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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 was originally published on That Translation Blog. It is reposted with permission. I admit it. I’m slightly addicted to TikTok. As a marketing and luxury goods translator, it’s actually a really useful business tool (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it). I was recently working on a tourism translation for a French hotel, and in that there was…
If you’re interested in a career as a translator or interpreter, it can be hard to figure out how to break into the industry. Where are the jobs? What should you specialize in? How do you set rates? One way to answer these and many other questions is to start out as an entry-level project manager (PM) with a language…
This post was originally published on ORH Translations. It is reposted with permission. Upon completion of my undergraduate degree, I was faced with the difficult decision of what to do next. I was frightened, anxious and overwhelmed with the thought of stepping into the big, scary working world. I would say that I was quite naive when I finished my…
There is much to be learned from our colleagues, but it can be intimidating to strike up a conversation with the “pros.” For that reason, we at Savvy have done the work for you in our Linguist in the Spotlight interview series, where we pick the brains of experienced translators and interpreters and bring their stories right to your screen.…
This post is a reblog, originally published on Tip of the Tongue. It is republished with permission from the author. The question of when a price proposal is too high is quite complex. Last week, I submitted a bid for a specialized service to an experienced professional. In my proposal, I took into account my investments in terms of time…
This post was originally published on Polka Dot Translations. It is reposted with permission. Last Friday marked one year since I was in a serious bicycle accident. That evening, I left home to go for a Zumba class only to return nine days later, with a massive, painful wound on my belly and a piece of small intestine missing. Dangerous…
I may be wrong, but scam activities seem to be inversely proportional to the economic cycle. Whenever there is the threat of an economic downturn, there seems to be an uptick in scam activities. At least that’s what I have noticed in my own business and in my capacity as webmaster of the Northern California Translators Association (NCTA). Therefore, I…
This post was originally published on The Translation Guy. It is reposted with permission. Got a Client Who Didn’t Pay You and Now They Won’t Answer Your Emails? What Are Your Options? A few years ago, I was a freelance translator translating mainly from English and Spanish into Portuguese. I quite enjoyed the freedom of working from home (pyjamas) and…
This post is a reblog, originally published on Productivity Stacks. It is republished with permission from the author. Do you often feel like your business is running you instead of the other way around? Do you wonder why you constantly feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day? This is your chance to figure out where your time is…
Odds are you’ve heard the hype around the futuristic artificial intelligence-based tool currently taking the world by storm. But what is it and what can it really do for translators? The answers may surprise you. What is ChatGPT? ChatGPT is a large language model (LLM) designed and developed by OpenAI to generate human-like responses to prompts. LLMs are a type…