I had a rare day off yesterday and decided to get a long-overdue eye exam out of the way. It had been several years since my last exam, but since our current insurance plan covers vision exams and we are switching to a high-deductible health plan with an HSA next year I decided to bite the bullet and made a last-minute appointment.
To my dismay, I left with a prescription for computer glasses in my hand and a diagnosis of Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS) having had 20/20 vision just three years ago. I had had an inkling that my vision was gradually getting worse as my eyes had occasionally felt strained, especially late at night after working several hours in a row. I had also been forgetting to follow the 20/20/20 rule: Every 20 minutes, look away from your screen for 20 seconds to an object 20 feet away. (Lots of tips and a great deal of other information on CVS can be found at this website)
I certainly wish now that I had been more proactive in taking care of my eyesight in the past, and I am now looking for technology that will remind me to take regular breaks. Feel free to comment if you have any recommendations.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Back in the saddle
What better way to mark my return to work on an overcast Monday morning than with a chuckle? A former colleague sent me this link to an article in The Daily Telegraph about a humourous mistranslation that was sent out on the Reuters news wire. Enjoy!
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Maternity Leave
As you may know, I have been on a blogging hiatus and not accepting new translation assignments for the past couple of months for personal reasons: I gave birth to our second child on 23rd July. I thought it might be useful for fellow translators to learn more about how I handled maternity leave.
After my 20-week ultrasound I contacted my largest clients who I work with on a regular, sometimes weekly or even daily, basis. I let them know that I would not be available from 1 July with a provisional return date of 1 October. I decided to stop working at 38 weeks to avoid letting any clients down if I went into labour early. This two-week buffer also gave me time to complete any tasks around the office (preparing my quarterly tax filing, finalizing invoices etc.). A provisional return date also gives me the flexibility to start working again earlier if necessary.
I also felt that it was important to provide each of these key clients with the name of a fellow translator who I felt comfortable recommending. Alternatively I offered to assist them if they wished to find their own short-term replacement. I have a longstanding personal relationship with these clients and feel confident that they will be using my services again upon my return.
A couple of months later I got in touch with my other clients to inform them that I would not be available over the summer months. These tended to be customers who I do not work with on a frequent basis and who might not have needed a translation over the summer in any case.
While on maternity leave I have also been keeping up with the latest developments in the environmental, and specifically waste management, field. I have caught up on reading journals that had piled up in the office and have also been scanning newspapers and translation websites to stay in the loop.
I plan to get in touch with my clients a few days before I return to work officially to remind them that I am now available again. I do not anticipate that they will be able to tell any difference in the service that they receive: As after the birth of my daughter, I have childcare arrangements in place to allow me to focus on work and work alone. I will be more scrupulous about which assignments I accept for the remainder of this year. In the same vein, I have stepped down from the interaktiv editorial team and have decided not to run for re-election as a member of the MICATA Board. I hope to be in a position to stand for election again in 2010/2011. I might also be blogging less frequently over the coming months.
Unfortunately I will be unable to attend the ATA conference this year, but I am already looking forward to Denver in 2010.
After my 20-week ultrasound I contacted my largest clients who I work with on a regular, sometimes weekly or even daily, basis. I let them know that I would not be available from 1 July with a provisional return date of 1 October. I decided to stop working at 38 weeks to avoid letting any clients down if I went into labour early. This two-week buffer also gave me time to complete any tasks around the office (preparing my quarterly tax filing, finalizing invoices etc.). A provisional return date also gives me the flexibility to start working again earlier if necessary.
I also felt that it was important to provide each of these key clients with the name of a fellow translator who I felt comfortable recommending. Alternatively I offered to assist them if they wished to find their own short-term replacement. I have a longstanding personal relationship with these clients and feel confident that they will be using my services again upon my return.
A couple of months later I got in touch with my other clients to inform them that I would not be available over the summer months. These tended to be customers who I do not work with on a frequent basis and who might not have needed a translation over the summer in any case.
While on maternity leave I have also been keeping up with the latest developments in the environmental, and specifically waste management, field. I have caught up on reading journals that had piled up in the office and have also been scanning newspapers and translation websites to stay in the loop.
I plan to get in touch with my clients a few days before I return to work officially to remind them that I am now available again. I do not anticipate that they will be able to tell any difference in the service that they receive: As after the birth of my daughter, I have childcare arrangements in place to allow me to focus on work and work alone. I will be more scrupulous about which assignments I accept for the remainder of this year. In the same vein, I have stepped down from the interaktiv editorial team and have decided not to run for re-election as a member of the MICATA Board. I hope to be in a position to stand for election again in 2010/2011. I might also be blogging less frequently over the coming months.
