The GITS Blog

The other day, I received the following inquiry from a translation agency: Hello, Would you be available to edit a 800 word Japanese file into English today? I will need it back asap. Rate:$35 Kind Regards [Name withheld] Let's play "spot the problems": When an email doesn't address me by name, it's spam until proven [...]

A lot of times when I read about translation, the author seems to treat the writer and audience as abstract entities. The document often deals with translating some magazine or newspaper article, with no input from the author and only a general understanding of who the audience is. I suppose that this simplifies things, but [...]

An acquaintance who owns a translation agency was complaining to me the other day about the pool of freelancers who send him applications. He claims that he wants top-quality translators, but so many mediocre ones apply that he can't sift through all the noise. He keeps creating stricter screening procedures in the hopes of filtering [...]

One of the nice things about being a freelancer is that you can earn as much as you're worth, rather than what somebody thinks you ought to earn. Over on the Honyaku mailing list, however, "Captain Adam" doesn't think that translators should earn more than $75,000 per year: In my opinion, a good translator is [...]

A lot of translators who are starting out, or who haven't yet achieved the level of income that they want, ask about what fields of translation have the highest demand. They choose a field of specialization based on potential income instead of interest. I don't agree with that approach. I prefer to translate in a [...]

Corinne McKay over at Thoughts on Translation has an interesting post about how long it took her to become established as a freelance translator. I was going to write this as a comment to her post, but this got a little long so I moved it over here. I started freelancing when I was in [...]

A job offer was recently posted to the Honyaku mailing list, looking for a translator for a book by a Japanese researcher into English. The offered rate was ¥7,600 per 200 English words. That works out to ¥38 per word, or according to the XE.com Universal Currency Converter, US $0.42/word at today's exchange rate (31 [...]

Flow is defined in Wikipedia as "… the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity." I knew about flow before I knew about the concept of flow. I [...]

Faxes used to be an essential tool for translators, but they seem to be going the way of the dodo these days. Back when faxes were on thermal paper and I got most of my translation documents via fax, having a fax-to-email service was a godsend. It was quicker and cheaper, the faxes were easier [...]

Photo by Steve Wampler A lot of translators charge lower rates than they could otherwise get, especially when they're starting out. There are a few possible reasons for this; here are a couple. Lack of knowledge about the market Desire to get more work Desire to avoid haggling Lack of confidence Lack of knowledge about [...]