| 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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James Greenfield 
United Kingdom
Local time: 16:42
Member (2013)
French to English
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I've been a freelance translator for 11 years. I've really struggled though to make a living. I've seen a trend to increasingly low rates and I fear that this will get worse. I've come to the point where I've practically given up and am looking for work elsewhere.
If I do get job emails it's asking me if I might be available for an upcoming project that then gets cancelled or is at a silly rate. I send my CV to good agencies and get rejected time and time again.
| | | | | I know what you mean | Feb 13 |
I've worked as a freelance translator in the past, but for the past 11 years I've been working in-house. I am also considering doing something entirely different as new in-house jobs are so hard to find and I'm worried about the impact of machine translation on our line of work.
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I know & know of about a dozen Fr-Eng translators in the last year/18 months with perhaps 200 years of combined experience (most of them have been around for 20 years or more) who have left translation entirely or turned it into a part-time affair while they do other things.
I work(ed) with 4 agencies fairly regularly (plus some direct work). I was reminding them I exist in Jan (meilleurs vœux email, you know the thing) and 3 of them just outright stated that 2023 had been a disast... See more I know & know of about a dozen Fr-Eng translators in the last year/18 months with perhaps 200 years of combined experience (most of them have been around for 20 years or more) who have left translation entirely or turned it into a part-time affair while they do other things.
I work(ed) with 4 agencies fairly regularly (plus some direct work). I was reminding them I exist in Jan (meilleurs vœux email, you know the thing) and 3 of them just outright stated that 2023 had been a disaster.
I guess I'll add you to my mental list. I do think it probably varies with language pairs and areas of expertise (& indeed client type - a lot of mine are heavily into IT matters, so if they haven't tested various AI options, I'd be astonished), but I do think for the likes of us, as it were, times are indeed pretty tough. And yes, I've had a downturn too. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Carole Wolfe
United States
Local time: 10:42
Member (2006)
Russian to English
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| New kind of job posts | Feb 13 |
It is also disheartening to see jobs asking us translators to help improve internet ads and websites and to train bots to write better. To such postings, I say, "No thanks." They are expecting us to train our replacements and to earn peanuts while doing it.
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Gregory Thomas (X)
United States
Local time: 10:42
Member (2023)
English to Greek
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| Funny thing about MT... | Feb 13 |
...is that translators are trying to prove it wrong, by entering better translations. The MT then takes this better translation and enriches its database. The more you try to outsmart it, the better you make it.
If translators want to destroy MT, they should enter really bad translations in it, and then make their real corrections in the Word file for their client.
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 16:42
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
Bravely said, James. There is no shame in having come to such a conclusion. This is a difficult industry and anecdotal evidence on this forum suggests that even competent and experienced translators find it hard to connect with worthwhile clients (I know I do).
The idea that worthwhile clients also find it challenging to identify competent translators may not be much consolation to you, but it underlines how tricky it is to establish lasting business relationships in this market.... See more Bravely said, James. There is no shame in having come to such a conclusion. This is a difficult industry and anecdotal evidence on this forum suggests that even competent and experienced translators find it hard to connect with worthwhile clients (I know I do).
The idea that worthwhile clients also find it challenging to identify competent translators may not be much consolation to you, but it underlines how tricky it is to establish lasting business relationships in this market.
Then, as you say, there is the whole and hotly debated issue of whether translation in its traditional form can survive at all longer term.
If you can find a line of work that makes better use of your talents then by all means go for it; I wish you all the best. And of course, translation is the sort of thing that you can continue to do on the side if you wish to retain that link to your former career...
Regards,
Dan ▲ Collapse
| | | | James Greenfield
United Kingdom
Local time: 16:42
Member (2013)
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Thanks Gerard and Charlie | Feb 13 |
Times are indeed tough. I can see clearly there are many in the same boat. Yes, I too am looking at part-time work to keep myself afloat. I wish everyone the best. I'm just looking for the positives, for example that a part time job working in a cafe would be more social. All the best.
| | | | James Greenfield
United Kingdom
Local time: 16:42
Member (2013)
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks, yes I will continue to translate, even if it is just part time.
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 16:42
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| I actually do that | Feb 13 |
Lefteris Kritikakis wrote:
...is that translators are trying to prove it wrong, by entering better translations. The MT then takes this better translation and enriches its database. The more you try to outsmart it, the better you make it.
If translators want to destroy MT, they should enter really bad translations in it, and then make their real corrections in the Word file for their client.
I actually do that. In fact I'm off to do it some more. Thanks for reminding me!
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I had a meltdown last autumn after a couple of quiet months, decided AI was taking over and started looking at alternative jobs/careers.
From what I could see, the obvious alternatives (various forms of editing and writing) are under at least as much pressure from AI, also have no entry barriers and generally pay really badly, if at all.
Other options for me would be to retrain completely as an economist (or if completely desperate an accountant or financial adviser), ... See more I had a meltdown last autumn after a couple of quiet months, decided AI was taking over and started looking at alternative jobs/careers.