Unfortunately I will be unable to attend the ATA conference this year, but I am already looking forward to Denver in 2010.
New issue of interaktiv
The summer issue of interaktiv is now online. Unfortunately, I have recently had to scale back my volunteer translation activities for reasons that I will go into in my next blog post. This issue includes some truly wonderful articles that are well worth reading.
While you are there, check out the German Language Division website, which has undergone a major revamp thanks to the efforts of GLD webmaster and fellow blogger Michael Wahlster. Great job, Michael!
While you are there, check out the German Language Division website, which has undergone a major revamp thanks to the efforts of GLD webmaster and fellow blogger Michael Wahlster. Great job, Michael!
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Read all about it!
One of the many pleasurable aspects of working on the interaktiv editorial team was that it forced me to set aside time to read translation-related publications in an effort to find articles worth reprinting. Here is a list of just a few of the links that I bookmarked during my quest for suitable articles. Leave me a comment if you know of any translation publications that I have missed and I will update the list accordingly. Happy reading!
ATA Chapter Newsletters
CATI Quarterly
MATI InforMATIon
MICATA Monitor
MiTiN Newsletter
NCATA The Capital Translator
NCTA Translorial (registration required)
NOTA NOTA Bene
NOTIS The Northwest Linguist
NYCT The Gotham Translator
ATA Division Newsletters
Other English-language journals
CTA Newsletter
FIT Translatio
Institute of Translation and Interpreting Bulletin (subscription required; selected articles available under ITI Bulletin)
Irish Translators and Interpreters Association Bulletin
Journal of Specialised Translation
NAJIT Proteus (selected articles available to non-members under Publications)
Society for Technical Communication Intercom (selected articles available to non-members)
Translation Journal
German-language publications
ADÜ Nord Infoblatt (under Publikationen)
ATICOM Forum
BDÜ Landesverband NRW BDÜ info NRW
BDÜ Landesverband Bremen und Niedersachsen e.V. Transrelations
BDÜ Landesverband Berlin-Brandenburg Berliner Rundbrief
Hieronymus
Tekom tcworld (requires free subscription)
ATA Chapter Newsletters
CATI Quarterly
MATI InforMATIon
MICATA Monitor
MiTiN Newsletter
NCATA The Capital Translator
NCTA Translorial (registration required)
NOTA NOTA Bene
NOTIS The Northwest Linguist
NYCT The Gotham Translator
ATA Division Newsletters
Other English-language journals
CTA Newsletter
FIT Translatio
Institute of Translation and Interpreting Bulletin (subscription required; selected articles available under ITI Bulletin)
Irish Translators and Interpreters Association Bulletin
Journal of Specialised Translation
NAJIT Proteus (selected articles available to non-members under Publications)
Society for Technical Communication Intercom (selected articles available to non-members)
Translation Journal
German-language publications
ADÜ Nord Infoblatt (under Publikationen)
ATICOM Forum
BDÜ Landesverband NRW BDÜ info NRW
BDÜ Landesverband Bremen und Niedersachsen e.V. Transrelations
BDÜ Landesverband Berlin-Brandenburg Berliner Rundbrief
Hieronymus
Tekom tcworld (requires free subscription)
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Two new environmental translation blogs
Eagle-eyed blog readers will notice a couple of new additions to my blog reader that focus on environmental translation:
Translating for the Environment is a relatively new blog written by Kelly Wester, a Spanish-English environmental translator.
Over the past week I have also been enjoying reading Always Greener: Notes from an American on the other side, Craig Morris' very informative blog with an emphasis on renewable energy.
Happy reading!
Translating for the Environment is a relatively new blog written by Kelly Wester, a Spanish-English environmental translator.
Over the past week I have also been enjoying reading Always Greener: Notes from an American on the other side, Craig Morris' very informative blog with an emphasis on renewable energy.
Happy reading!
Thursday, April 23, 2009
FAQ: Finding Paid Work
Q: How can I find paid work as an environmental translator?
A: As I have mentioned in the past, only a very small number of environmental protection organisations have a translation budget so the specialist environmental translator has to cast his or her net wider in the search to build up a customer base. As in the last article, none of these ideas are particularly earth-shattering, but are worth considering for someone thinking of entering the environmental translation market.
Shortly before I made the transition from being an in-house to freelance translator, I spent some time brainstorming about who might need environmental translations (more specifically translations pertaining to waste management in my case) that were not highly technical and also be able to afford my rates. Incidentally, I also held a presentation about the opportunities for environmental translators at our local ATA chapter's 2008 symposium and will be happy to share my PowerPoint presentation with anyone who sends me an e-mail. I also highly recommend reading Patrick Oblander's article in the March 2009 ATA Chronicle entitled "Environmental Translation: Market Overview".
