Traducteurs : 3 pistes pour se former sans se ruiner. Tout comme Internet nous évite désormais de passer des heures en bibliothèque pour effectuer nos recherches terminologiques, il nous permet également de nous former sans mettre les pieds dans une salle de classe.
Sous un acronyme barbare, les MOOC (pour Massive Open Online Courses ou CLOM, cours en ligne ouverts et massifs en français) nous donnent accès gratuitement à un volume phénoménal de connaissances et de contenus éducatifs dans de très nombreux domaines, pour la modique somme de (le plus souvent) ABSOLUMENT RIEN ! Cette nouvelle forme d'enseignement à distance peut être dispensée par des institutions prestigieuses (polytechnique, Stanford, HEC, MIT, Harvard, Essec, etc.) et parfois permettre d'obtenir des certificats validant de nouvelles aptitudes (les xMOOC) ou simplement faciliter l'échange de connaissances entre des milliers de participants (les cMOOC). Post-it: se former chez soi — Ma Voisine Millionnaire. Recevez les nouveaux articles par RSS !
How to find YOUR niche market as a translator using the DIP technique. “I have no idea what my niche is – help!” I don’t have much experience freelancing and I’m confused how to sell my services – what makes me unique?
I’m an illustrator, I started freelancing straight out of university, and I’ve only had a handful of jobs in roughly two years – I think this is because I spent a lot of time not knowing what I wanted to do or even how to do it but I’m starting to find a bit more focus now. I’ve started pushing myself towards children’s illustration with the hopes of getting work in publishing, greetings cards, stationary – maybe even the games industry. My issue is this – I have no idea what my niche is. “I have no idea what my niche is – help!” Are You Offering a Commodity or a Unique Solution? As a self-employed professional, the last thing you want is for clients to perceive you as a commodity.
Commodities are products or services that are considered to be basically the same no matter who provides them. When your target audience thinks of you as just another financial planner, graphic designer, life coach, personal trainer, or psychotherapist, you must work far too hard simply to get them to remember you until they need you. Then when prospective clients consider working with you, they’ll be comparing you to your competitors based on whose price is lowest or whose location or hours are most convenient.
Unless you want to offer the lowest prices or 24/7 service in multiple locations, there’s no guarantee that prospects you’ve tried hard to meet and connect with will ever hire you. Serve a specialized market — Clients think of themselves as special. Are You Offering a Commodity or a Unique Solution? How to find your translation niche? The more I look into the topic of experts, the more fascinated I become.
Today, when preparing to write this article on translation niches, I came across the following explanation: “The power of the niche is the old “big fish in a little pond” theory. How to choose a niche that's right for you - Freelance Parents. So, I hope my last post convinced you that specialising in your own freelance niche is a good idea, particularly if you haven’t yet found any clients.
So, how do you choose a niche that’s right for you? I don’t claim to be any kind of expert in choosing a niche (see my confessions of a recovering generalist). Nope, I’m actually working through this one with you as we speak. However, I have scoured the web for the best advice on doing this, thought carefully about how this differs for us freelancing parents and lovingly crafted the process below for us both to work through. Développer une nouvelle spécialisation : 6 étapes pour réussir. October 5th, 2010 by Patricia Vous voulez vous spécialiser?
La spécialisation : trouver son hérisson - Les recettes du traducteur, tous les ingrédients pour faire bouillir la marmite. If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed.
Need More Work? It’s Not Them, It’s You…and That’s the Best News You’ve Heard All Day. If you don’t have work, the most likely reason is not them, it’s you.
Before you start raging at me through your computer, keep reading. That’s actually good news…no…it’s GREAT news. Think about it. If the reason you don’t have work is because of the state of the economy or the translation industry, then there’s not much you can do about it, right? All you can do is sit around and wait for whatever reason you’ve decided is the culprit to go away or improve. We freelancers know that there are peaks and valleys in the industry. Fiche pratique périodes creuses. Périodes creuses - Les Recettes du traducteur.
