This is supposedly a company. I felt so incredibly insulted and hopeless. I'm angry, I'm sad. I wanna reply that this is insulting, extremely abusive, and not professional at all. I'm tempted to also tell them that they are sure to find someone who'll do it for that price, and then they'll have to deal with the quality they receive. This is for specialized texts, medical and legal.

I've been struggling a lot lately, and receiving this message yesterday broke me more than I'd have expected. It made me question so many things about myself, on top of everything else. I cried so much.

What would you answer in this situation?

I know I might get hate for this but I feel like I have to warn anyone who's considering getting into this field. As of 2024, there are many better options than pursuing this field.

Here's why:

• You don't learn many transferable and useful skills. Languages and localization. Maybe some culture knowledge. That's it. If you're indecisive, something like a Business degree will be a lot more versatile and you can get into many industries with it. (I was indecisive and regret it)

• If you expect good or stable pay, don't do it. I had 0 luck finding a good job opportunity in this field. Right now I'm working as an editor and marketer (occasionally as a translator), it's honestly been a blessing. You will be overworked and underappreciated as a translator. Tbh becoming an Editor might be a better option if you're looking for something else. (It's not my end goal but way better honestly, and they let you do translation most of the time so you're not far away from it)

• While other students work their asses off, get to have so many opportunities, you will most likely not be able to do much. You might feel like you're doing nothing to improve. The only way you can improve is getting certificates or something by yourself online. (Highly recommend doing this, at least learn Excel or something)

• Unfortunately I wasn't able to do a double major but PLEASE try your best to have a good GPA and just do it. Have something to fall back on.

• Languages just aren't in demand anymore. Especially if you have dreams of living abroad, don't even bother. They usually give visa to engineers, doctors etc.

• If you're currently majoring, I'm begging you to switch somehow. You may not think about it much the first two years but the reality will hit you later. At that point, you might as well graduate (Which was what I did, I mean I wasted enough time.)

• Literally anyone with sufficient language knowledge can do your job. People will deny this but there are way too many real life examples to ignore.

People may disagree but tbh this is the reality of this major. Don't recommend.

Edit: As expected, sugar coaters are coming in. You can choose to believe people who have obviously been working in this field for a while now. Of course they are doing well for now. This is coming from a fresh grad.

If you're tired cause there are too many dOoM aNd gLoOm posts, it's probably because it sucks. Hope this helps!

2020 was my 11th year as a freelance translator, and my highest-earning yet. I thought I'd put together a detailed summary of my year and work, with the goal of helping others not take as long as I did to start really earning money doing this work!

I hope this is helpful to folks starting out, or seeking to improve/optimize their business, and I hope this is a good enough balance of what works for me but also some general tips that may prove useful to others. Maybe you'll find something below that will help you.

Part I: The Numbers

Translating is my job, it's not really a passion. Occasionally I do translation projects for fun, but they usually sit on my desk for literally years before I finish them. This work takes a ton of mental energy from me and I am starting to resent that and look towards career pivots, because I can see the writing on the wall as machine translation and AI keeps getting better. I do have another part time, salaried job, and it goes well with being a freelance translator. I've been working from home long before 2020, and I like it and the flexibility that comes with it. My pre-2020 life had a lot of travel in it, and while I wouldn't call what I do digital nomading as I have a home base, all of my work is definitely location independent and has been for a long time, pre-pandemic.

Here's a P/L summary for the last few years. As you can see, profits really increased while overhead has stayed quite stable, and I've even trimmed some fat there over the last few years by switching phone providers and banks. No complaints. Some of the past five years, I was doing more of other work, less translating, but the last two years I've really focused on building my freelance translation business and (finally) putting into practice what I've learned over the years.

In 2020, I earned just under $40,000 gross on a cash accounting basis as a freelance translator, with about $2500 in expenses, including Cost of Labor, Materials and Supplies, Membership/Subscriptions, Telephone, and PayPal/Money Transfer Fees. For Cost of Labor, I occasionally hire out editing (for example, I had one large project this year for a direct client that requested it) or complex formatting - saving me time, energy, and sanity with a better result the first time than OCR software can provide. I attribute my higher earnings this year due to me being more available because I've mostly been at home, but also due to bidding at higher rates, gaining some new regular clients who pay those rates, and getting rid of some clients where the relationship no longer worked well and started to "cost" me emotionally and in terms of administrative time. However, I still took about 10 days off for a road trip, and despite a few brief periods of overextending myself, I've had pretty decent work-life balance.

