| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | CAT tools requirements Thread poster: Gregory Lassale
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After my job of 15 years in sales I FINALLY have the time and opportunity to try and establish myself as a freelance translator. Great. I scour Proz and Translatorscafe's job boards all day looking for smaller "general translation" jobs so I can get my feet wet. It's already frustrating enough running into "minimum of X years of experience to apply for this job" requirement, but it also seems that most agencies require either Trados, MemoQ or other CAT tools that I do not own/use.
... See more After my job of 15 years in sales I FINALLY have the time and opportunity to try and establish myself as a freelance translator. Great. I scour Proz and Translatorscafe's job boards all day looking for smaller "general translation" jobs so I can get my feet wet. It's already frustrating enough running into "minimum of X years of experience to apply for this job" requirement, but it also seems that most agencies require either Trados, MemoQ or other CAT tools that I do not own/use.
At this point, I am relying on OmegaT and Wordfast Anywhere. Is that because they're free? You bet. I am not going too spend hundreds of dollars on a piece of software before landing a single job. That seems totally silly and unreasonable to me. My question to you is how do you - freelancers who do not use Trados/Memoq/XTM - manage to get jobs? I think I remember someone on this board once saying that, in their experience, agencies who *require* the use of certain CAT tools were bad clients or something among those lines.
Coming to you established freelancers for your input. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Harvey Utech 
United States
Local time: 09:06
German to English
| Tips from a veteran of the trade | Oct 26, 2017 |
Dear Gregory--
Getting work initially was a problem for me too. Two things helped me:
1. Doing volunteer work. There was a religious organization that I did several translations for; in fact, they still contact me every once in a while. You don't get paid (hopefully, you still have a "day job") but you get some work that you can use to build credibility which might lead to a compliment or two or a WWA that you add to your ProZ profile.
2. Go to a trade show... See more Dear Gregory--
Getting work initially was a problem for me too. Two things helped me:
1. Doing volunteer work. There was a religious organization that I did several translations for; in fact, they still contact me every once in a while. You don't get paid (hopefully, you still have a "day job") but you get some work that you can use to build credibility which might lead to a compliment or two or a WWA that you add to your ProZ profile.
2. Go to a trade show or job fair. At the former, engage the booth personnel in conversation. Show interest in what they are presenting. If they don't ask, "what do you do?", bring it up yourself and ask if they ever need EN>FR translations. I don't think it would work to just walk up to one of the people in the booth and ask, "Need any EN>FR translators?" As for choosing a trade show, I should think a travel show might be a good initial choice; look for companies with a French connection and a technology that you have an interest and background in.
Finally, I agree with you about CAT tools. They are designed not to help you, the translator but they are a mechanism for the client to pay you less (i.e. because of lower rates on repetitions of words you already translated once) and because they want to build up a memory base to allow them to machine-translate in the future. Welcome to "Big Trans".
The kind of work we are both looking for is out there but it seems to be getting harder and harder to find.
One more tip. Try to get work that comes direct from the translation-seeker. Most agencies advertising on ProZ are bidding on contracts they do not have and they are trying to identify translators willing to work cheap so they can bid low. Sounds cynical to say that but I have learned from experience that's the way it is.
Good luck in your efforts!!
Harvey ▲ Collapse
| | | | | How I got started | Oct 26, 2017 |
Hi Gregory,
I started by landing jobs on Upwork. I've never been asked about CAT tools by clients I've met through Upwork (maybe because the jobs are usually small) and I gathered enough experience to put together a nice portfolio. I also landed a couple of long-term contracts through Upwork as well. It's a great place to start!
| | | | Sumit Sarkar
India
Local time: 19:36
Member
English to Bengali
+ ...
| Previous experience is necessary but CAT is HELL for us | Oct 26, 2017 |
Hi Harvey,
Firstly if you have no background, be it paid or not, of translation or interpretation, is a very difficult place now to start as a freelance translator. Some people have formal diplomas in this fields, that also may help.
Personally I don't have any diploma of that sort but had previous experience of voluntary translation/interpretation work.
But more than anything else my actual advantage was that I had started much earlier. Only much later I started using Wardfa... See more Hi Harvey,
Firstly if you have no background, be it paid or not, of translation or interpretation, is a very difficult place now to start as a freelance translator. Some people have formal diplomas in this fields, that also may help.
Personally I don't have any diploma of that sort but had previous experience of voluntary translation/interpretation work.
