5 Winning Strategies for Getting Work

Whether you are looking for more work or just different work, the following 5 strategies are great ways to diversify your client base or take the plunge into becoming a full-time freelance translation business owner.

56th ATA Conference: Should I Go?

In the past week alone, three of my freelancer clients have asked me this question since the rates go up again on October 16. Let me start by giving you every translator’s favorite answer…it depends. Come on, you knew that was coming! Don’t worry, here’s a breakdown of my thoughts on who should go, when it’s […]

How Much Am I Worth?

This might sound like a really complex question and, in some ways, it is. On the other hand, it can be boiled down to one really simple statement: You’re worth whatever someone will pay you. If you believe you’re worth $0.40/word, that’s awesome. I hope you are. If no one will pay you $0.40/word, guess […]

Technology: Embrace It or Get Left Behind

There’s a lot of resistance to machines in the translation industry and some of that resistance is for valid reasons. Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) tools were introduced to improve both quality and productivity. Translation agencies then began capitalizing on that by asking translators for discounts. Being asked for a discount doesn’t feel good. It might even […]

OCR Tools: Coping with PDF Files

As a medical translator, I work with a LOT of PDF files. I probably use my OCR tool up to 10 times per day and I’m fairly certain that at this point, I couldn’t work without it. However, it took some time before I figured out exactly how to get the most out of it […]

Dragon NaturallySpeaking: Twice the Product, Half the Effort

Dragon Naturally Speaking is gaining ground in the translation industry. I attended a session on Dragon given by Tom Fennell and Andrew Levine at the last ATA conference in October, which really made me realize how much I am under-utilizing the program. Then in December, Mario Chávez reviewed Dragon in the ATA Chronicle from the perspective of medical translation and handling PDF documents. After recently editing a few documents obviously done with dictation software, I started pondering how this tool fits into a translator’s workflow and how it is best used to increase productivity while avoiding the pitfalls.

Automation: The Key to Translation Speed

Translating faster isn’t about rushing. It’s about saving time on everything else. As translators we perform so many time-consuming tasks without realizing it that it is all too easy to wonder where your day went. Here are some tricks I use to help automate what I can so I can spend my time translating.