Translating

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rudder
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Translating

Post by rudder »

Has anyone here ever done translating work? I'm not talking about interpreter work, which is where you have to verbally translate a dialogue in real time.

Translating means sitting down (or standing) and reading a text, and then re-writing that text in a different language.

I'm seriously considering doing some freelance translating between English and Spanish. I have no idea how to start. I've translated some of my own literature in the past, and found the activity to be pretty fulfilling.

Does anyone know of any resources? Everything online seems to be oriented towards TEFL to make money abroad. There are lots of guides and tutorials, ebooks, etc. all about teaching English abroad. How about translating? Are there any good guides on how to get started doing freelance translation work? My first language is English, but I also know fluent Spanish. I've always heard you should translate into your first language, however, I've only ever translated from English to Spanish. It helps me to consult with a native speaker (my wife is a native Spanish speaker) to have her proofread what I translate to Spanish. Occasionally, I write something that sounds odd to a native speaker, so she has me change those things. I've considered signing up for an advanced Spanish grammar course, taking some private tutoring to help patch up my sticking points, and perhaps even looking for some translation courses as well.

I'd love to hear from you if you have any insight or experience.
Last edited by rudder on March 5th, 2022, 7:54 am, edited 1 time in total.


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Cornfed
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Re: Translating

Post by Cornfed »

Look up the services that offer translation online and see how to work for them.
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publicduende
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Re: Translating

Post by publicduende »

rudder wrote:
March 5th, 2022, 7:45 am
Has anyone here ever done translating work? I'm not talking about interpreter work, which is where you have to verbally translate a dialogue in real time.

Translating means sitting down (or standing) and reading a text, and then re-writing that text in a different language.

I'm seriously considering doing some freelance translating between English and Spanish. I have no idea how to start. I've translated some of my own literature in the past, and found the activity to be pretty fulfilling.

Does anyone know of any resources? Everything online seems to be oriented towards TEFL to make money abroad. There are lots of guides and tutorials, ebooks, etc. all about teaching English abroad. How about translating? Are there any good guides on how to get started doing freelance translation work? My first language is English, but I also know fluent Spanish. I've always heard you should translate into your first language, however, I've only ever translated from English to Spanish. It helps me to consult with a native speaker (my wife is a native Spanish speaker) to have her proofread what I translate to Spanish. Occasionally, I write something that sounds odd to a native speaker, so she has me change those things. I've considered signing up for an advanced Spanish grammar course, taking some private tutoring to help patch up my sticking points, and perhaps even looking for some translation courses as well.

I'd love to hear from you if you have any insight or experience.
I used to do translations from English to Italians to support myself during my Masters year (2001) in London. I was the main translation guy for a company that had some outsourced work from Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (the Playstation guys). It was mostly videogame manuals and occasionally some in-game text.

I remember being paid decently, for 2001, 5 pence per word. A typical 1,500 word page was 75 GBP, which at that ancient time would be enough to pay bills and grocery for an entire week. I was also friendly with some of the internal translation staff at SCEE. The whole experience lasted little more than a year.

Yes, usually professional translators are trusted to translate from English into their native tongues. If you're perfectly bilingual I guess both directions are possible. However, in your resume potential Clients will always look for the language marked as "native" and that marked as "excellent" or "10".

Even though I have left that line of work since, I have kept myself curious about where it is going and, from what I understand, it's not a good direction. The "tier 1" clients, large companies with tens of thousands of assets to translate every year, would be usually hooked in multi-year contracts with large professional translation agencies. The best way to work for these large clients and make decent money would be to become a professional translator and be hired by these large agencies.

The smaller clients, companies with frequent to occasional volume of assets to translate, may be more amenable to look for freelance translators and potentially keep them long-term if they like their quality and delivery speed. The problem, the way I see it, is that there is a crapload of such translators and securing a few good clients and getting a sustainable stream of work is getting harder and harder. English to Spanish translation can be catered by people living in Latin America, who surely can work for cheaper than someone from the US.

One interesting niche I tried to explore, at my first job nonetheless (I was a QA/developer in charge with language translation) and which is probably a bit less crowded, is software localisation. This means not only translating the contents of a web or mobile app, but also applying all the nuances typical of user interface: understanding when a string is a duplicate and when it should be translated differently, how text should be best fitting the screen estate, down to cultural differences across locales, etc.
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Raggiana
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Joined: March 1st, 2022, 3:45 am

Re: Translating

Post by Raggiana »

You can put your gig with some of your works on display on freelancing portals. These are some of the sources that I know of - Upwork, Freelancer, Truelancer, Fiverr, Gengo, OneHourTranslation
rudder
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Joined: June 6th, 2013, 11:38 am

Re: Translating

Post by rudder »

Raggiana wrote:
March 6th, 2022, 9:56 pm
You can put your gig with some of your works on display on freelancing portals. These are some of the sources that I know of - Upwork, Freelancer, Truelancer, Fiverr, Gengo, OneHourTranslation
Thanks.
rudder
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Re: Translating

Post by rudder »

publicduende wrote:
March 5th, 2022, 8:43 am
rudder wrote:
March 5th, 2022, 7:45 am
Has anyone here ever done translating work? I'm not talking about interpreter work, which is where you have to verbally translate a dialogue in real time.

Translating means sitting down (or standing) and reading a text, and then re-writing that text in a different language.