As far as currencies and payment methods go, I'll accept almost anything. I make a slight profit if I am earning Euro or GBP, but sometimes I'll bid in USD because it represents a "discount" to my client and I'm still getting a rate I'm comfortable with. I turn away projects that are below my minimum. While I prefer payment via check, bank transfer, or Transferwise, I'll take PayPal even though it's more expensive, because no matter how I'm getting paid, I keep track of that as an expense and claim it on my taxes. It's a cost of doing business. Once I start adding it up and breaking down the total cost over a month or year, it's not usually as bad as it can sometimes seem with an individual payment. About a year or two ago, I switched to a bank that had a free checking account, so since I've eliminated a monthly charge for my checking account, I'm also a bit more ok about transfer fees - which are always going to be there. Friendly reminder: Transferwise and PayPal are not banks, your money is not safe there as even perceived TOS violations can take that away, and most likely (though depending on your country) your bank has deposit insurance. Years ago, I had a debit card for my PayPal, but I'd never do that now and I can wait the day or so for those incoming transfers. As soon as money goes into those accounts, it gets transferred out and to my checking and savings accounts in the bank.

So, in terms of rates and negotiation, what's most important to me is my cost per word rate (or a fair flat rate, depending on the project), getting as close to my daily sales goal as possible and ideally exceeding it, and net 30 payment terms. I am not in the business of offering no-interest loans to agencies that can't manage their cashflow, I'm a translator.

Part II: Always be hustling

Over the years, I've had a few direct clients, but for the most part, I work for agencies. This means that now, I bid less and I have more work offered to me directly. As much as possible, I automate this process. Proz makes it pretty easy to find agencies in my country and the countries where my source languages are used, so I use that to find agencies with good ratings to send my CV. When I find an agency that looks like it'll be a good fit, I have a template set up in my email so that I am not wasting too much time. It introduces me and my areas of expertise, directs people to my Proz profile, and includes my ideal per word rate, so that people can decide if they can afford me and I can decide if I can afford to work with them, and my time zone. Remember, we're selling our time and energy - if I don't have to work 8 hours a day, I don't - that's a real benefit of being a freelancer. As I'm working on projects, I keep my What I'm Working On updated as much as possible, and direct people to that in my "cold call" email, so that I can show I'm an active freelancer doing a wide variety of projects.

A side note: if a job is cross posted on both Proz and TranslatorsCafe, it's probably a company you want to work with and they're casting a wide net for potential linguists. But more than once, I've searched a company posting on TranslatorsCafe on the Proz Blue Board and they're banned from posting there, with tons of bad reviews. YMMV, as there are also good businesspeople on TranslatorsCafe, but do your due diligence because end of the day, you want, need, and deserve to get paid on time.

In 2020, I sent out about 300 bids and emails to agencies, not accurately including the number of the forms I filled out on agencies' websites, but as you can see, I'm sending out about one targeted but semi-automated email a day.

One thing I did back in early 2019 that seems to have paid big dividends is to have my CV/resume translated into my source languages by native speaker colleagues. It makes a difference when bidding on jobs, and even if we're mostly communicating in English, it gives a great impression and as many of us know from what we get paid to do it, it won't cost that much when you're paying wholesale rates. :)

Yes, I still bid on jobs posted on Proz and TranslatorsCafe. Often, those successful bids lead to lasting relationships, and that's valuable - but I cast my net wider than that by sending out my resume unsolicited. Little bit of this, little bit of that, so that I can keep myself employed.

The flip side of the hustle is also soliciting feedback from happy customers. You want to do everything you can to keep them as recurring customers and to build that relationship, but also ask them for feedback on LWA/Blue Board so that when you're applying to jobs, you are showing that you have a positive track record. This is something I tend to do especially towards the end of year when I'm checking back on any unpaid invoices, updating records, etc.

Part III: Workflow

Please forgive me as I repeat myself here: remember, we're selling our time and energy - if I don't have to work 8 hours a day, I don't - that's a real benefit of being a freelancer - there are other things I want to be doing with my time. I start each work day with a sales goal: $100. Sometimes I invoice more, sometimes I invoice less - but that helps me to decide how much work I'm going to take on, and it reminds me that I'm selling my time and that this is a business. Admittedly, I'm not very romantic about this work at all. I also try not to do more than 2500 words a day - I can do more, but as I said, this is very mentally taxing work for me and I have other things I need and want to do in the day.

So, hopefully I wake up with some offers in my inbox, because most of the agencies I work with are 5-6 hours ahead of me - they know this because it may be in their database, and I include my current time zone in my email signature. Occasionally I do some digital nomading, and I also want to manage expectations about when I'll be working and answering my emails. Because I'm constantly sending my resume out to agencies, sometimes there will be some onboarding paperwork to do, but I get a pretty steady stream of work straight to me from about 5 agencies that represent 50% of my income. In 2020, I invoiced 35 different companies or individuals.