But more than anything else my actual advantage was that I had started much earlier. Only much later I started using Wardfast demo version as CAT tool. But now-a-days there are many jobs that require Trados as a must. Sometimes some agencies ask me to translate bilingual files with the help of which they will feed the CAT tools, mostly the Trados to get their final output.
Curtsey CAT tools, in near future there will be no human translators - machines will do the job. And what is worst, we translators actually paving the way towards our own doom. Apart from the PDF files of old days (mostly the certificates, licences, legal documents, official records etc) when most of the documents were handwritten, no other jobs are there that cannot be machine translated with the help of CAT tools. Even for those files, clients are getting them typed first then they put them on translation process. Unfortunately not only translation job, AI is going to snatch away a large percentage of jobs that we are still doing manually. Aren't you afraid of your own mobile that can guess what you are going to wire next?
I think a lot of professionals need to seriously take this issue and seek their right over pristine nature as a premature retirement plan where no machine will prompt them what to do next and will provide food and shelter to them and their next generation.
Wish you all best challenges ahead
Sumit1970 ▲ Collapse
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Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 14:06
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
| Well, you have been warned :) | Oct 26, 2017 |
Firstly, to answer the question you raised in the topic title, I share Sumit's concerns that MT will take an increasing share of the technical translation market, and certainly the TMs that CAT tools produce have supported that rise, but CAT tools in themselves can be very useful if you avoid agencies who'll exploit you any which way they can. Anyway, if you work on marketing texts (as opposed to texts about marketing), then you are probably immune to losing your job to MT, at least if you stick... See more Firstly, to answer the question you raised in the topic title, I share Sumit's concerns that MT will take an increasing share of the technical translation market, and certainly the TMs that CAT tools produce have supported that rise, but CAT tools in themselves can be very useful if you avoid agencies who'll exploit you any which way they can. Anyway, if you work on marketing texts (as opposed to texts about marketing), then you are probably immune to losing your job to MT, at least if you stick to the high end of the market. MT will never challenge us there and neither will AI in the foreseeable future. I've used Wordfast for 10 years now and wouldn't be without it. I've been passed over for some jobs that need other tools but there are a lot of jobs out there.
I'd say that pro bono translations can be a good way to get some experience, IF AND ONLY IF you actually get useful feedback. The big NGOs (MSF, Greenpeace etc) need experienced translators who can be totally autonomous. But there are the TED videos and similar sites that can be helpful; or approach the owners of a blog or a club's website whose texts interest you, and that would never otherwise be translated; or you can do as Harvey did and work on a personal basis with a local charity. Just don't ever confuse pro bono (for the public good) with working for free with for-profit concerns.
By all means try Upwork, although my experience is that most suppliers are what I'd call "hobby translators" who "can English", with most offers geared to them. I'd say the translators' marketplaces are a far better bet, but you need to use them in the best way possible. In your pair(s), everything needs to be tailored to making you look like a specialist. There are too many qualified and experienced peers out there to try to compete with everyone. So put your past experience to work for you. There's nothing to stop you marketing yourself as an EN>FR specialist in marketing (which I believe is what you've been doing?) and then quoting for FR>EN business jobs, for example. Plenty of tips here in the Site Guidance Centre (attend the free webinar about meeting clients, for a start). And I'd suggest a training course - the one I did (see my profile to avoid advertising) was incredibly good value and extremely useful as you learn the basic techniques and rules and have your translations critiqued.
So to begin with, my advice to you would be to spend most of your time training (both translation and entrepreneurial skills), preparing self-marketing texts (tip-top CV, business cards, profile(s), bio(s), maybe website...), and networking (on translation platforms, blogging, LinkedIn, maybe FB, Twitter... but also in-person). Then, when you feel confident, go all-out to find good clients with good jobs. Don't just wait for public job postings; approach the most suitable agencies with tailored emails, or however they ask to be approached. One out of 10 may express an interest; 1 out of 100 may give you a job; others may crawl out of the woodwork months/years later. Make yourself available evenings, weekends, over public holidays and you'll have more chance to get a foot in the door. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Mario Chavez (X)
Local time: 09:06
English to Spanish
+ ...
| ♫ Doom, doom, doom, doom ♪ | Oct 26, 2017 |
Sumit1970 wrote:
Hi Harvey,
Firstly if you have no background, be it paid or not, of translation or interpretation, is a very difficult place now to start as a freelance translator. Some people have formal diplomas in this fields, that also may help.
