| 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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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!
I've seen a couple of translators moving from being sustainability translators into non-translation roles in sustainability just recently, which tells me there are more options than just burger flipping. Translators have plenty of transferrable skills and many of us have kept on developing our people skills along the way. The ability to write coherently is useful in almost any field.
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Lefteris Kritikakis wrote:
. 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.
The term debenture is a bit woolly and means different things in different countries. In the UK they would be secured.
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Rachel Waddington wrote: 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! I've seen a couple of translators moving from being sustainability translators into non-translation roles in sustainability just recently, which tells me there are more options than just burger flipping. Translators have plenty of transferrable skills and many of us have kept on developing our people skills along the way. The ability to write coherently is useful in almost any field.
I think Baran is joking…
I’m not sure we have many transferable skills. The ability to write is worth little in itself. Ditto googling and typing. They’re not exactly high-end, highly paid skills.
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Christopher Schröder wrote: The term debenture is a bit woolly and means different things in different countries. In the UK they would be secured.
Not in a US prospectus, they're unsecured bonds in the US. Another example would be the term used by Greek translators for "prospectus", they call it "informative pamphlet". I never correct it because it's dominant now, but it's not accurate for the US (over here it's considered part of a contract, you can't even speak about securities to a client without carrying the prospectus). I'm Series 6, 63 licensed by the way (from my days in the industry).
But back in the translation industry, since when did we become linguists? There are many linguists who don't speak a second language (their primary study field is different than translating anything). Translator is something different and yet, all of a sudden, agencies wanted to add a bit of veneer and renamed us. Welcome to Jim's Auto Service, this is Mark, Chief Low-Viscosity Anti-Friction Engineer (the guy who changes the oil).
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| Mostly it's who you know | Feb 13 |
Rachel Waddington wrote:
Translators have plenty of transferrable skills and many of us have kept on developing our people skills along the way.
Close friend of my ex-wife got hired in a high position in a non-for-profit (ironically, $175,000/year). Because she knew people from the political party. And even in average jobs, it's who you know (inside references work). Translators can have excellent people skills (each one is different), but if you don't know lots of people, you're just a resume to be shredded by the AI pro-recruiting machine. It's not just translators, everybody is in the same class - do you know many people with certain powers in certain positions or not?
The late wife of a friend was working at BoA for 30 years, in the beginning she had been hired through a friend. The job requirements had been "master's in finance", and she only had a BA in English Lit. She learned at the job (not really a demanding position... more like registry keeping), but she was hired the same way most are hired in such institutions: inside references and inside preferences. I won't even mention DEI and all that new stuff...
There's another trend, if you have noticed: Companies are posting fake ads for positions that don't exist. They want to show their shareholders that they're growing and hiring personnel. They're not hiring anybody.
On the topic, agencies have started sending emails for a "XX pages project rather urgent" or a "large contract", and they won't send you even a sample unless they pass you through complete on-boarding (a boatload of papers, including tax papers). They're just fishing for available resumes, the projects are either fake or nobody else wants to do them. When it's genuine, they always send me either the whole thing or a few pages and a proposed budged (if it's urgent, no time to shop around for days...).
If translators had common sense, they would all go on a "vacation strike" for only 3 weeks. See what happens.
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Baran Keki wrote:
I really wonder what else one can do after having killed their 'people skills' by staying at home for 11 years.
Translators often compare themselves on proz with plumbers, so why don't become a plumber then? Most craft man don't have people skills either and they can literally bath in a high demand. So why not doing real screw work instead of screwing foreign words into native words?
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:39
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| The way of the world | Feb 13 |
Alas, Lefteris, the whole world operates on that basis.
Strikes can be very effective if they are tightly organised. See, for example, the recent Hollywood Writers' strike. We all heard about it!
How could a translators' strike be organised? This is worth thinking about.
[Edited at 2024-02-13 21:52 GMT]
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Tom in London wrote:
Alas, Lefteris, the whole world operates on that basis.
Strikes can be very effective if they are tightly organised.
I know, I wasn't really thinking of a "combative" strike like the Hollywood writers... more like a vacation dressed in apathy. A playful absence, "what can you do without us, let's play".
Capitalism relies on a certain level of laziness (if you work too hard, your wage will start to fall at some point, along with everyone else's). Ever since we started working from home, it's been a competition of "who will sleep less and charge the least". And it's not "working from home" anymore. It's "I'm living in my office".
Many many things to consider... that the machines are grabbing content without anyone's permission to use it to replace writers, translators, musicians... is that theft? Jaron Lanier described how their own invention in Silicon Valley (the "sharing economy") destroyed middle class musicians (not only he admitted it, he was the first to talk about it in public). He apologized to the translators. He is sounding the alarm of the destruction of the creative class (painters and creative photographers are being destroyed as we speak).
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Baran Keki 
Türkiye
Local time: 09:39
Member
English to Turkish
Matthias Brombach wrote:
Translators often compare themselves on proz with plumbers, so why don't become a plumber then? Most craft man don't have people skills either and they can literally bath in a high demand. So why not doing real screw work instead of screwing foreign words into native words?