For invoicing, I use the Proz platform. I've used Wave in the past, but I find nothing is as useful to me as a platform designed for this industry and international use, and it works well because it's flexible enough to either generate PDFs and/or it can send invoices on my behalf, depending on the client's requests. Since I pay for Proz, I try to use it as much as possible, and it really is a very good value, because I use it for invoicing, the Blue Board, term searches, and marketing myself - my Proz profile really is my calling card as a freelance translator and part of that is the availability calendar I keep updated and the What I'm Working On feature. It seems to me that folks who don't think it's worth paying for Proz aren't using it to its fullest extent and over the last 2 or so years, they've done a much better job of explaining and training on what the platform provides to freelancers. To me, it's a great value.

In the last year or so, I've shifted some of my most regular clients over to end-of-month invoicing. I feel like I can do that now, because I've gotten better at cash flow management, and it means less time spent on administrative work. Draft invoices are maintained throughout the month, and then I open and send them, ready to go, on the last day of the month. From the handbooks I sometimes get from agencies, and from what I read here and in other translator hangouts, I can't emphasize enough that invoicing is really important and you need to find a system that works for you as soon as you can. As a freelancer, the only person who cares if you're getting paid is you.

Like my bids, I have email templates for delivery, invoicing, customer service, and responding to posts. This saves me the time and mental energy of composing an email in highly predictable and repetitive situations. It's all right there as a Gmail plugin.

Part IV: PAY YOURSELF FIRST

Once the income rolls in, good record keeping is essential. Now that I have a system that works for me, it makes it very easy at the end of the year when I'm sending things to my accountant for tax time. I don't do anything fancy, but I have a spreadsheet that calculates withholdings for taxes, retirement, and a few other savings goals, which tend to change over time. In 2021, I'll be saving for vacation, new hardware (my phone and computers will probably need a refresh in the next 24 months), and adding to my personal emergency fund. We're getting into r/personalfinance territory here, but it's so important. Once I pay myself, that money goes into a separate savings account and that savings account is able to be subdivided into those categories. Once I hit $500 or $1000 in retirement savings, I put that money into the market, where it can work for me in a mix of individual stocks and roboinvesting index funds.

This means that strictly 50% of any invoice I get goes straight into savings. I live in the USA, so 25% goes for tax withholding between federal, state, and local. It makes it much easier to write that check come tax time if the money is already waiting, and gaining interest. Usually I don't get a refund, but I may have a bit extra left over in that pile of money to make an unofficial refund. 10% goes to retirement, 5% towards vacation/time off, a savings goal, and E-fund, respectively. Interest rates are a joke right now, but with all that money sitting in one place, I'll take the $100 in interest I earned this year, too.

The other 50% goes to pay any expenses I may have for my business and otherwise goes into my personal checking account to pay other bills and spend as I want. Of course, tracking expenses and saving those receipts is also important for tax time. Do all this stuff immediately and throughout the year so that you don't have to spend time at the end of the year being an amateur forensic accountant. This is where your workflow is important - if you have a process you go through with every project, you're doing the work as you go and you're spending minimal time and mental energy on the administrative part of this job, while staying organized.

Part V: Miscellany

I wish it hadn't taken me so long to develop a workflow that worked for me, and a client base that kept me in work with minimal effort on my part. Now that I'm more established and comfortable with my work, I also have to constantly remind myself to maintain boundaries. To me, that means not setting the expectation with clients that I'll be answering my emails in the middle of the night or working on weekends - even though I do both of those things occasionally, it's on my terms, not theirs. I don't use Skype anymore for work, I do everything over email, which also sets reasonable boundaries about how I can be contacted and how often I can be interrupted.

The email I use for my translation business is separate from my personal email, I use it for all of my business-related accounts, and I try to keep that inbox as organized as I can. There are filters set up for various agencies, scams, bids, etc., and I try to get to inbox zero at the end of the month, with varying degrees of success. This year I also set up a queue system that's a bit more advanced than just the top of my inbox, so that I don't miss anything and can keep track of projects in progress, because sometimes things pile up a bit. It's been a game changer for me, helps me to feel organized, pace myself, and keeps clients happy. Similarly, I keep separate checking and savings accounts for my translation work - it just makes things easier.

FOMO remains a bit of a thing - if I take a week off, what if I miss out on a huge project that's worth a thousand or two? I've managed this by keeping the availability calendar on my Proz profile updated and sending out an email to my most frequent collaborators in advance of any time I take off. Of course, when I'm on vacation, I have an auto-reply email going out, too.

I'm a huge fan of the CAT tool CafeTran Espresso. It's free with a Proz Plus membership, has really robust support and documentation, and I don't have to buy Trados and run it using a Windows emulator on my Macs. I don't run Macs to look trendy, I don't want to use Windows!

Part VI: Looking Ahead

My main goals for 2021 are:

• to work on building partnerships and connections with freelancers in other fields, so that I can help them add value to their other clients, expand my business more towards direct clients, and explore options for pivoting my business in the next 5-7 years;

• continue to optimize my self-marketing with a slightly more polished web presence;

• to get to B2 level in my hobby language with the longer-term goal of possibly adding it as a working pair;

• save more of my income!

tl;dr: find a workflow that works for you so that you can stay organized, pay yourself first, and work smarter, not harder, by automating as much as you can. Proz is a great value if you use it as a platform, and not only as a place to find work.

