| Only one way to go: excel at what you do | Nov 18, 2014 |
Hello sonyka,
Welcome to ProZ.com and the world of translating. It would be great to know a bit more about you so I'm hoping you'll give some more details on your profile. At the moment, it doesn't give potential clients anything to go on, but maybe you aren't here looking for clients.
Without knowing more, all I can say is that the way to succeed is to excel in what you do, and keep your self-respect by setting rates for your work that enable you to live decently. That... See more Hello sonyka,
Welcome to ProZ.com and the world of translating. It would be great to know a bit more about you so I'm hoping you'll give some more details on your profile. At the moment, it doesn't give potential clients anything to go on, but maybe you aren't here looking for clients.
Without knowing more, all I can say is that the way to succeed is to excel in what you do, and keep your self-respect by setting rates for your work that enable you to live decently. That means starting out gently, accepting jobs that you're sure you can do and rejecting others. Clearly you have to take a bit of a chance - you need to say "Yes, I can do that for you" to something - but don't accept anything too technical; with difficult formats; tight lead times; clients who ask for things that you don't entirely understand... Once you've done a good job, you'll have testimonials, repeat orders, samples to display (if not too confidential), something for your CV, etc. After a while you'll get to know what you do best and can then start to specialise a little, though with your language pairs maybe being a generalist is okay. On the subject of language pairs, please note that we normally (based on this idea of excelling) work into our native language. In some circumstances it's feasible to work in the opposite pair, but never from one foreign language into another.
If you're to excel, you need the best knowledge possible. That means knowledge of both languages, clearly, with excellent writing skills in your target language. But you also need knowledge of the subject area in both languages, and the techniques of translation itself. Then there are IT skills - they're very important (unfortunately ). As most translators are freelancers we also need to know the basics of how to run a small business: some idea of marketing, negotiating, invoicing, payment chasing, bookkeeping...
It follows from the above, and from the job itself, that one of the most important skills we require is the ability to research everything. This is a good place to hone those skills .
Personally, I came to this job as a seasoned entrepreneur, so I already had a lot of those skills. Is that the case with you? ▲ Collapse
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