Steps for setting yourself up as an independent translator
Define your niche: Identify your specialization or niche. Traditionally, the profession has featured three main areas: legal, medical, and technical. You can choose one of these routes or create your own based on your interests, previous experience, and education. Focusing on a specific niche can help you stand out and attract clients seeking expertise in that field.
Build a professional portfolio: Create a portfolio showcasing a brief professional bio and translation statement; your translation work, including samples relevant to your chosen niche; and helpful testimonies from clients and professional partners. Highlight your skills, education, experience, and expertise to help your capabilities shine.
Invest in professional development: Continuously improve your language proficiency, translation skills, knowledge of specialized terminology, and awareness of the profession. Attend workshops, sign up for courses, and go to conferences to stay updated on professional trends, developments, and effective practices.
Establish a business plan: Develop a comprehensive business plan outlining your goals, target market, pricing strategy, marketing tactics, and financial projections. A well-thought-out business plan will guide your business decisions and help you stay focused on your objectives. (See Small Business For Dummies for more information.)
Set up your workspace: Create a dedicated workspace conducive to productivity and concentration. Ensure that you have the necessary equipment, such as a reliable computer, a high-speed internet connection, ergonomic furniture, and perhaps translation software.
Market your services: Utilize various marketing channels to promote your translation services and reach potential clients and partners. Start by establishing a professional email address, and then create profiles on freelancing platforms, network with fellow translators and industry professionals, and leverage social media platforms to showcase your expertise. In time, develop a professional website.
Establish clear policies and contracts: Define your terms of service, including payment and related terms, any rush fees, project deadlines, and revision policies. Clearly communicate these policies to clients and professional partners in written agreements to provide clear expectations and protect your interests.
Manage finances wisely: Keep track of your income, expenses, and taxes to ensure financial stability and compliance with regulatory requirements. Consider investing in accounting software or hiring an accountant to manage your finances effectively.
Tips for using machine translation
Machine translation (MT) is a tool that people use to translate documents. Google Translate, DeepL Translator, and Bing Translator are all examples of MT tools. These tools are usually free, but beware that free often means the provider of the tool is keeping and reusing your information. Therefore, don’t give the MT tool any confidential or sensitive content. MT automatically translates a text from one language to another. Because MT tools are readily available and easy to use, they’re well known and accessed by people ranging from professional translators to individuals who aren’t aware of how the tool or translation works in general. Use MT critically. If you use MT in any way, especially in a professional setting, make sure you understand its role, address biases in its output text, be transparent about its use, and commit to continuous learning.
Here are essential tips for navigating the use of MT, along with strategies for thriving as a beginner in the field.
- Understanding MT’s role:
- MT automatically translates a text from one language to another. There are several MT tools, each one capable of producing different outputs, so try a few if you’re experimenting with MT.
- MT tools are created with a huge number of texts previously translated by human translators.
- MT doesn’t provide the same quality output across language pairs. The quality might be better for some language pairs, especially for more widely used languages.
- MT has the potential to provide benefits depending on the content, the language pair, and the quality of the input text. These benefits can include cost reduction and faster translation processes.
- Avoiding overreliance on MT:
- Always consider whether MT is a good choice for a given text.
- Ensure that MT complements human judgment instead of replacing it. MT could be part of your translation process, if appropriate, but not the entire translation process.
- Plan for a qualified human to check the MT output text.
- Know that overuse of MT in an irresponsible way compromises translation quality.
- Addressing biases in MT:
- Be aware of biases — especially gender biases — in MT output texts. Other biases include the use of singular versus plural for translation of the English you and the formality of a text.
- Be vigilant about maintaining translation integrity and accuracy.
- Transparency and continuous learning:
- Be transparent about the use of MT to future readers of the translation by labeling the text as a machine translation.
- Know that future clients might ask you about your use of MT.
- Be prepared to educate others about the responsible use of MT.
- Stay updated on AI-translation advancements and effective practices through professional organizations and other educational opportunities.