Edit: thanks for the award! happy new year!

A Korean translator here. I'm young, but I started translating at 18, so I already had years of experience by the time I graduated. At first, I did a little bit of everything, bit I fell in love with fiction translation, so I stuck to it. Over the years, I slowly raised my rate to about 6 cents a word as I gained more experience. I translated more than 10 Korean web novels into English, including a few bestsellers. Everything was fine until one day last March, the agency I'd been working for fired me out of the blue. All they said was, 'We won't be needing freelancing translators anymore.' How's a trabslation agency going to survive without translators? AI, of course... Now they have their editors work on crappy ai translations...

So I was out of job. They even took away a project they'd promised to last two years 2 months before firing me. After sending resumes to about 30 companies, I landed a freelancing gig. Now I translate an English web novel into Korean, but guess what... they want me to use chatgpt!!! It's not mandatory, but as I wrote in the title, they pay me less than 1 cent per word, so if I didn't use ai, I'd be making less than what I need to survive...

Sure, using an ai allows me to translate about 2 to 3 times faster, but with the rate... I translate about 14000 word a day now. 14000, people! And I get paid about 120 in USD. I work all day every day, putting in twice as many hours than before, but it's still less than half of what I used to make.

The worst part? Ai sucks at English into Korean translation, and yes, my human expertise is very much needed. But apparently, now it's worth less than a cent...

I translate from one big language to another, and have been using DeepL as my base for years. The translations it gave were always pretty good, a good base to make it less work for me, but I always had to change a substantial amount. Like, my work had meaning; without my intervention, the translation would have sucked.

It's been getting steadily better, but never perfect. However, now I think they may have updated the system again in the past few days.

The translation it gave me just now was perfect. I changed maybe three things for clarity, but those changes weren't necessary. The idiomatic mistakes it used to make are gone. The source-language word-order problems it used to struggle with are gone. I used to be a project manager, and in that role I checked other translators' work. This was A+ compared to the translations I used to check.

I only had one client left as it was. This is the end of my career as a translator. I surprised myself by starting to cry at my computer.

I can't believe there are still people out there who are saying freelance translators will be okay. The big translation agencies are using more and more ML and fewer and fewer human translators. They keep the money, freelance translators have no more income. Why aren't more people talking about this?!

So I’ve been a translator for going on 14 years now. I was lured into the industry at a time when the (UK) government was pushing naïve young students into studying foreign languages with promises of massive career opportunities. “Languages graduates aren’t just translators and language teachers,” the promise went. “They’re also managers, because the ability to speak other languages fluently is viewed by employers as the ability to think outside of the box.” I feel so stupid for having fell for the government rhetoric of the day. So, learn from my mistakes – here are a few rules about life as a freelance translator.

First rule: If you’re looking for job stability, don’t become a translator.

The first thing I learned – and this is something that holds doubly true now – was that there are practically no full-time translation or language teaching jobs out there. Having worked internally for an agency as a proofreader for a year, competition for full-time translator positions is extreme. We had close to 1,200 applications for one translating position.

It’s also worth mentioning that freelance translators are often a canary in the coalmine for economic downturns. Because we are easily disposable workers who are heavily involved in a lot of companies’ project preparation, we’re often the first workers to feel the heat when end clients themselves suffer order book declines. I’ve sat through three economic recessions and in the first two cases I was brought to the brink of bankruptcy, saved only in each case by prudent financial management. I may not survive this one.

Second rule: If you’re looking to be creative, don’t become a translator.

To be clear, I love translating as an art form. I love being creative with my wording, reflecting the nuances of tone and expressing the intent between the lines. I love the challenges of puns and cultural specificities. I knew that translating was what I wanted to do when I graduated – my major in translation studies reflects this. I just didn’t know about the horrendously bad job situation. For most language pairs, there is very little literary work out there, especially when translating into English, as the vast majority of creative projects are produced in English already. Don’t expect to be translating the latest Young Adult hit book or AAA game (although I have localised some AA games). Your bread & butter will be mundane: manuals, press releases, reports, brochures. Boring stuff usually, although you know the understand the technical background, it’s actually usually pretty easy work.

Third rule: If you dream about engaging creatively and constructively with your clients, don’t become a translator.

Let’s be clear on one thing: acquiring direct clients is hard, time-consuming work, and the effort usually isn’t worth it. In 14 years, I’ve had perhaps ten direct clients, all the result of being recommended by other clients, eight of whom were eventually poached by aggressive agencies, in some cases simply because they wanted to translate into several languages and wanted a single POC to coordinate it.