My brainstorming session produced the following groups of customers:
1) Big players outside the environmental field
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports are, at least in my experience, one of the hottest trends within the environmental translation field right now. Towards the late 1990s, businesses started putting out environmental reports, basically boasting how many gallons of water, tonnes of waste and greenhouse gas emissions they had saved over the past year. Some would say that not much has changed since then. These documents have now largely been replaced with CSR reports which are traditionally published yearly together with annual financial reports. The scope of these reports has also gradually been widened to cover what is referred to as the triple bottom line (also known as people, planet, profit), meaning that businesses are judged not only on their financial results, but also on their social and environmental performance. CSR reports are not restricted to companies providing environmental services, either. Just a glimpse at Corporate Register.com shows that BAE Systems, the Inter-American Bank and HP are among the companies that have published CSRs in the past month or so. It is generally hard to land these kinds of projects as an independent contractor. In my experience, many large businesses subcontract these projects to translation agencies or groups of translators given the number of languages and size of files involved.
2) Environmental services providers
In addition to the CSR reports, large multinational companies that provide environmental services also have a whole host of documents that need to be translated. It is also worth remembering that a lot of small and medium-sized companies are now looking to expand across their borders and generally have a lot of company brochures, annual reports and similar materials that they want translated beforehand. As well as press releases and other corporate communications documents, these businesses often have internal documents that they want to share with employees at their various branches, providing a steady flow of work once you have your foot in the door.
3) Consulting firms, trade journals and research institutes
Consulting firms and research institutes also invest a great deal of money on projects and then want to share their results as broadly as possible. These documents can range from run-of-the-mill press releases and websites to highly technical academic research papers. It is also worthwhile researching what the large trade journals are in your specific field of the environmental market and seeing if they have foreign-language editions (if only for terminology research purposes).
4) Government institutions
National and local governments also constitute a large source of government work. The spectrum ranges from multinational environmental agreements to city government flyers for minority populations. The approaches to finding government customers vary as substantially as the rates they pay: For instance, some high-level government institutions, especially in Europe, issue calls for bids for translation services on an annual or biannual basis, while others subcontract work to translation agencies. It is worth contacting the public relations office and simply asking how they go about finding translators.
5) Translation agencies
Of course, translation agencies should not be forgotten. In reality, translation agencies only make up a very small percentage of my income as I have found that I much prefer working with direct clients for a number of reasons. I only take on non-environmental agency projects in very rare cases and have let most agencies that I have worked with in the past know that I specialise in environmental translation and don't dabble in other fields at all any more.
Now that I had outlined my target markets it was time to get specific. As well as noting when governmental institutions were having their next calls for proposals, I also contacted the larger translation agencies to let them know my speciality. When looking for end clients, I realised that a lot of the larger firms already had their own translators or agencies of choice so one of my best weapons was targeting companies on the verge of expansion. I found that the following steps gave me an edge:
Subscribe to and read specialist industry publications: Know which companies are looking to expand and/or have recently set up foreign subsidiaries and get in touch. Mention where you had read about their plans, thus consolidating the client's impression of you as a serious professional who takes the time to keep your finger on the industry's pulse.
Attend trade fairs: This goes to the above point. Once a potential client can put a face to your name, you are much more likely to get (and, more importantly, keep) his or her business. Don't harass companies on the first day of the fair, but wait until quiet times when no one is at their stand and don't hard-sell. Talk about the hot topic in the industry (a big merger, new legislation etc.) or ask them about a terminology question you've had in the back of your mind for a while. When you get back home, send a quick follow-up e-mail thanking the person for his or her time, mentioning your availability for translation projects should the need arise.
Get your name out: One of the best ways, and the way that I ultimately found most of my current clients, is word of mouth. Make sure that your fellow translators also know your speciality and refer work that you do not feel confident in handling to other freelancers: they tend to repay the favour. Write articles for industry publications, give presentations, start a blog, become active in your local translation association and hand out your business card to anyone and everyone who might possibly need an environmental translator at some point down the road. Of course, make sure that you have a website and develop marketing materials in both your source and target language to make it easier for customers to contact you and find out more about your background.
These are just a few of the tools that I used to build my current customer base. Please feel free to post a comment with any suggestions that I may have missed.
A: As I have mentioned in the past, only a very small number of environmental protection organisations have a translation budget so the specialist environmental translator has to cast his or her net wider in the search to build up a customer base. As in the last article, none of these ideas are particularly earth-shattering, but are worth considering for someone thinking of entering the environmental translation market.