Personally I don't have any diploma of that sort but had previous experience of voluntary translation/interpretation work.
But more than anything else my actual advantage was that I had started much earlier. Only much later I started using Wardfast demo version as CAT tool. But now-a-days there are many jobs that require Trados as a must. Sometimes some agencies ask me to translate bilingual files with the help of which they will feed the CAT tools, mostly the Trados to get their final output.
Curtsey CAT tools, in near future there will be no human translators - machines will do the job. And what is worst, we translators actually paving the way towards our own doom. Apart from the PDF files of old days (mostly the certificates, licences, legal documents, official records etc) when most of the documents were handwritten, no other jobs are there that cannot be machine translated with the help of CAT tools. Even for those files, clients are getting them typed first then they put them on translation process. Unfortunately not only translation job, AI is going to snatch away a large percentage of jobs that we are still doing manually. Aren't you afraid of your own mobile that can guess what you are going to wire next?
I think a lot of professionals need to seriously take this issue and seek their right over pristine nature as a premature retirement plan where no machine will prompt them what to do next and will provide food and shelter to them and their next generation.
Wish you all best challenges ahead
Sumit1970
Let me put your mind at ease here: there's no reason to sing the doom song. I can understand the apprehension but machine translation has a very limited reach —always have and always will. How can I speak with such certaintly? Because I know the history behind it and I've spoken with people who have paid big bucks to use customized MT engines for their companies.
Still afraid? Let's get philosophical for a moment. What makes us human? Just the glob of neurons between our ears? No. We need a body, which machines don't have. So, a human being is a human being not because he/she has a computer inside his/her head, but because he/she has a body. Think of the way languages use spatial instructions to express and make certain meanings of place and time. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Finally, there's the nature of thought expressed in and through reading and writing. Machines, software programs can mimic these the same way bots can make us think we're talking to a real person online, but no machine can ever think. Terms like “thinking” or “smart” or “intelligent” machines or software are just shorthand for something else, and most reasonable people know that it takes a thinking human to make the final decision for the machine.
| | | | Mario Chavez (X)
Local time: 09:06
English to Spanish
+ ...
| Have you visited the ATA website? | Oct 26, 2017 |
Gregory Lassale wrote:
After my job of 15 years in sales I FINALLY have the time and opportunity to try and establish myself as a freelance translator. Great. I scour Proz and Translatorscafe's job boards all day looking for smaller "general translation" jobs so I can get my feet wet. It's already frustrating enough running into "minimum of X years of experience to apply for this job" requirement, but it also seems that most agencies require either Trados, MemoQ or other CAT tools that I do not own/use.
At this point, I am relying on OmegaT and Wordfast Anywhere. Is that because they're free? You bet. I am not going too spend hundreds of dollars on a piece of software before landing a single job. That seems totally silly and unreasonable to me. My question to you is how do you - freelancers who do not use Trados/Memoq/XTM - manage to get jobs? I think I remember someone on this board once saying that, in their experience, agencies who *require* the use of certain CAT tools were bad clients or something among those lines.
Coming to you established freelancers for your input.
Gregory, if I'm not mistaken, you're located in Minnesota, right? Have you visited the ATA website? If not, please go there. The ATA is also hosting its 58th annual conference in Washington DC this weekend.
For aspiring translators and interpreters, the first step is to contact a professional association. Otherwise, you're trying to reinvent several kinds of wheels. Many of your questions have already been answered by professional associations. Of course, if you were in the UK or in Europe, there is the ITI, the CIoL and other organizations.
I've been a practicing translator for more than 26 years. Free software, free tools are for hobbysts or amateurs. Do you want to be seen as an amateur by your clients? No one is telling you to spend $500 on a memoQ or Trados license right away. And transitioning from a 15-year sales career to a professional translation career is not a jump but a years long process.
Look at it this way: an illustration student who has been turning in school assignments using inexpensive brushes, temperas and watercolors wants to start doing professional illustration. Professional-grade tools are always more expensive and there is a reason for it. Would you hire that illustrator to do your business lettering (a shingle, a sign, etc.) with school-grade supplies, or with professional-grade ones?
