Work As A Freelance Translator
If you know at least two languages very well, you could use your linguistic abilities to make money by working as a freelancetranslator. Of course more languages you know well the better your chances of success.
What Is Required of A Freelance Translator?
While you may not require a PhD in languages for success in this work, you do need to be highly proficient in both the languages involved in the work.
This is because translating a simple business letter from say English to German may not be that difficult but translating a legal document would be something else again. Here you are required not only to understand clearly the legal terms of the original document but also to be able to express the same meaning in another language without adding or subtracting anything.
While it would be great to be able to do all types of translation work, you can find work that suits your abilities such as letters, articles, books or product user manuals.
So first find out what type of translation work you can do with ease and proficiency and concentrate on finding that kind of work.
As your skills develop with experience you can take on a number of translation jobs that require more work while paying you a greater reward for your services.
So Where Do You Find Translation Work?
Local Opportunities for a Freelance Translator:
First look at the companies in your area which specialize in
translation work. Don’t hesitate to approach them thinking that they would already have full-time translators working for them. Such companies may possibly use your services for a rush job when their regular translators are busy with some other work or don’t have the skills that you have.
When contacting such a company, don’t just tell them what kind of translation work you do, include some samples of your work also to help them judge your ability.
Internet:
Another place to look for translation work is the internet. Such sites as guru.com and elance.com are the places for finding translation and other online work.
Use Google and Yahoo groups to find people interested in translation work. One such group that readily comes to mind is Yahoo Translation Jobs Group.. Don’t limit yourself to one group, look at other such groups to find those which meet your needs.
Another way to find translation work is to join work exchange sites which bring together translators and prospective employers for specific jobs. Here also a search on the internet is sure to yield quite a number of results. In addition to job postings, some such sites have a number of free articles on translation work which you will find useful.
Translation Tools
Besides good dictionaries, what makes your life as a translator a lot easier is a CAT (Computer Aided Translation) tool. While a number of such tools are available at a price, OmegaT from SourceForge.net is a free resource used by many professional translators.
Another free resource that you may find helpful is Free Online Language Translator from WorldLingo. Though this free version is limited to a certain number of words for text, webpage and email translation it is a nifty tool for translation work in 15 languages.
Resources:
Translation Tool – Free Download
How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator
by Corinne McKay
A Practical Guide for Translators (Topics in Translation, 13)
by Geoffrey Samuelsson-Brown
Working as a freelance translator has good prospects because with globalization of trade and commerce, people with good translation skills are likely to find jobs in various trade and commerce organizations.
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