I'm seriously considering doing some freelance translating between English and Spanish. I have no idea how to start. I've translated some of my own literature in the past, and found the activity to be pretty fulfilling.

Does anyone know of any resources? Everything online seems to be oriented towards TEFL to make money abroad. There are lots of guides and tutorials, ebooks, etc. all about teaching English abroad. How about translating? Are there any good guides on how to get started doing freelance translation work? My first language is English, but I also know fluent Spanish. I've always heard you should translate into your first language, however, I've only ever translated from English to Spanish. It helps me to consult with a native speaker (my wife is a native Spanish speaker) to have her proofread what I translate to Spanish. Occasionally, I write something that sounds odd to a native speaker, so she has me change those things. I've considered signing up for an advanced Spanish grammar course, taking some private tutoring to help patch up my sticking points, and perhaps even looking for some translation courses as well.

I'd love to hear from you if you have any insight or experience.
The problem, the way I see it, is that there is a crapload of such translators and securing a few good clients and getting a sustainable stream of work is getting harder and harder. English to Spanish translation can be catered by people living in Latin America, who surely can work for cheaper than someone from the US.

One interesting niche I tried to explore, at my first job nonetheless (I was a QA/developer in charge with language translation) and which is probably a bit less crowded, is software localisation. This means not only translating the contents of a web or mobile app, but also applying all the nuances typical of user interface: understanding when a string is a duplicate and when it should be translated differently, how text should be best fitting the screen estate, down to cultural differences across locales, etc.
So, your native language is Italian?

I wouldn't mind the crap latin american pay, since I live pretty cheap. The translators here make a pretty decent amount in my opinion. Actually the certified translators in some of the major cities make around ten dollars just for a birth certificate, which is so ridiculously easy, and I'm sure they all just have a pre-translated template set-up in advance. It would take me about ten minutes to do one of those.

Of course competition is a real factor. I remember hiring a certified translator, and realizing that every office on the floor of the building in that latin american capital city was a different translator's office. So many options. Of course, people suck at marketing in latin america, so if you knew how to do basic internet marketing it would give you the leg up.

I'd really only expect to make about $5 per 1000 words. That would keep me alive. Of course, the good gigs you mention are all from a distant past when almost any job was enough to raise a family with a house in the suburbs. Now it's a race to the bottom with platforms like fiver...lol...

Yeah pretty hard to motivate oneself for a career path that pays poverty wages. Not really sure I will pursue that path to be honest. I would probably need to invest in some courses first. I wish there were a guaranteed way to go about this like there is with TEFL. Get your certificate, and then you pretty much know for sure how much work and pay you can expect teaching english in any given country and/or online. This translating thing seems like a real curveball though.

Anyway, I've posted this thread just to see what kind of knowledge is out there on this topic. I appreciate your feedback, and would love more details. I need to learn a lot more about this topic before I can make a decision on whether I want to invest the significant amount of time (and perhaps money) making this endeavor work.
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publicduende
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Re: Translating

Post by publicduende »

rudder wrote:
March 30th, 2022, 5:46 pm
So, your native language is Italian?
Yes.
rudder wrote:
March 30th, 2022, 5:46 pm
I wouldn't mind the crap latin american pay, since I live pretty cheap. The translators here make a pretty decent amount in my opinion. Actually the certified translators in some of the major cities make around ten dollars just for a birth certificate, which is so ridiculously easy, and I'm sure they all just have a pre-translated template set-up in advance. It would take me about ten minutes to do one of those.
The problem I see is: you're already in a competitive industry and you choose to enter a market (English-to-Spanish translations) where there's already a lot of downward pressure on rates, because of the army of capable young people in Latin America.

I think the key is to specialise in something a bit more niche, where there is less competition and the rates can be higher.
rudder wrote:
March 30th, 2022, 5:46 pm
Of course competition is a real factor. I remember hiring a certified translator, and realizing that every office on the floor of the building in that latin american capital city was a different translator's office. So many options. Of course, people suck at marketing in latin america, so if you knew how to do basic internet marketing it would give you the leg up.

I'd really only expect to make about $5 per 1000 words. That would keep me alive. Of course, the good gigs you mention are all from a distant past when almost any job was enough to raise a family with a house in the suburbs. Now it's a race to the bottom with platforms like fiver...lol...

Yeah pretty hard to motivate oneself for a career path that pays poverty wages. Not really sure I will pursue that path to be honest. I would probably need to invest in some courses first. I wish there were a guaranteed way to go about this like there is with TEFL. Get your certificate, and then you pretty much know for sure how much work and pay you can expect teaching english in any given country and/or online. This translating thing seems like a real curveball though.

Anyway, I've posted this thread just to see what kind of knowledge is out there on this topic. I appreciate your feedback, and would love more details. I need to learn a lot more about this topic before I can make a decision on whether I want to invest the significant amount of time (and perhaps money) making this endeavor work.
If you can't (or won't) specialise in something more sophisticated than plain translation, I don't think you're gonna like it.
rudder
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Re: Translating

Post by rudder »

publicduende wrote:
March 30th, 2022, 9:26 pm

I think the key is to specialise in something a bit more niche, where there is less competition and the rates can be higher.

If you can't (or won't) specialise in something more sophisticated than plain translation, I don't think you're gonna like it.
@publicduende PM sent.
rudder
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Re: Translating

Post by rudder »

The problem is that getting specialized also restricts the available pool of potential work. That said, I do think it's the way to go.
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