How to use SMART goals for your freelance translation business. Lesson 73: When planning how to grow your translation business, plan smart. In December, we’re going to talk about business planning, in other words planning to develop or grow your translation business.
You usually either consciously or subconsciously think about how your business is going to evolve in the next 12 months, and this inherent business planning takes place in January. Some thoughts on setting goals - Thoughts On Translation. Goal-setting is a critical element of running a freelance business, but many translators ignore it. Not surprisingly, this type of passive attitude can lead to job stress and low job satisfaction, because instead of feeling that you’re actively progressing toward your ideal freelance business, you feel like your clients are dictating how, when and at what rates you work.
Here are some suggestions for active goal-setting: Rank your clients. I think of my clients as A, B or C level, you can come up with your own categories. A clients are what you might call “drop everything” clients; they pay well, they’re easy to work with and they have interesting projects. Setting goals for your freelance business. In this episode, Eve and Corinne discuss how to set goals for your freelance business. If you enjoy this podcast, you might also enjoy Eve’s book Maintaining Your Second Language, or Corinne’s online courses for freelance translators. At the start of the year, Eve and Corinne share some insights into setting goals for your freelance business, including:
Creating and managing a team of translators. This is a guest post by Michelle Bradley. Michelle began her career in translation 26 years ago after earning her M.A. from NYU in Madrid, Spain. Some of her first assignments as a newly-minted project manager included searching the Yellow Pages for Arabic translators, and fixing dial-up modem settings to meet late-night deadlines. It’s no wonder Michelle is now grateful for technology. Subsequent roles as Vendor Manager and Director of Operations prepared Michelle to open her own company (Colorado-based Wordtrail LLC) in 2010. Michelle currently wears multiple hats: project management, cultural consulting (including video creation), transcreation, copy-editing, transcription, DTP and translation from Spanish to English. 50,000 words for next week?
Your client has a 50,000 word job due in a week, so it has to be divided up among multiple translators. What to think about ahead of time 1. Traduire bénévolement : quelques règles d’or. Questions to Ask Before You Accept a Translation Project. It is impossible to anticipate every issue or question that may arise during the course of a translation project, but one thing you can do to be prepared before you get started is ask a lot of questions. Below are a number of questions you should keep in mind each time you receive a new project request (especially from a new client), so that you can be sure to avoid any surprises or problems down the road. You can use this as a sort of checklist each time you receive a new request; be sure to glance through each topic and consider the answers to all the questions we’ve listed before you even quote the job.
You don’t necessarily need to ask the client all of these questions for each project you quote—just remember that addressing these topics as early as possible will help clear up any misunderstandings, make you appear professional, and ensure that your client will be as satisfied as possible in the end. The Task at Hand. Why join a professional association for translators and interpreters? Image source: Unsplash Sergee Bee If you’re a professional translator or interpreter and keen on developing your career, it makes sense to join a professional association.
You might even consider joining more than one. Why join a professional association for translators and interpreters? The Sorrows of Young Financial Translator. At the beginning of a new year, we all start with brilliant ideas and good intentions. To go regularly to the gym or yoga classes, to use that software in order to be productive, to travel more, and so on. However, year-end resolutions often fail after a few weeks because they do not emerge from a firm belief of change and innovation. They are often driven by calendar, not by deep motivation. MakingOfALiteraryTranslator. Comment percer dans la traduction littéraire. Comment percer dans la traduction littéraire. Advice to Beginning Translators (4) - Translation Tests. Often when we contact a translation company (and sometimes when a translation company contacts us), we are asked to do a translation test, or sample translation, as a preliminary to possible collaboration with them. Many translators object to doing translation tests for free, on various grounds, from the fact that other professionals do not do free tests (which is not exactly true, as many lawyers and other professionals do provide free consultations, after which you can decide whether to retain them or not), to the fact that translation tests are allegedly used by unscrupulous agencies to stitch together the translation of an entire book done for free (which I have always thought a translator's urban legend, as this is something people always hear but never actually see first hand, and also because any agency that would attempt a stunt like that would soon be out of business, as the resulting quality of such a patchwork would certainly be abysmal).
