Posted in Freelancing on February 18, 2008 | No Comments »
A few years ago, I wrote an article for NewsForge about Linux consultants, and in the course of researching the article, I interviewed Sean Reifschneider, the founder of Colorado-based Linux consultancy tummy.com ltd.. When I asked Sean to compare working for someone else with working for himself, he said “At the large company [I worked [...]
Posted in Links, Nubbin, Technology on February 15, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Although multilingual websites are in general a good thing, kudos to web strategist Jeremiah Owyang for calling social media powerhouse Facebook on its use of “crowdsourcing” rather than professional translation services for the newly released Spanish version of its website (French and German versions are reported to be in the works.) As one comment [...]
Posted in Freelancing on February 15, 2008 | 4 Comments »
I love to read lists of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on topics that interest me, so I thought that I would periodically post some freelance translation FAQs. The questions are based on my experience and opinions and those of translators I’ve worked with and taught. Feel free to add your own thoughts in the Comments [...]
Posted in Links, Nubbin, Technology on February 14, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Freelance Translators From Scratch is running a number of interesting posts about my book
How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator. Although the book has been out for about a year and a half (and I’m brainstorming about the second edition!) it seems to have gathered a lot of momentum lately; maybe everyone who’s in love [...]
Posted in Humor, Links on February 13, 2008 | 3 Comments »
As translators, I think we often feel that we have toughest job in the document workflow; we don’t get to choose what to write, but we have to make the translation sound at least as good as the original and deal with issues like cultural connotations, idioms and untranslatable linguistic tricks.
On the other hand, here’s [...]
Posted in Announcements on February 13, 2008 | No Comments »
My good friend and excellent colleague Eve Bodeux has just launched a new boutique translation company catering to the specific needs of the outdoor and adventure sports industries, the aptly named Adventure Translators. I’m going to be working with her as Chief Translator; Eve has run a very successful localization company, Bodeux International for many [...]
Posted in Freelancing, Marketing on February 12, 2008 | No Comments »
I receive a lot of inquiries from people who would like to become translators, and most of these e-mails have something to do with finding those first few elusive translation clients. If you ask 100 translators how they got started in the business, you’ll probably get at least 50 different answers. Some picked up the [...]
Posted in Freelancing, Links, Technology on February 12, 2008 | No Comments »
About Translation’s most recent post is an excellent summary of translation client rating services. These forums, which are either e-mail lists or websites, can help both beginning and established translators determine whether a translation client is a reliable payer. Definitely worth a visit!
Posted in Links, Nubbin, Technology on February 11, 2008 | No Comments »
Naomi de Moraes just posted some excellent introductory information on text-to-speech (TTS) tools on the blog of the ATA Language Technology Division. Most translators are familiar with speech-to-text tools such as Dragon Naturally Speaking, which allow you to dictate your translations. Text-to-speech tools are the opposite; software that reads text to you. Naomi’s post has [...]
Posted in Freelancing, Technology on February 11, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Since I launched my freelance business in 2002, I have used free and open source software almost exclusively. This model has worked very well for me, and I think that it’s enabled me to work better, faster and more affordably than if I had used the proprietary software equivalents. There are some not so lofty [...]