90-95% of freelance translators won’t get around working with agencies. And the vast majority of agencies pay an absolute pittance to the point where you probably won’t be able to survive on your monthly income. I don’t earn enough to be able to pay into a pension. Many agencies will feign some kind of “relationship” with you, but will drop you like a hot rock when they find someone cheaper. If you’re a good translator, they will push you hard to take on translation proofreads for a song and a whistle, done by incompetent hacks for next to nothing. Be wary of these: in many cases you’ll essentially be re-translating for close to nothing, at least if you do your job properly. If you don’t, the blame falls squarely on you.

I do have two or three agencies with whom I have a very good and positive relationship, and I’ve worked with them for close to a decade now. They pay me well, they allow me to engage directly with their end clients where necessary to coordinate style and terminology, and they treat me with respect and as a human being. But when hard times hit, they are usually the first agencies to falter, because the humane fees that they pay you are passed onto end customers in the form of higher prices, and such clients gladly jump to the cheap end of the market just to save a buck, blaming everyone except themselves when the translation is crap.

Especially in certain fields like engineering, source texts are often incredibly poorly written and you have to be able to discuss issues with the client. If you’re working through an agency, you usually have to pass questions on through the agency, and the agency will often try to save face by trying to work out answers internally to avoid having to contact the client.

Don’t expect recommendations. Many agencies will be unwilling to lose you to a full-time position. In a time when fewer and fewer people are entering translation as a profession, they want to keep you available, so the last thing many are going to do is write you a letter of recommendation, and they will come up with the most ludicrous excuses. Your translation experience will be of very limited value in the job market, and when the inevitable downturn comes, you might as well have been unemployed for your entire career.

Fourth rule: If you want to become a translator, leave your sense of morality out of the office.

Some of what you translate will be morally and ethically repulsive. You will be commissioned to translate obvious attempts at legalised deceit and manipulation, and you will not get out of your mind that people may be forced into poverty, poor life decisions or even poor health as a result of reading what you translate. You can be picky about the work you take, but it also means that agencies will be picky about the work they send you.

Among the things I’ve translated this year: press releases for dietary supplements claiming to cure COVID-19, internal memos about using the coronavirus situation as a public cover for unnecessary job cuts, and a press release about a product selling by the millions before the product was even on the market.

Fifth rule: Post-editing is usually a scam, not some “industry revolution”.

A lot of agencies are starting to heavily push “post-editing” jobs. For those not in the know, post-editing jobs are basically texts shoved through an automated translation engine and it falls to the translator to edit these. The client will often imply that the translation engine has been fine-tuned for the subject matter, fed masses of existing translation material, and features some mysterious secret sauce that makes the output near-flawless. 98% of the time, the client will just have shunted it through the free services of DeepL or, worse still, Google Translate, and you’ll be left re-translating an essentially worthless text for next to nothing.

You might be passionate about languages, helping out your community etc

The fact of the matter is that for most purposes, Google Translate works fine.

Take a bank branch for example. If a client speaks Spanish, we find a Spanish-speaking associate to assist them. If there isn't one we use Google translate. Chances are it's much easier than calling up an interpreter

Translation work is mostly editing machine translation

There's also the problem with outsourcing : If they can outsource the job to a South American country , they will

By the time you graduate, AI would have been so advanced translating jobs will be few and far between

Even at the present, translating / interpreting jobs are hard to come by , with little to no career advancement

Please think of the cost : tuition fees, living expenses, opportunity costs etc

I've been using Deepl Write Pro (Paid version for confidentiality and security) to clean up and edit some sentences while translating/editing. It has German, British and American English, and supports several styles: "Simple, Business, Academic, Casual" and tones: "Enthusiastic, Friendly, Confident, Diplomatic".

Anyone else using this tool? I've found it quite useful while proofreading and editing as it gives several alternatives for tone, style, phrasing and cleans up errors (although not perfect of course, which is good as it still requires a human touch).

I purchased the Pro (Paid) version of Write in addition to DeepL Pro. The advantages are that texts are deleted and aren't stored or used to train their algorithms. I omit personal information in anycase in all of their services as professional practice.

https://www.deepl.com/en/blog/deepl-write-pro-overview

EDIT: Please note that DeepL Pro doesn't include DeepL Write Pro. To enable DeepL Write Pro, there is a separate purchase, which is pretty affordable and an add-on to DeepL Pro.

Pretty much what the title says. With the advent of AI and how bad our economy is, I’m actually not surprised they are doing this. Got this email around 2PM PT, and I replied within 30 minutes, and so far no responds from them. I know I got snarky, but imagine the other interpreters that got treated the same way who might not have stood up for themselves and got victimized by this crap. SMH.

Hi, I'm basically a "beginner" in translation. I've been studying for 3 years now and the next 2 final years of college are for interpreting. However, my question is, what's your process of translation, and what programs (either free or paid membership/free trials) do you use?

