| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18] > | Moving on from freelance translation, starting a new career Thread poster: James Greenfield
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Michael Hughes 
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:20
Member (2022)
Japanese to English
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| Plenty to be optimistic about | Feb 14 |
I work full time in marketing and translate on the side. I really respect full time translators for their ability to do this all day - it’s a mentally taxing job at the best of times with the concentration levels required. Everyone is different, but I suspect many may actually find translating as a side venture alongside something else to be a lot more professionally fulfilling.
There are so many options besides being a plumber or working in a cafe. Most translators are well educ... See more I work full time in marketing and translate on the side. I really respect full time translators for their ability to do this all day - it’s a mentally taxing job at the best of times with the concentration levels required. Everyone is different, but I suspect many may actually find translating as a side venture alongside something else to be a lot more professionally fulfilling.
There are so many options besides being a plumber or working in a cafe. Most translators are well educated and most office jobs don’t require any particular degree subject background (at least in my country) - and you can then acquire professional qualifications related to the area as you go, often funded by the employer. Yes, you may have to start at the bottom of the ladder so to speak. But you’d still have translation work on the side to top up your income until you can move up the ranks. It often doesn’t take that long to move up the ladder either, especially with the maturity, business sense and work ethic of someone who has been a full time translator for a long time.
Somebody mentioned not liking the idea of having to commute after a long period of enjoying the perks of freelancing - many ‘office’ jobs are 3 or 4 days a week working from home these days. Many are fully remote as employers have realised technology has enabled them to hire good people wherever they may be based and save on costs.
There is a labour shortage in quite a few countries at the moment and hard working, trainable people are very much in demand. Yes it might take a while to land something depending on how much Lady Luck is in your side, but the world is your oyster and I feel these are exciting times for those seeking new professional challenges. ▲ Collapse
| | | | mroed
Local time: 03:20
Italian to German
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Tom in London wrote:
mroed wrote:
Translation simply doesn't have a long-term future
That's just wrong.
So you believe that in 5-10 years there will still be a large number of freelance translators who can make a living from translations?
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While I still work (legally) as a translator, in 2019 I started a host activity with airnbnb and vrbo, (also legally). This was not intended to be a full time job, but you know we have to live, I also have a pension since last year but not very high, so, again, we have to live.
At the moment what I know for sure is that I am paying a lot of taxes to Spain.
@Teresa, your idea for UNI is wonderful, I could copy ... See more While I still work (legally) as a translator, in 2019 I started a host activity with airnbnb and vrbo, (also legally). This was not intended to be a full time job, but you know we have to live, I also have a pension since last year but not very high, so, again, we have to live.
At the moment what I know for sure is that I am paying a lot of taxes to Spain.
@Teresa, your idea for UNI is wonderful, I could copy it ▲ Collapse
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:20
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| In some ways, we've never had it so good | Feb 15 |
Michael Hughes wrote:
Yes it might take a while to land something depending on how much Lady Luck is in your side, but the world is your oyster and I feel these are exciting times for those seeking new professional challenges.
The other thing to keep in mind is that, if you have the drive and initiative, learning something has never been easier or cheaper than it is today. Information and courses on almost anything are available for a negligible amount of money in a way that would have been unthinkable even 30 years ago.
Truly, the only thing holding you back is you.
Dan
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Chris Spurgin
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:20
Member (2016)
Russian to English
+ ...
Best of luck to James. Hopefully he can keep us updated as to what he ends up doing.
I am doing some online courses to help myself upskill. There are a lot of courses out there, and some providers will give you discounts on subsequent courses once you buy your first course.
[Edited at 2024-02-15 12:45 GMT]
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 03:20
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
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Dan Lucas wrote:
Michael Hughes wrote:
Yes it might take a while to land something depending on how much Lady Luck is in your side, but the world is your oyster and I feel these are exciting times for those seeking new professional challenges.
The other thing to keep in mind is that, if you have the drive and initiative, learning something has never been easier or cheaper than it is today. Information and courses on almost anything are available for a negligible amount of money in a way that would have been unthinkable even 30 years ago.
Truly, the only thing holding you back is you.
Dan
That’s why knowledge has lower value today than it had 30 years ago, because it’s so easily accessible.
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:20
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
Lingua 5B wrote:
That’s why knowledge has lower value today than it had 30 years ago, because it’s so easily accessible.
I completely agree, but I would make a clear distinction between knowledge in the sense of something that can be simply looked up, and knowledge that has been internalized as part of a skill.