This involves 'transferable skills' as well, doesn't it? If you've translated enough technical texts about sanitation and plumbing, that is? Though, personally, I'd choose law! I've translated enough privacy and cookie policies and I knows all the legal loopholes and pitfalls when it comes to NDAs. I could make a killing, if only I had the bottle...
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Matthias Brombach wrote:
Plumber
Miss you around here, Matthias!
| | | | Jo Macdonald
Spain
Local time: 08:39
Italian to English
+ ...
I took the same decision last year and branched out into other things I can do while still doing linguistic work as it's worthwhile enough to keep translating, transcreating, subtitling.
The most successful so far has been renting the house so the plan is to get another as soon as I find the right one and have the cash. Renting the camper van looks like it just works in the warmer months, voice over I'm still getting started, finished studio setup and got an impressively low noise floor (... See more I took the same decision last year and branched out into other things I can do while still doing linguistic work as it's worthwhile enough to keep translating, transcreating, subtitling.
The most successful so far has been renting the house so the plan is to get another as soon as I find the right one and have the cash. Renting the camper van looks like it just works in the warmer months, voice over I'm still getting started, finished studio setup and got an impressively low noise floor (-84 db) but now have to get my decent mic repaired, prepping demos in the meantime.
All the best with the new move. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 09:39
Member
English to Turkish
Jo Macdonald wrote:
The most successful so far has been renting the house so the plan is to get another as soon as I find the right one and have the cash. Renting the camper van looks like it just works in the warmer months
When I was in the last year of university and had absolutely no idea what I would do, or be capable of doing, professionally, my cousin (who's a bit of nutcase) would suggest that I become a 'shipowner' and get involved in maritime shipping, as if acquiring ocean-going vessels and building a shipping business was one of the easiest things a 23 year old, fresh out of university (having studied international relations), could have done. Of course, he was saying that because the Turkish word for 'shipowner' sounded very funny and called the mind the word 'Gaylord' in Turkish.
Renting your house (if memory serves me right, you were offering your house free of charge to Ukrainian refugees about 2 years ago, times must have got hard since then?), and getting another one to rent, as well as renting your van are all very well, and best of luck to you with all those ventures, but what if you don't have any houses or vans to rent?
If I left translation today, I'd probably become a licensed football scout or agent, and shift useless flops to European clubs. They seem to have shit loads of money to burn on overrated players that they see on Youtube or Instagram. Just a food for thought.
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Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:39
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Horses for courses | Feb 14 |
Matthias Brombach wrote:
Translators often compare themselves on proz with plumbers, so why don't become a plumber then?
I know yours was a tongue-in-cheek comment, but not everybody can become a plumber. Having watched tradesmen build my house, and do various bits of work to it since it was completed 10 years ago, the importance of natural aptitude has become increasingly clear to me.
When I was at school we had woodworking classes, which I quite enjoyed. My mother still has a wonky breadboard that I made when I was about 12 years old. The fact is that I was rubbish at woodwork, for whatever reason, and I'm not good with mechanical things (though I like messing around with them). Other boys had an innate understanding, a kind of insight into what they did that I never had. Their intelligence was in their hands and the way their minds perceived what they held and manipulated. I excelled in the academic side of things, and would have been a disaster as a mechanic, or a carpenter.
Ability is so much broader than a facility with words or numbers, which is what people tend to think of these days when they consider intelligence. Most people working in what we think of as a white-collar profession would flounder in a trade. And those trades are often very well paid, and are never going to be automated.
Dan
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:39
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Lefteris Kritikakis wrote:
-----the machines are grabbing content without anyone's permission to use it to replace writers, translators, musicians...
People are capitalism's biggest problem. People are expensive, they complain, they're unpredictable, they become unwell, they expect holidays, etc.
So getting rid of people, wherever possible, is the goal. Not only in translation, but everywhere else too. As you may have noticed.
| | | | Jo Macdonald
Spain
Local time: 08:39
Italian to English
+ ...
| We're all in a unique personal situation | Feb 14 |
Baran I don't have answers for you or anyone else, we're all in a unique personal situation.
Just saying what has worked (or not) for me so far and that we can make use of the resources we have, including experience as professionals, managing our own time, finding something that might also work in a few years when retired.
Personally I have a tendency not to think of other possibilities such as living on the road for years until I try it. Same was true for having people I didn... See more Baran I don't have answers for you or anyone else, we're all in a unique personal situation.
Just saying what has worked (or not) for me so far and that we can make use of the resources we have, including experience as professionals, managing our own time, finding something that might also work in a few years when retired.
Personally I have a tendency not to think of other possibilities such as living on the road for years until I try it. Same was true for having people I didn't know in the house. Until the girls from Kyiv needed a place to stay when they got bombed out I didn't think I'd like someone else in my place but it was fine, so last spring I started thinking about renting the place out for money instead, and the van too, and invested a lot of time and quite a bit of money to set up a small rental business. The Airbnb is going well, the van not so much, but I know I need to be prepared to try things and accept that some might work, others not so much, others not at all. After all we've had to adapt since day 1 on this planet and it's one of the things we're supposed to be good at.
Other things I've tried over the last two years.
Copy/content writing, got me some good transcreation jobs but just a bit of copywriting.
Mentoring: lot of fun. ▲ Collapse
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