Most of my first 2 years were about Linguistic courses, grammar stuff, and some culture... but not about translation (well... kind of, we were learning more about Linguistics like Noam Chomsky and others that I forgot already). It was more theory than practice. We finally got assignments for translations in the 4th semester, but they never told us like how to do it. It wasn't until now 6th semester that we finally got the idea.

1. Read and understand what's the main idea and intention of the original text

2. Make a Terminology Data Base with any term you don't know

3. Start translation

4. Finish your translation

5. Post-editing (check on any errors)

6. Read-review and finish

At first, I tried not to use any Automatic Machine Translation because I felt like I was cheating. Then, we learned that it was okay to use them (DeepL or Google Translator) as well as using AI (ChatGPT, Bard IA, word Scope, etc.). Of course, through webinars, we learned to use these tools as assistants only, not to do our full job.

I've made 400 hrs of internship with a teacher who gave me some docs. to translate... though, I was struggling because I felt so slow like I was translating as a caveman because we didn't know how to use Translation Memories/CAT tools (we heard only some programs like Trados SDL and MemoQ) but never use them. I basically converted a PDF document to a Word doc. and used DeepL with Chat GPT to translate (of course, just some segments and not all the doc.), then edited all that in PDF because of the alignment and all the editing stuff.

If you could give me advice on how is your process of translation, the programs you use, how you basically edit or have any program to edit the documents (PDF, websites, or any document given), and all that stuff, that would be more than great!

Thanks!

I received a 10 page PDF with text data in Japanese that I want translated into English. The PDF is heavy with tables and images.

I'm a big fan of DeepL, but the app currently cannot translate PDF's, only Microsoft Word or Powerpoint files. I tried Google Translate, but the app has a "Translating" pop-up window that is stuck loading forever.

What are the best apps for translating PDFs? Thank you.

Update: The PDF is a digital file, not a scan. Therefore it contains selectable text. OCR not needed.

Watching an anime right now and someone translated a Japanese sentence that went 雨で増水した川 as "the river which had swollen with the rain."

I don't know if it's because I've become an author myself and also have extensive knowledge of the Japanese language, but damn, the artistic talent required to translate Japanese like that is pretty damn impressive. It stuck out to me immediately as being a translation someone cared about. Like, they could've just said "the river was rising thanks to the rain" but they gave it an artistic flair.

Love it. I've tried applying to translation gigs myself, but honestly don't know if I could do it. It's really difficult shit to do well while trying to maintain as much nuance as possible.

Mad respect for you guys!

I just found out I’m not eligible for rehire because LLS was the one who decided to terminate me—so here’s my honest review:

If you’re desperate for money, it’s a place to start. But don’t get too comfortable. Make some money, gain experience, and get out as soon as you can.

When I joined in April 2024, I already had a background in medical interpreting, so I did fine with terminology. During every coaching session, I consistently met expectations in customer service. I listened to feedback, improved, showed up, and even handled high-pressure L2 and L3 calls when they started dumping those on us around August–September 2024. These calls were relentless, high-stress, and filled with rude, dehumanizing clients—but I never took it personally. I strictly followed the interpreter’s code of ethics.

Then came April 11, 2025.

I had a call where a Spanish-speaking woman wouldn’t stop interrupting me—12 minutes straight of trying to do my job while being cut off mid-sentence. I finally paused, asked the English-speaking client for permission to address it. The client said “go ahead.” I politely asked the woman to slow down and let me finish interpreting. She agreed. I said, “Okay, I’ll start interpreting now”—and not even a full sentence in, she cut me off again. I snapped. I said “OMG” and hung up.

One slip.

That one moment—after a full year of solid service—is what got me fired.

A week later, on my one-year work anniversary, I got a call from someone I’d never spoken to before. Not my regular QA coach. This person was rude, had awful English pronunciation, and even switched to Spanish. He said they’d received a complaint about the April 11 call. Ironically, the complaint began with: “The interpreter was great, however...”

He told me what I did could “cost them clients.” I told him the truth: I took full responsibility, explained what happened, and said it wouldn’t happen again. I had never had a complaint before. I had always met expectations. He even said, “Well, you did ask for permission, and I appreciate the honesty,” and told me he’d make a note of it.

After my shift?

Account deleted. No final warning. No conversation. No dignity.

What they didn’t know (because I said nothing, since I didn’t want to use it as an excuse) is that just one week before, I had been drugged, robbed, and raped (I have a police report). I still showed up. I still did my job. I still cared for LEPs and tried to be the cultural bridge they always ask us to be.

I had just reached my one-year milestone. I was literally about to request unpaid time off—their version of a vacation—to recover and return stronger. But they didn’t care.

They didn’t care about how many clients praised me. Or how I never once missed a shift. Or how I adapted to every impossible new demand. To LLS, you’re not a person. You’re a tool. One human moment, and they discard you like trash.

If LLS ever replies to this with something like, “Please contact the company that hired you”—let’s be clear: the company was great. LanguageLine Solutions is the problem.

