you would have built a solid mental checklist which you can refer to whenever you face a new translation project and ensure optimal briefing sessions.
If you frequently require translation services then the following tips would help you cut costs while at the same time ensure that the quality of your language translation project is improved.
Edit the source document before translation
Cut down all the extraneous stuff from your document, eliminate redundant content, and make your original document as clear and to-the-point as possible. This would help reduce the word count which would ultimately reduce your translation cost by as much as 25%.
Do Away with Jargons
Commercial documents can have industry specific jargon. If you are the original author you might be so used to them that you will not recognize them as jargon. But these are the stuff that prove to be a hindrance in quick translation delivery. They might also result in errors. So try to eliminate jargon that you can do without. You will make life simpler not only for your translator, but also for yourself and the target reader.
You can also think about preparing a glossary of industry specific terminology used in your original document which you can provide to your professional translator. This would make things significantly easier for your translation provider, ensure that the translation is accurate and probably pull down the cost as well.
Prepare original documents in a universally understandable manner
Every country and culture, even cities and town develop their own regional variations on the language. When such location specific variations creep into a document that is supposed to be translated, the language translation process becomes more challenging as well as time consuming. So always try to use standardized language in your original document.
Language translation services providers should also consider getting translation services.
Did that statement above confuse or confound you. Maybe yes, maybe no, let’s move ahead. What I am referring to above is that it is important for language translation professionals to use multilingual channels to promote their services. Native translators often do that, but a number of native English speaking translators don’t. This limits their prospective customer base significantly even if they own a website. This is because nowadays there are web sites in most of the popularly used languages, so web-users all over the world have the choice to surf sites in the language they are comfortable with.
Keeping all these in mind, a language translation services provider should take advantage of multi-lingual marketing. Suppose you are a non-native English to Spanish translation provider and own a website only in English you would be severely limiting your reach to many potential Spanish speaking clients. So just start working on that website translation.
Did you know about Chinglish? I guess even if you did not know about it you would have got a fair idea from the term itself. It is made up from the words Chinese and English and is used for written or spoken English under the influence of Chinese. There are about 300 to 500 million users of English language in China which gives substantial credibility to Chinglish.
In popular context the term Chinglish has generally been used in a derogatory sense, mostly because of various unintentionally funny translations of the Chinese into English commonly found in various signboards across China and quite popular in the Internet.
Though I am far from an expert on Chinese, I feel that one should not see such developments negatively. Languages are quite like living beings; they have their own evolutionary process which should not be stopped. Both English and Chinese languages are developing through Chinglish. Being professional translation services providers we should encourage such development and also learn from them.
Professional language translators need inspirational boosts just like any other human being from time to time. These are times when there seems to be no translation job in sight, or so much to do at once that you don’t know where to hide. Then events like the current recession happen and you wait for your turn to get sacrificed at its altar.
Closer home you might just get tired of tapping away at your machine day in and day out. If you work on your own, then the loneliness will start driving you mad, if you are employed with a language translation company then you will come to hate the long commutes and/or the fixed office hours.
Life’s never perfect.
And that’s why we need inspiration.
Read this interview of a beautiful lady, Paula Shannon whose love for languages has helped her achieve great heights – http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124086244466060525.html
Mother’s day is just a week away and I being a proud mother’s boy have already started thinking about how to make my mom feel extra special on that day. Being in the language translation business my initial thoughts are always influenced by my work 
So I thought why not make a handcrafted card with “I Love You, Mom” written in a number of languages and the last one being in the language my mom understands, which is English. I am aiming for a century and for starters I have the following in hand –
- French - Je t’aime maman
- Dutch - Ik hou van je moeder
- German - Ich liebe dich Mutter
- Hungarian - Én is szeretlek anya
- Italian - Ti amo mamma
- Polish - Kocham cię matka
- Danish - Jeg elsker dig mor
- Swedish - Jag älskar dig mamma
- Finnish - Rakastan sinua äiti
- Norwegian - Jeg elsker deg mamma
I will be waiting for your contributions dear readers, please be generous 
As a professional translator you must have noticed that some translators seem to get a lot of work from professional translation agencies while some with the similar skills, level of expertise and track record never seem to get a satisfactory flow of work. Why does this happen?
Let’s assume that the language translator who is dissatisfied with the amount of work he/she is getting has not had any negative experience with the translation agency such as poor feedback, a tiff with someone at the agency etc. Moreover the translation agency has been getting a satisfying load of orders. So basically there’s no apparent reason for our professional translation services provider for not getting regular language translation work.
In such cases as above, I have frequently noticed that work usually goes to professional translators who are regularly in touch with the agencies. They call up translation agencies, email them and if they live somewhere close to the translation agency’s office, they also drop by sometimes. Such actions act as reminders to the translation agency’s management that ‘this particular translator exists and is eager to work’.
Just keeping in touch with your translation agency won’t be of optimal help. You should also take other proactive measures which positively develops your relation with your translation agency. This means recommending other suitable translators for jobs that you are unable to do. This will make the agencies’ work easier, as well as provide work to a fellow translator. The outcome would be that at least a few translators recommended by you would also refer work to you. Translation agencies would contact you more often because they believe that even if you are not able to do a translation job you would direct them to a suitable professional translation services provider.
In addition, to the above you should try to develop a network of professional translators and make it a point to stay in touch and interact regularly. Also keep track of what is happening in the translation industry, especially of any major short term or long term trends, laws etc.
Once you make the above suggestions a part of your life you will surely notice a positive difference in the inflow of language translation jobs. All the best!
Machine translation is treated as a nemesis by a majority of professional translation service providers. But is it really so? I think most translators dismiss machine translation because of two reasons, one is of course valid, machine translation can be awkward to read and more critically, it can contain mild to severe errors. The second reason for many professional translators’ aversion to machine translation is the niggling, maybe unconscious thought that it can hurt their job prospects. This is where I beg to differ.
I strongly believe that artificial intelligence can never replicate the capability of human intelligence. When it comes to machine translations, I believe that translation buyers would always need the services of professional human translators especially when they require important documents to be translated.
Anyway let’s look at the bright side of machine translation, in my experience I have got a number of new clients who have been disappointed with machine translation and have approached me with a reinforced respect for my translation skills. And then there are times when a client is not willing to pay my standard rates on a translation job, since the document itself is not very important. I readily refer them to a free online translation service or software which I believe can do the job well. This makes my client happy and I don’t have to say no a job because it is not paying well enough.