I can look up anything I need to know about a particular programming language, whenever I need to know it, but that is a very different thing from being a competent programmer.
If you want to become reasonably proficient in, say, machine learning, looking at a couple of websites is meaningless. You're probably going to have to be proficient in Python, which is a significant task in itself, and also put in hundreds of hours of work with Scikit-Learn, or PyTorch, or Keras. (Then you need some idea of what to actually do with the skills you have, the business sense to make it work, and the people skills to go with it. But I digress.)
All of those learning resources are available for very little money, and even the information required to make decisions on which learning resources are needed is freely available. That is a huge change from 30 years ago, when you needed to physically visit a library as a first step and work from there.
However, what hasn't changed is the necessity of putting in the requisite time and effort to become competent. And most people won't do that because they don't have the persistence, self-control, or dedication. Typically, they will sidestep the issue by simply arguing (to others, or to themselves) that it's not necessary or that it's not possible.
Dan
| | | | Denis Danchenko
Ukraine
Local time: 04:20
Member (2012)
English to Russian
+ ...
| The translator's bane of 'unconscious competence' | Feb 15 |
Dan Lucas wrote:
I completely agree, but I would make a clear distinction between knowledge in the sense of something that can be simply looked up, and knowledge that has been internalized as part of a skill.
How do we capitalize on the second-nature level of mastery?
[Edited at 2024-02-15 11:09 GMT]
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| The alternatives can be far from ideal | Feb 15 |
One thing I noticed when looking into getting more copywriting work was that everyone wants you to write for SEO, which basically means blathering on in an irritatingly verbose and repetitive way to work in various key words and set phrases way more often than would be natural.
(A bit like how Tory politicians in the UK have been trained always to call it "Putin's war" rather than "the war", and "our wonderful NHS" rather than "the NHS", and use catchphrases like the "war on motori... See more One thing I noticed when looking into getting more copywriting work was that everyone wants you to write for SEO, which basically means blathering on in an irritatingly verbose and repetitive way to work in various key words and set phrases way more often than would be natural.
(A bit like how Tory politicians in the UK have been trained always to call it "Putin's war" rather than "the war", and "our wonderful NHS" rather than "the NHS", and use catchphrases like the "war on motorists" and all those other slow-drip brainwashing techniques.)
So, to me, writing for SEO is the opposite of good writing and a red flag for moving further in that direction. I simply don't want to do it.
(Same with MTPE. It's not a refusal to adapt. I just don't want to waste my life doing that.)
So it's not just a matter of apathy and inertia. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Denis Danchenko
Ukraine
Local time: 04:20
Member (2012)
English to Russian
+ ...
Christopher Schröder wrote:
One thing I noticed when looking into getting more copywriting work was that everyone wants you to write for SEO, which basically means blathering on in an irritatingly verbose and repetitive way to work in various key words and set phrases way more often than would be natural.
I used to do commercial SEO copywriting after completing the course by Karon Thackston, and I can completely relate.
| | | | | Not a problem for me... | Feb 15 |
I will become a post-editor. Doesn't bother me.
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:20
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Then keep on trucking | Feb 15 |
Christopher Schröder wrote:
I simply don't want to do it.
I just don't want to waste my life doing that.
If you still have the emotional and financial wherewithal to be able to say "I don't want to do X, or Y, or Z" then I would argue that you must be in pretty comfortable circumstances. If that is the case, there is nothing wrong (potential boiling frog situations aside) with being selective and indeed, continuing to do exactly what you have been doing!
But evidently the person who started the thread has not had that kind of success in this particular career.
Dan
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Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 03:20
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
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Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL wrote:
I will become a post-editor. Doesn't bother me.
Me neither. I'm even at the point that I enjoy it as much as conventional translation.
The biggest challenge ahead will not be being productive doing it (I am), but receiving enough job offers to equal my expected turnover. If you charge 30% less, you will need 30% more work.
I also strongly believe that MTPE will become a necessity for every fulltime freelancer, apart from some happy (very) few.
[Bijgewerkt op 2024-02-15 13:44 GMT]
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:20
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
Denis Danchenko wrote:
How do we capitalize on the second-nature level of mastery?
If I ever reach that level I'll let you know. I'm still learning.
Dan
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Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL wrote:
I will become a post-editor. Doesn't bother me.
Ditto.
The drawback is that I get the feeling at this point (anecdotally) that the public* perception of AI is that it probably doesn't really need any post editing, particularly into English. It can be deceptively impressive-looking. Especially if it is prompted properly to use certain terminology, etc.
*public including direct clients
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