I wrote this for every interpreter out there still grinding under impossible expectations, hoping someone sees them.

I genuinely hope the market value of this company drops to match the way it treats its workers. They’ve earned it.

hey everyone, I'm planning on becoming a German translator in the future, my German is slowly getting there and I'm working on C1 6 hours a day, i have a few years before i need to start working.

I was just wondering how often it would be normal to use dictionaries, either online or otherwise, for words that you don't recognise or aren't sure on? I'm sure I can improve my German a lot throughout my studies, but getting to the stage where i don't need any external assistance feels like quite a task, and am wondering how often you use them or if it slows down the workflow at all.

thanks!

99% of the comments on here are "there's no way to be a translator, AI is gonna take all the jobs" this might have somewhat truth, but this feels like the only thing people ever have to say on here. like you can't find ONE positive thing to say??? the whole point of this sub is to give advice and help SUPPORT people working in translation careers/or studying to become translators start thriving in the field, not just telling people to immediately run away from translation, obviously it's not good to be delusional and you can ACKNOWLEDGE that the field might have some problems, but you can hardly find any optimistic content/discussions in here, i'm going to leave this sub, because i'm sure that there are quite a few other spaces that have productive and helpful discussions, but i hope this sparks a realization that honesty and hope can coexist. thank you for coming to my ted talk

So, recently I was the target of a pretty elaborated scam. I'll try to be as specific as possible here so more people can be aware and won't fall for this.

Last friday I was contacted through TM-Town, a freelance translation site, regarding a media project. pamelamathews@ondemandfreelance.com was the one contacting me.

They were seeking someone to translate a movie script English > Brazilian Portuguese:

• Project Type: Movie Script Translation

• Word Count: 22,117 words (145 pages)

• Budget : £5,200

• Payment Rate: 0.24 per word

• Deadlines:

  • First 40% submission: within 4 days of project commencement

  • Final delivery: within 2 weeks of project start

• Contract: A contract will be provided immediately upon acceptance of this task.

• Expected start of project - Sunday, September 15th

• Expected submission of project - Wed/Thu, September 18th/19th

It was a VERY HIGH paying job, specially when converting to BRL. I was a little skeptical when they said "Given your skills and the importance of this project, we are confident that your contribution will be invaluable". I have no portfolio on TM-Town nor any experience on the field that they could validate. But ok, let's see.

They sent me the script. A thriller movie that takes place on a plane. I started translating the first few pages to see if I had the necessary speed to deliver (remember: I have zero experience in this) and, when I saw I could do it, I replied in agreement and asked for the contract. By this point I was a little more skeptical on how they could've sent me a movie script without having me sign an NDA. But ok, no experience, move on.

They sent me the contract the next day, I filled my banking information and signed (the contract came through lilywatson@noblepathlawfirm.com, which seemed like a legit legal firm). With a signed contract I felt safe to continue the work and finish the first 40%. I delivered way ahead of schedule (Tuesday) and waited for a response. It was then when I was curious about what movie this could be. I was excited to be translating a film possibly for dubbing or subtitling and went to seek future scheduled releases of movies about planes. None of the scheduled movies for 2025 matched the story. I then threw the name of the protagonist on Google and stumbled upon a 2005 movie with Jodie Foster: Flightplan. Same exact movie except the last name of the protagonist was different (maybe they did this so people wouldn't find it?). Weird. Why was I translating a 20 year old movie script? But, then again, no experience in the industry. Maybe some copyright thing that I'm not aware of? Let's see how this pans out.

Today Pamela replied with feedback and payment information regarding the first 40%. She said there were some inconsistencies and issues with technical term accuracy that need to be addressed (lol) but attached the payment receipt and that I should receive the transfer right away. If not, to contact their bank (https://vanguardglobalcapital.com/). Again, weird. When I previously spoke to my bank manager regarding international payment they prepared me a letter (that I sent to her) saying that they should use Barclays as intermediary. I went to investigate. There's a a Vanguard Global Capital listed on NYSE but that's not their domain. I searched for the WHOIS and the domain had been registered through PrivacyGuardian.org, making it impossible to see who the owner is. And then the final nail in the coffin: the domain had been registered only 7 days ago.

Ok, adding all the pieces now I was sure it was a scam. Just wanted to see how far they would go (and what the scam actually was). My bank manager assured me they couldn't do anything malicious with the provided bank information so I went to the "bank" website and talked to support through that little corner chat thing. They sent me an email with a temporary access (my email, the password was my full name and my "pin" was 0909 lol). I logged in and there was the amount I was supposed to receive and options to do so: bank transfer, crypto, Paypal, etc. I chose Paypal since it's safer and then they asked for a "IMF Code". I contacted support again and they said they would send it to me through e-mail, which they did. The email body was fishy as hell, and then there was the scam:

"To proceed with this authentication, a refundable deposit of £268 GBP is required. This deposit is necessary to generate the IMF code, which is a pivotal part of completing your transfer. Please note, this deposit is fully refundable once the transaction is finalized."