Food (and paint) for thought…
[Edited at 2017-10-26 15:59 GMT]
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:06
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Think about the signals you are sending | Oct 26, 2017 |
Gregory Lassale wrote:
Is that because they're free? You bet. I am not going too spend hundreds of dollars on a piece of software before landing a single job. That seems totally silly and unreasonable to me.
Think of it as an investment. If you are just dipping a toe in the water, then maybe a purchase is not justified. If you are really serious about translation, rather than just doing it to tide yourself over until you get another job in sales, then you might as well bite the bullet now and invest in one of these packages. One decent project will pay for the software, and you can spend any free time learning how to use it properly. I think there is a group buy on at the moment on Proz.com.
Personally, I have not found - as others have argued in this thread - that CAT tools are of no benefit. I find them extremely useful, and never translate without them by choice, even for short jobs. No, I don't perceive CAT tools to be a conspiracy foisted upon freelancers. I consider CAT tools to be a means of improving the efficiency of the industry, lowering costs, and thus contributing to the growth of the market. Provided that you avoid predatory clients, CAT tools should be at worst neutral and (at least in my case) quite a substantial positive.
More to the point, even in my (fairly backward) language pair, clients are starting to ask about CAT tools. One of them told me explicitly in a recent face-to-face meeting that they are giving priority to those translators that use CAT tools. This is a good, professional agency, which genuinely wants close long-term relationships with its freelancers. Nevertheless, for larger projects, use of a major CAT tool is becoming increasingly important to them.
There are people in my pair complaining about lack of work. It's not the whole story, but I believe it is significant that many of them don't use CAT tools, or don't use the CAT tools that clients would like them to use, which is usually Trados in my pair. I am inundated in work, and while I am a competent translator, I don't think that basic linguistic competence explains more than half the work I get. The rest of it is mostly specialisation (an area where you too probably score highly) and professionalism.
Like it or not, potential clients use a number of metrics to assess service providers such as translators. If you meet in person, for example, your general appearance and the way you dress will absolutely affect how they (subconsciously) evaluate you. Superficial or not, that is human nature, and it will not be denied.
When looking at an application received by email many vendor managers will be going through a mental checklist (sometimes implicit, sometimes explicit) to assess your level of competence and professionalism. The tools you use will be part of this. Your qualifications will be part of this. Your profile will be part of this. It all counts.
It is highly likely that somebody will pop up in this thread and say "Oh, I don't use CAT tools I'm doing fine," and that's great. I accept that there are many established translators out there that don't use Trados, or MemoQ, especially those who have been in the industry for a couple of decades. But the market has changed, and finding clients and winning projects is a numbers game. If you want to tilt the probabilities in your favour, then you should pay attention to the signals that you give off to potential clients.
It is precisely because CAT tools that are seen as "professional" are expensive to purchase and difficult to master that they have value beyond the functionality they offer as aids to translation. They indicate to potential clients that you have made a serious commitment to the profession. In other words, CAT tools are increasingly a kind of barrier to entry.
Before anybody advances the strawman argument of "But CAT tools don't guarantee competence!", let me just point out that that is not the argument I'm making. I am arguing that, if you have two freelancers of roughly the same apparent level of competence, many clients will opt for the one that uses a well-known CAT tool.
I seem to remember you posted before on this forum a few months ago, and that you had an interesting background. You appeared to me to be the sort of person who could really make a go of this and, with that medical/legal specialisation, not have to worry about earning a reasonable income, provided you approached the business in the right way.
Take my advice: make decisions with your head not your heart, because this really is a business. Either there is an investment case to be made for CAT tools, based on the return you expect on that investment, or not. Do you expect to succeed? You do? Good, then presumably you expect to win projects that will eventually provide enough income to pay for your CAT tool. On the other hand, if you don't expect to succeed, and you don't expect to win projects, then maybe you shouldn't buy a CAT tool, but in that case you probably shouldn't be in the industry either.
To be sure, if you are short of cash then of course even investments must be put on hold - you can't eat CAT software, after all. But if you have the money, then we are talking about a marketing tool as well as a translation tool, a lever that could help kick-start your business. If clients are looking at whether you use certain high-profile CAT tools and using that as one of their criteria for evaluating your quotes, you should be considering it.
Remember that clients don't care if you think it is "silly and unreasonable" that you shell out for an expensive piece of software, because they really don't care about your individual circumstances. For some clients, a high-profile CAT tool is the price of admission to the game. So, are you in, or are you out?
Anyway, best of luck.
