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… in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes Ben Franklin, in a letter written in 1789 How can we prepare to get through the storms of life? My mother-in-law, my husband and my mom died in the last six years. While I was deeply saddened by this, I still had to take care of most administrative issues for them and keep looking to the future. I wanted to have work and clients after this was over. As freelancers, our clients disappear when we disappear. How did I keep clients through these crises? Years…
This post is a reblog, originally published in the Tool Box Journal Newsletter, Issue 22-3-335 on March 15, 2022. It is reposted with permission from the author. Maintaining a normal work pace can be difficult in challenging times. If you are like me, you’ve spent way too much time following the news on the horrible war in Ukraine over the…
When I was president of the Michigan Translators/Interpreters Network (MiTiN, pronounced “mitten,” get it?) a few years ago, I saw a long-lost member at an ATA conference. We had both joined in the 1990s. I went on to a freelance career as a translator, and he ended up owning a large language service provider. I pointed out that he hadn’t…
When was the last time you were asked to provide a volume discount? My guess is not too long ago. Did you say “yes” to the request? Do you have a strict policy in general? Do you decide ad hoc, based on your workload that day? Do you feel like there is pressure from the market (i.e., from your colleagues…
I live in Oregon. In case you don’t already know, Oregon and the Northwest are overdue for a huge earthquake. A few times a year, the state runs preparedness campaigns. I feel very concerned when I am reminded of the earthquake by the local radio. But despite my sincerest intentions, the only thing I do is buy extra cans of…
This post is a reblog, originally published on Madalena Sánchez Zampaulo’s blog. It is reposted with permission from the author. As freelance translators and interpreters, we can spend a lot of time in our inboxes on any given weekday. This can be both distracting and a never-ending game of whack-a-mole, as you try to answer all your emails and keep…
This post was originally published on Content Rules. It is reposted with permission. Usually, when someone tells you that your translations are poor, the first tendency is to blame the translators. Blaming the people doing the work might make sense. However, in my experience, the cause of poor translation is often not the person trying their best to translate the…
New year, new goals. Each new year provides a blank slate for tackling personal and professional goals. Is studying for the ATA Certification Exam one of your goals for 2022? Preparing for an exam with a 20% pass rate can be daunting. The Certification tab on ATA’s website describes the exam as a “mid-career credential for experienced, professional translators or…
If you continuously struggle to stay organized and tend to work long hours to compensate for daily distractions, learning about productivity can mean wading through a body of presumptions. The advice of self-help materials–repeated in a myriad of online resources–can be difficult to follow, as there are relatively few productivity resources that openly acknowledge the impact of physical and mental…
This post was originally published on Integrated MarCom Translations blog. It is reposted with permission. No doubt you’ve heard it before: If you’re trying to increase your exposure, grow your network, and win more clients, you’ve got to work the social media scene. You may even have created your own Twitter account, grouped your Facebook contacts into relevant audiences for…
The article “Defining Translation Quality” (Koby, Fields, Hague, Lommel, and Melby) is the third article in a series of articles. This particular article starts by referencing the first two articles. It mentions that the first article talked about the scope (how broadly one defines translation) and specifications (how explicitly requirements must be stated) concerning definitions of translation and that the…