The Savvy Newcomer aims to serve newcomers to the translation and interpreting professions by publishing high-quality, peer-reviewed content on a weekly basis. We strive to provide you with the answers to the many questions you face as a new or aspiring translator or interpreter.
Many language professionals start out doing their work “on the side” of whatever else they are doing in life. When people find out you are bilingual, you may be asked to do some volunteer interpreting to help out a friend, family member, or someone in need, or you may agree or be expected to do the occasional translation—and maybe even get paid for it. Volunteering and doing small side jobs are great ways to gain experience and improve your skills as a translator or interpreter. But in order to be a professional—whether you plan on doing this work part-time or…
Read MoreThis post originally appeared on The ATA Chronicle and it is republished with permission. While the demand for translation services is at a record high, many freelancers say their inflation-adjusted earnings seem to be declining. Why is this and can anything be done to reverse what some have labelled an irreversible trend? Over the past few years globalization has brought…
Read MoreThe Savvy Newcomer team has been taking stock of the past year and finding that one key priority for many freelance translators and interpreters has been diversification. Offering multiple services in different sectors or to different clients can help steady us when storms come. Diversification can help us hedge against hard times. With this in mind, we’ve invited a series…
Read MoreThis post originally appeared on Translation Times and it is republished with permission. We oftentimes get questions about how to get started in the profession, and that’s a long answer. Actually, part of this blog is dedicated to answering precisely that question, and we have a long list of articles that we’ve marked for beginners. However, a dear friend of…
Read MoreSavvy Diversification Series: From Text Translator to Film Subtitler in Just a Few Months
The Savvy Newcomer team has been taking stock of the past year and finding that one key priority for many freelance translators and interpreters has been diversification. Offering multiple services in different sectors or to different clients can help steady us when storms come. Diversification can help us hedge against hard times. With this in mind, we’ve invited a series…
Read MoreSetting a Fair Price: It’s All about You
This post originally appeared on The ATA Chronicle and it is republished with permission. We are freelancers. We don’t need to maximize profits for invisible stockholders, who tend to only care about their dividends or capital gains and not a whit about language or what we do. For us, the definition of being rich is not to want for anything.…
Read MoreThe Savvy Newcomer team has been taking stock of the past year and finding that one key priority for many freelance translators and interpreters has been diversification. Offering multiple services in different sectors or to different clients can help steady us when storms come. Diversification can help us hedge against hard times. We’ve invited a series of guest authors to…
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This post originally appeared on The ATA Chronicle and it is republished with permission. When it comes to reviewing copy, translators are often at what I like to refer to as “the very end of the line.” By the time copy is deemed ready for translation, it has usually been reviewed and edited by a plethora of people, including a…
Read MoreSavvy Diversification Series: Monolingual Editing
The Savvy Newcomer team has been taking stock of the past year and finding that one key priority for many freelance translators and interpreters has been diversification. Offering multiple services in different sectors or to different clients can help steady us when storms come. Diversification can help us hedge against hard times. With this in mind, we’ve invited a series…
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This post originally appeared on The ATA Chronicle and it is republished with permission. ATA’s certification exam was instituted in 1973. Its purpose is “to elevate professional standards, enhance individual performance, and identify translators who demonstrate professional level translation skills.”1 Every year, a large number of professional translators and aspiring translators take the exam in one of the 27 language…
Read MoreAs we are all trying to navigate our way through the disruptive changes that have taken place in our lives in the past year, it is particularly important to highlight the efforts of those making a difference in the day-to-day. In this article, the focus will be on two interpreters from Oregon working on language-related initiatives within their communities and…
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