Translators on… Making the transition - Capital Translations. Translators on… brings together a collection of industry professionals, each sharing their experience and advice on certain topics of their career, offering a wider, more authoritative range of opinions than a single source. Want to know more about the series? Watch the launch video.
In the last post, we kicked off the Translators on… project by getting to know our contributors’ backgrounds and what they did right before they launched a career in freelance translation. The next step is the big one and about putting our money where our mouth is: the transition from studying or working in another industry to full-time freelancing. Let’s evoke some nostalgia and reassure readers that the transition may be tough but if you have the skills and the perseverance, the challenges can indeed be overcome. And you might not get much sleep in the first few months… Focus on: New Translators (Part 1) - Silver Tongue. You know, the title of this blog post is a bit misleading (arrrgh! I’m breaking my own rules!) I’ve aimed it at “new translators”, but really, these tips serve any translators, be they fresh as daisies or been-around-the-blockers, the only requirement is that they want to improve.
(This is all of us, right?) My Five Biggest Newbie Mistakes in Translation. Ten must-do tasks for your first year as a freelance translator. Six things every beginning translator needs to know - Thoughts On Translation. Last week’s ATA conference reminded me how very intimidating and scary one’s first few years as a freelancer can be. Nouveaux traducteurs : 10 conseils pour bien démarrer. Il y a quelques semaines, j'ai répondu avec plaisir à l'invitation d'une de mes professeurs de l'ÉSIT qui m'avait conviée à un de ses cours afin que je partage mon expérience avec les étudiants de la promotion 2016. La plupart envisagent d'exercer en tant que traducteurs et interprètes indépendants dès leur sortie de l'école et étaient avides de conseils pratiques pour bien démarrer. Voici les 10 recommandations que je leur ai faites : Avant de vous lancer tête baissée dans la création d'une entreprise, prenez le temps de réfléchir à ce que représente cet important choix de vie.
Être indépendant offre une très grande liberté et, en général, une meilleure rémunération que l'emploi de traducteur salarié (sauf si vous êtes recruté par une organisation internationale, mais c'est un cas à part). Petit guide de l'acheteur de traductions. The American Literary Translators Association.
Que lit-on quand on lit un roman traduit? Vocabulaire juridique (10e édition), Gérard Cornu, Puf, Poche Droit, 9782130624639 sur le site de la librairie Librairie Dalloz. Dictionnaire de terminologie juridique anglais-français, 2014. Manuel d'aide à la traduction de textes techniques, juridiques & commerciaux, 2016. Vocabulaire européen des philosophies, Collectif, Sciences humaines. Guide anglais-français de la traduction, nouvelle édition 2017. Le traducteur averti/François Lavallée.
Glossaries of Translation Studies terms. Vademecum du traducteur aux Nations Unies. Correction, révision, relecture. The Whys and Hows of Translation Style Guides. A Case Study. La recherche documentaire en traduction technique : conditions nécessaires et suffisantes. L’évaluation de la qualité en traduction spécialisée. Cardinal Sins of Translation #1: Reading While Translating (and Not Before!) - Intralingo. Faut-il traduire les sciences sociales ? — EHESS — Canal-U. Penser en langues : Traduction de SHS. The Problem of “Performability” in Theatre Translation - Dialogos.
Oui, la traduction peut être un instrument de domination linguistique. La traduction juridique dans le contexte international ou l’art du compromis. Why an Imperfect Version of Proust is a Classic in English. Style Over Substance. Reader question: how do I choose a translation memory tool? Translating 1,000 words per hour: is it possible? - Pieter Beens. Freelance.