Dan
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| Not the job board | Oct 26, 2017 |
Hello Gregory,
A few points that come to mind:
- Most jobs don’t go through the job board on ProZ. I see little point to start from there, although it is the most obvious site activity. You’ll want to understand how the search directory works, how clients (agencies, direct clients) can find you. This involves many steps to make it happen: investing in a ProZ membership, setting up a good ProZ profile, earning KudoZ points, etc. Also, the agencies directory can help ... See more Hello Gregory,
A few points that come to mind:
- Most jobs don’t go through the job board on ProZ. I see little point to start from there, although it is the most obvious site activity. You’ll want to understand how the search directory works, how clients (agencies, direct clients) can find you. This involves many steps to make it happen: investing in a ProZ membership, setting up a good ProZ profile, earning KudoZ points, etc. Also, the agencies directory can help you actively contact agencies. Getting contacted by clients/agencies that find you through ProZ and reaching out to agencies are much better activities than looking at the job board, IMHO.
- Think in terms of investment and ROI. Dan Lucas nailed it in the post above.
- I consider it good practice not to take things for granted. Do you really need a computer? It’s up to you, but I think their usefulness massively outweighs any disadvantages. Most translators nowadays think this way. Do you need a CAT tool? Again, up to you, but if you expect most of your clients to be translation agencies, then you must understand their needs, they way they do business, etc. Many agencies ask for specific tools or file formats, use TMs, glossaries, etc., others are happy if you can provide the translation in the original file format. However, CAT tools are not simply a passport to agencies. I use one because I’m more efficient with it, because I find it massively useful in many many respects.
- I don’t think judging solely on price is a very good way to measure things. There are excellent free or low-priced CAT tools. There are some that offer you the flexibility to handle bilingual formats from other CAT tools. Thankfully, proprietary approaches to translation file formats hasn’t taken over the entire landscape, interoperability is still possible to a certain extent. You've got choice. But in the end, it is all still business, and you need to take many aspects into consideration. In that respect, investing in a good CAT tool (and getting proficient with it, otherwise it's pretty useless) does certainly not count as throwing money out of the window in my book.
Jean
[Edited at 2017-10-26 19:43 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:06
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Dan Lucas wrote:
.....
It is highly likely that somebody will pop up in this thread and say "Oh, I don't use CAT tools I'm doing fine," and that's great. I
Dan
*pop*
Yes, here I am. I don't use any CAT tools and I'm doing fine, because without CAT tools you tend to get the kind of translation work that requires real skill.
Anyway - judging by the incessant threads in these fora, asking for help with CAT tools that crash/do bad things etc. I often wonder if they actually do save time!
| | | | CafeTran Training (X)
Netherlands
Local time: 15:06
| Perhaps not ... | Oct 27, 2017 |
Tom in London wrote:
Anyway - judging by the incessant threads in these fora, asking for help with CAT tools that crash/do bad things etc. I often wonder if they actually do save time!
But in those boring, repetitive texts (I mean, those boring, repetitive texts) that you probably (hopefully) avoid, they can help you to maintain consistency. Unless you are striving for artistic variation, of course.
[Edited at 2017-10-27 09:26 GMT]
| | | | Maija Cirule
Latvia
Local time: 16:06
German to English
+ ...
[quote]Dan Lucas wrote:
Personally, I have not found - as others have argued in this thread - that CAT tools are of no benefit. I find them extremely useful, and never translate without them by choice, even for short jobs. No, I don't perceive CAT tools to be a conspiracy foisted upon freelancers. I consider CAT tools to be a means of improving the efficiency of the industry, lowering costs, and thus contributing to the growth of the market. Provided that you avoid predatory clients, CAT tools should be at worst neutral and (at least in my case) quite a substantial positive.
More to the point, even in my (fairly backward) language pair, clients are starting to ask about CAT tools. One of them told me explicitly in a recent face-to-face meeting that they are giving priority to those translators that use CAT tools. This is a good, professional agency, which genuinely wants close long-term relationships with its freelancers. Nevertheless, for larger projects, use of a major CAT tool is becoming increasingly important to them.
There are people in my pair complaining about lack of work. It's not the whole story, but I believe it is significant that many of them don't use CAT tools, or don't use the CAT tools that clients would like them to use, which is usually Trados in my pair. I am inundated in work, and while I am a competent translator, I don't think that basic linguistic competence explains more than half the work I get. The rest of it is mostly specialisation (an area where you too probably score highly) and professionalism.