From what I could see, the obvious alternatives (various forms of editing and writing) are under at least as much pressure from AI, also have no entry barriers and generally pay really badly, if at all.
Other options for me would be to retrain completely as an economist (or if completely desperate an accountant or financial adviser), but it's quite late in the day for me to take that kind of plunge and I'm not at all sure I want to. I could also do something relatively unskilled instead. Either way, I would earn way less than I do now in the short term at least, and I would have a fraction of the freedom I currently enjoy.
I would certainly be interested in hearing about people who have moved into other lines of work and how it's gone.
The good news is that I've been snowed under again with translation and writing work since December, with loads more booked in for the coming months, so maybe it was just a periodic blip after all and the machines simply have no clothes (for now). ▲ Collapse
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Lefteris Kritikakis wrote:
...is that translators are trying to prove it wrong, by entering better translations. The MT then takes this better translation and enriches its database. The more you try to outsmart it, the better you make it.
If translators want to destroy MT, they should enter really bad translations in it,
From what I've seen of client TMs, that's exactly what human translators have been doing all these years without even trying.
| | | | Gregory Thomas (X)
United States
Local time: 10:42
Member (2023)
English to Greek
+ ...
| Don't blame yourself | Feb 13 |
a) You get rejected by other translators in said agencies, it's conflict of interest, they don't want to lose their cheese. There's no way around that.
b) Traditional translation is a shrinking market in both volume and rates. Even large agencies have been diversifying for years into other areas (legal services, HR, document management, AI, data collection, transcripts (which are now machine-editing too), etc).
c) The vast majority of translators are part-timers. If you were a full t... See more a) You get rejected by other translators in said agencies, it's conflict of interest, they don't want to lose their cheese. There's no way around that.
b) Traditional translation is a shrinking market in both volume and rates. Even large agencies have been diversifying for years into other areas (legal services, HR, document management, AI, data collection, transcripts (which are now machine-editing too), etc).
c) The vast majority of translators are part-timers. If you were a full timer for 11 years (I've been since 1996), it means you were good at it. But in this industry of obsessive secrecy, most things happen out of your control. A PM from a mid-size agency was telling me recently how frustrated they are themselves about pricing secrecy by their own potential clients.
Occasionally, a couple of "translators favorite to PMs" also quit or screw up, and work is directed back to the old teams, but it's temporary (and only for the "high visibility documents"). One of the reasons part-timers are also the happiest translators, less income fluctuations. Plus social interactions (a basic human need). And a feeling that even if you're in an industry with periodic layoffs (tech...), you're not the only one, and you're building a resume regardless. But you're not the only one here either. Quitting makes noise in tech, but over here it happens silently. ▲ Collapse
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Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 18:42
Member
English to Turkish
I really wonder what else one can do after having killed their 'people skills' by staying at home for 11 years. I guess they still need people to flip burgers... Best of luck!
| | | | Gregory Thomas (X)
United States
Local time: 10:42
Member (2023)
English to Greek
+ ...
| Depends on who writes it | Feb 13 |
Baran Keki wrote: I really wonder what else one can do after having killed their 'people skills' by staying at home for 11 years. I guess they still need people to flip burgers... Best of luck!
If you write it (which is what I have been saying too), it's fine. If I write it, they will say that I have poor time management skills.
| | | | Gregory Thomas (X)
United States
Local time: 10:42
Member (2023)
English to Greek
+ ...
| Sure, but who reads it... | Feb 13 |
Christopher Schröder wrote: From what I've seen of client TMs, that's exactly what human translators have been doing all these years without even trying.
I was assigned to add about 1,000 words in a large prospectus. I noticed that the previous translator had translated "debentures" as the exact opposite product. I asked the PM and she told me to fix it throughout. The particular project ended. The previous translators had been paid dozens of thousands of words over the years, I was paid for my little share of 1000 words. The end-client never noticed anything before or after (who reads the prospectus in Greece anyway... people don't even read it in the US). The particular agency kept working with the old team, because the old translator convinced the PM that "debentures are not always this way" (!). She kept insisting that debentures are more often secured than not (!).
The PM had no idea what a stock share or bond is, let alone debentures. And this is not "one case", it's the norm. In other news, the leading PMs (department managers) of financial translations in one of the largest US agencies don't know what a CPA or ChFC is, and they had to Google it during a Zoom meeting (my Mexican landscaper knows: "CPA is the accountant" he says). This is the norm to which we are used. And then they established a rule, under which translations of veteran translators will be "rated" by complete newbies in the "cheap QA" role.
This industry is a la-la-land. This industry could fire a nuclear engineer (because he got angry and unpleasant when faced with happy-go-lucky secretaries dictating him his job), and they will hire a hair-dresser instead to run a nuclear station. Of course, if the end-clients had the option to chose the actual translators themselves, it'd be a different story. There is one Legal Office in London which insists on hiring me (through the large agency) every single time. But a couple of times when their partners were on vacation and that was not stated as a requirement, the PMs at the agency preferred someone else (at the same price! - but different gender). Then I had to fix errors in the subsequent rounds. La-la land.
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