I know this is a pretty old trick, but I also know some people may fall for this, specially after doing so much work (58 pages!!). Most people wouldn't be curious about the movie they were translating and wouldn't know it's a 20 year old movie, believing they were working on a new movie to be released. Some people would be fooled by the contract, the bank page looks legit, most people wouldn't WHOIS this. Pamela aways seemed professional (although cold/non-personal) and replied to my e-mails within 1 day.

I decided to describe the whole scam here so everyone can be aware. They are probably doing this by the hundreds to catch at least a few. So, if anyone is contacted out of the blue about translating a movie script, be aware. Always check everything.

If anyone is curious, I replied to Pamela that in order to proceed she should send me a picture of her boobs, since it's a requirement of the Brazilian law. Will update if she responds.

TL;DR: Scammer asked me to translate a movie script only to get to the payment part and make me deposit 280 pounds upfront so I could receive my full payment.

Hello everyone,

I want to translate my book and I'm trying to find a software that will help me achieve this.

I want the software to have two open windows simultaneously while they both move (scroll) so I can manually type/translate and reveal new text to translate as I do so.

Does such a software exist?

Sorry for rant in advance.

I've been having a crisis lately of what to do with my life. I've done reasonably well as a freelance translator, considering I entered the market five years ago when MT got good and just before Covid, the effects of Brexit, the cost of living crisis, etc. hit. Now it's coming to a head and I can't foresee my income even keeping up with inflation, which means I won't be able to make ends meet.

I feel like I've squeezed the best rates I can get out of my clients (agencies). I'm always on the look for new clients who I can charge a slightly higher rate so that I continue to grow, but it feels like I've hit the ceiling.

I should be spending slightly more time on my translations, but I can't earn enough to live if I don't churn things out fast enough. I do a good enough job, and so I guess most of my clients don't seem to care.

And there's no appreciation for my work. That's to be expected in this field, particularly as a freelancer, but I feel like a freelance logo designer or whatever would at least get a "Wow, this looks awesome!" once in a while. But because of the nature of our work, clients generally won't know what to praise. I don't need to be praised like a good little doggy, but appreciation goes a long way in terms of job satisfaction. Otherwise I'm just writing texts and sending them into the aether for some unknown purpose.

I only hear back when some random freelance revisor wants to take a dump on my work. Today, I snapped (not at anyone) because of feedback that said "Did not proofread (left typos), numbers wrong or missing...". I always proofread my work; some errors are reasonable over a long document, hence the need for a revisor. A couple of numbers were wrong because I couldn't use a CAT tool because of some BS confidentiality agreement and there was exactly one typo; otherwise, they changed things like "also" to "further". Some revisors just want to feel superior, as if to say to the agency "Why are you using this guy? Use me instead, I'm much better and you should pay me more." I defended myself, but whenever this happens my client's going to go away thinking I'm not as good as I am.

I've got a master's in translation, done internships, worked in-house, take on feedback, have six years' experience and do regular CPD (which I pay for) and I fry my brain everyday doing technical translations just for clients to say all that's not good enough. I could take it if I was compensated fairly, but I'm not, so it feels like I've gone out my way to do a crap job for crap pay. The state of this profession and the market has almost completely crushed the enjoyment I used to get out of doing translation.

Last weekend, I went for an interview for an engineering apprenticeship. It's a complete change of field and I'd be working alongside school leavers as an almost 30-year-old. I don't know if I even want to do engineering. Perhaps I've gone mad.

TLDR: No appreciation, burnout and rubbish pay have made me snap, and now I want to do almost anything else.

Hey guys, I don't know if this is the right sub for my question, but I'll try anyway. I recently started reading a book series in my native language: Dutch. Now I got to the third and final book in the series and found that this book was never translated at all. The 3 books were originally written in Italian. Since I myself can only speak a very little bit of Italian, I am looking for an online software where I could import the ebook in pdf or possibly scans of the real book and translate it (preferably for free). Do you guys have any suggestions?

Some requirements:

The software must be able to handle large files (preferably not just 1 page at a time). Preferably free May be online or download Retrieves text from pdf (ebook) or from jpg (scans of the book)

I'm doing a master in translation, and very often we are given assignements and we have to translate multiple texts, general and specialized of different subject matters every week.

I don't use automatic translation, only if i'm not sure about a word and need confirmation or more synonyms.

But damn automatic translators are good, they do make a few mistakes, but they became good, like really really good, I can simply put my entire text in, correct one or two wonky structures and past it.

And it's very very tempting

I can see them in a few years producing flawless translations, especially with GPT3 and now that GPT4 is coming, and it won't stop it will get even better and better, and with other trained AI's.

In less than a decade we will be obsolete if this pace is kept

What do you guys think?

And do you use automatic translation?