Like it or not, potential clients use a number of metrics to assess service providers such as translators. If you meet in person, for example, your general appearance and the way you dress will absolutely affect how they (subconsciously) evaluate you. Superficial or not, that is human nature, and it will not be denied.
When looking at an application received by email many vendor managers will be going through a mental checklist (sometimes implicit, sometimes explicit) to assess your level of competence and professionalism. The tools you use will be part of this. Your qualifications will be part of this. Your profile will be part of this. It all counts.
It is precisely because CAT tools that are seen as "professional" are expensive to purchase and difficult to master that they have value beyond the functionality they offer as aids to translation. They indicate to potential clients that you have made a serious commitment to the profession. In other words, CAT tools are increasingly a kind of barrier to entry.
Take my advice: make decisions with your head not your heart, because this really is a business. Either there is an investment case to be made for CAT tools, based on the return you expect on that investment, or not. Do you expect to succeed? You do? Good, then presumably you expect to win projects that will eventually provide enough income to pay for your CAT tool. On the other hand, if you don't expect to succeed, and you don't expect to win projects, then maybe you shouldn't buy a CAT tool, but in that case you probably shouldn't be in the industry either.
To be sure, if you are short of cash then of course even investments must be put on hold - you can't eat CAT software, after all. But if you have the money, then we are talking about a marketing tool as well as a translation tool, a lever that could help kick-start your business. If clients are looking at whether you use certain high-profile CAT tools and using that as one of their criteria for evaluating your quotes, you should be considering it.
Remember that clients don't care if you think it is "silly and unreasonable" that you shell out for an expensive piece of software, because they really don't care about your individual circumstances. For some clients, a high-profile CAT tool is the price of admission to the game. So, are you in, or are you out?>
Lack of any CAT tool can generate the impression that you are too old, lazy, incompetent, etc., to acquire new knowledge, skills, competencies and so on.
[Edited at 2017-10-27 10:53 GMT]
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:06
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| Non-repetitive | Oct 27, 2017 |
CafeTran Training wrote:
Tom in London wrote:
Anyway - judging by the incessant threads in these fora, asking for help with CAT tools that crash/do bad things etc. I often wonder if they actually do save time!
But in those boring, repetitive texts (I mean, those boring, repetitive texts) that you probably (hopefully) avoid, they can help you to maintain consistency. Unless you are striving for artistic variation, of course. [Edited at 2017-10-27 09:26 GMT]
Occasionally I do get a somewhat repetitive Italian text to translate - but these texts often have multiple authors or have been written at different times, in stages, and the terms you would expect to repeat exactly - don't. To take an example off the top of my head "servizi igienici" "servizi" "bagni", "bagno" "toilette" all mean the same thing (usually). Equally "piano terra" "PT" "pianterreno" etc. So a CAT tool wouldn't pick them all up - not even as fuzzies - especially if they are misspelled (as often happens). A large part of my job when working on such texts, is to give consistency to many things that are not consistent.
[Edited at 2017-10-27 11:55 GMT]
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:06
Member (2008)
Italian to English
inesec wrote:
Lack of any CAT tool can generate the impression that you are too old, lazy, incompetent, etc., to acquire new knowledge, skills, competencies and so on.
Only if you're ageist, bigoted, and judgmental.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 15:06
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| "Investment" | Oct 27, 2017 |
Dan Lucas wrote:
One decent project will pay for the software, and you can spend any free time learning how to use it properly.
CAT tools are not investments (for freelance translators working for agencies).
Suppose you charge 10c per word, and suppose the CAT tool increases your efficiency by 20%, and suppose you buy a CAT tool for $500. You would have to translate 25000 words before the "investment" pays for itself. This is fine for established translators but not for beginners. And this applies only if you don't reduce your rate again by offer fuzzy discounts.
Agencies want discounts for CAT tool usage, and those discounts eat up most of the efficiency boost, so if those are your clients, you may have to translate 250 000 words before the CAT tool pays for itself. In addition, when the jobs become smaller (i.e. "updates"), the amount of time spend on non-translation tasks w.r.t. CAT tool usage increases.
In fact, depending on the type of text, fuzzy matching combined with fuzzy discounts can result in decreased financial efficiency, but that's where the "other" reasons for using CAT comes into play (e.g. increased consistency, getting clients you would not have gotten otherwise, etc).
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