Shortly before I made the transition from being an in-house to freelance translator, I spent some time brainstorming about who might need environmental translations (more specifically translations pertaining to waste management in my case) that were not highly technical and also be able to afford my rates. Incidentally, I also held a presentation about the opportunities for environmental translators at our local ATA chapter's 2008 symposium and will be happy to share my PowerPoint presentation with anyone who sends me an e-mail. I also highly recommend reading Patrick Oblander's article in the March 2009 ATA Chronicle entitled "Environmental Translation: Market Overview".
My brainstorming session produced the following groups of customers:
1) Big players outside the environmental field
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports are, at least in my experience, one of the hottest trends within the environmental translation field right now. Towards the late 1990s, businesses started putting out environmental reports, basically boasting how many gallons of water, tonnes of waste and greenhouse gas emissions they had saved over the past year. Some would say that not much has changed since then. These documents have now largely been replaced with CSR reports which are traditionally published yearly together with annual financial reports. The scope of these reports has also gradually been widened to cover what is referred to as the triple bottom line (also known as people, planet, profit), meaning that businesses are judged not only on their financial results, but also on their social and environmental performance. CSR reports are not restricted to companies providing environmental services, either. Just a glimpse at Corporate Register.com shows that BAE Systems, the Inter-American Bank and HP are among the companies that have published CSRs in the past month or so. It is generally hard to land these kinds of projects as an independent contractor. In my experience, many large businesses subcontract these projects to translation agencies or groups of translators given the number of languages and size of files involved.
2) Environmental services providers
In addition to the CSR reports, large multinational companies that provide environmental services also have a whole host of documents that need to be translated. It is also worth remembering that a lot of small and medium-sized companies are now looking to expand across their borders and generally have a lot of company brochures, annual reports and similar materials that they want translated beforehand. As well as press releases and other corporate communications documents, these businesses often have internal documents that they want to share with employees at their various branches, providing a steady flow of work once you have your foot in the door.
3) Consulting firms, trade journals and research institutes
Consulting firms and research institutes also invest a great deal of money on projects and then want to share their results as broadly as possible. These documents can range from run-of-the-mill press releases and websites to highly technical academic research papers. It is also worthwhile researching what the large trade journals are in your specific field of the environmental market and seeing if they have foreign-language editions (if only for terminology research purposes).
4) Government institutions
National and local governments also constitute a large source of government work. The spectrum ranges from multinational environmental agreements to city government flyers for minority populations. The approaches to finding government customers vary as substantially as the rates they pay: For instance, some high-level government institutions, especially in Europe, issue calls for bids for translation services on an annual or biannual basis, while others subcontract work to translation agencies. It is worth contacting the public relations office and simply asking how they go about finding translators.
5) Translation agencies
Of course, translation agencies should not be forgotten. In reality, translation agencies only make up a very small percentage of my income as I have found that I much prefer working with direct clients for a number of reasons. I only take on non-environmental agency projects in very rare cases and have let most agencies that I have worked with in the past know that I specialise in environmental translation and don't dabble in other fields at all any more.
Now that I had outlined my target markets it was time to get specific. As well as noting when governmental institutions were having their next calls for proposals, I also contacted the larger translation agencies to let them know my speciality. When looking for end clients, I realised that a lot of the larger firms already had their own translators or agencies of choice so one of my best weapons was targeting companies on the verge of expansion. I found that the following steps gave me an edge:
Subscribe to and read specialist industry publications: Know which companies are looking to expand and/or have recently set up foreign subsidiaries and get in touch. Mention where you had read about their plans, thus consolidating the client's impression of you as a serious professional who takes the time to keep your finger on the industry's pulse.
Attend trade fairs: This goes to the above point. Once a potential client can put a face to your name, you are much more likely to get (and, more importantly, keep) his or her business. Don't harass companies on the first day of the fair, but wait until quiet times when no one is at their stand and don't hard-sell. Talk about the hot topic in the industry (a big merger, new legislation etc.) or ask them about a terminology question you've had in the back of your mind for a while. When you get back home, send a quick follow-up e-mail thanking the person for his or her time, mentioning your availability for translation projects should the need arise.
Get your name out: One of the best ways, and the way that I ultimately found most of my current clients, is word of mouth. Make sure that your fellow translators also know your speciality and refer work that you do not feel confident in handling to other freelancers: they tend to repay the favour. Write articles for industry publications, give presentations, start a blog, become active in your local translation association and hand out your business card to anyone and everyone who might possibly need an environmental translator at some point down the road. Of course, make sure that you have a website and develop marketing materials in both your source and target language to make it easier for customers to contact you and find out more about your background.
These are just a few of the tools that I used to build my current customer base. Please feel free to post a comment with any suggestions that I may have missed.
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