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In professional associations, you can often publish a public profile. Clients use this profile to decide who to work with. It should be brief, but it has to tell your story. However, sometimes our public profile is not visible. Go to your profile settings on the platform your association uses and verify that your profile is visible. You can generally select items from your profile to share publicly, such as your phone, address, email, and social media profiles. Be intentional about what you share. This information can be seen by the public. That means both your clients and other people…
Oftentimes, clients will have questions as to the style choices that language professionals make. Perhaps the target document may not appear the way they see it in English, or perhaps it does not coincide with other documents they have seen written in the target language. In order to alleviate some of the stress in this process, this style guide was…
Reblogged with permission I often receive emails from aspiring translators who are switching from a career in the fields of science or healthcare and are seeking advice from someone with the same language combination who made a similar change, albeit several decades ago. This blog post is an expanded version of my response, in the hope that it will save…
From time to time we at The Savvy Newcomer receive questions from our readers that make for great blog post topics. This is one of them! Here’s a question from one of our readers who’s just starting to pursue an interest in languages and wants to know how to get started. Q: Is there any advice you could give for…
How to Create an Ideal T&I Client Profile to Market Your Services
This post was originally published on Madalena Sánchez Zampaulo’s blog. It is reposted with permission. It is incredibly important to know your ideal client if your marketing efforts are going to be effective. After all, we want to work with our ideal clients, and not just anyone who crosses our paths, right? I mentioned recently in a webinar that I…
The Secret Sauce for Building Cohesive Teams
Though it may seem paradoxical since many of us work independently, teamwork is a critical component of a freelance translator or interpreter’s professional life. Introverts and extroverts alike need collaboration and interaction in order to thrive, and oftentimes quality necessitates working together to resolve questions and agree on solutions. Whether you’re volunteering on a committee, working with a team of…
Freelance Beginner Tips: The Pitfalls to Avoid
Reblogged from Hongkiat, with permission If you’re still unsure whether or not to pursue freelancing, chances are you’ve contemplated what life is like as a full-time freelancer. You’ve probably heard of the many splendid perks of freelancing, but you’re still dying to know if it’s really all sunny and greener “on the other side”. Like most professions, freelancing has its…
As many states and entities seek to define standards for the translation and interpreting profession, the State of Oregon serves as a great example of a robust set of standards. In order to prepare to meet these standards, many take translation courses. Such courses can serve as proof to clients who require proof of having taken translation training or as…
This post was originally published on the dba Plan B blog. It is reposted with permission. When you have a translation project ready to go, here are some of the questions you’ll likely be asked — certainly by me, but also by other translators. In most cases, translators need to see the documents before giving you a quote, but even with…
Common Errors Found in the English>Spanish Certification Exam
Reblogged from The ATA Chronicle, with permission ATA certification continues to be a sought-after credential. As a way to prepare for this demanding exam, ATA has been offering practice tests for many years, which are real exam passages that have been “retired.” In addition to the practice test, ATA has been offering exam preparation workshops taught by ATA exam graders…
Freelance Translator Survey 2020
“Interesting & fun to complete”, “Most comprehensive and interesting survey so far”, “Loved it!”, “Very thorough and thought-provoking” are just a few of the comments left by people who completed this survey for translators, a survey that took two months to put together, a survey designed by translators for translators. The idea started to take shape a couple of months…