As the regular visitors of this blog might have noticed, the frequency of new articles is quite … unfrequent. But now I am struck by something very cool and promising: Slate Desktop on Indiegogo, a tool that will offer freelance translators and small business to one of the most promising (and unavoidable) technologies in our industry: that of machine translations.
When it comes to selling our services, most translators call themselve a freelance translator. And so they are: they are translating on a freelance basis, selling their services to clients and enjoying the freedom of choice that a freelancing job brings with it. But they are more: they are in business, acting as an entrepreneur. The real entrepreneurial translator therefore is looking for opportunities in his/her business, for improvements in the way s/he works and – in the end – for a little extra earnings (or for more than a little if that’s possible). Chances enough then, but at this point it turns out that not every freelancer is an entrepreneur.
With the introduction of Trados Studio 2009 SDL launched SDL Trados AutoSuggest, a plug-in that allows you to leverage content of translation memories to speed up the translation process. Trados AutoSuggest is quite handy, but with a price tag of $ 250 also quite expensive. Is AutoSuggest worth its price? And how does it work?
You can read it in this article.
Today SDL released Trados Studio 2015, the new version of its popular CAT tool. After weeks of putting several beta versions and a few release candidates to the test, I can finally publish my review and rating for the new Studio. In this blog post you will read my Trados Studio 2015 review and an overview of new features.
Earlier this week Kilgray released MemoQ 2015. I am using the software since about 5 years and have always been excited about the logic and intelligence of the CAT tool, but less about the usability. In fact I even called MemoQ a “container” because of it’s bold interface. However, many has been changed since then. Perhaps that’s the reason why so many agencies I work for are slowly moving to it (mainly using the server feature).
Working on an offline project in MemoQ 2014 I decided to give MemoQ 2015 a try and yes, I’m more excited than ever.
In this blog post I described the three main reasons why I would recommend to upgrade to it – and yes, only one of them is really new. But read on to know why I would suggest to download MemoQ 2015.
The end of 2014 draws near. The last days are approaching and many companies are already preparing for the New Year. For many of them, it is not yet the moment to take stock, but with the New Year ahead, this is a good moment for an overview of trends and developments in the translation industry. As a translator, I feel privileged to have first-hand insight into what is going on in our industry. In this article, I share some interesting trends that will change the translator’s world in the next few years.
As the Bible states the workman is worthy of his meat (Matthew 10:10). How should a translator define the prices for his (her) services?
Recently I heard about someone who was considering to start as a translator. The native Dutch teacher was very convinced about his linguistic qualities in German and believed he could offer his service to Dutch companies. And hey, why not? He was not entirely sure about the right price to ask but considered to charge € 0,35 per source word.
That his proposed word rate was about four times the word rate of native German professional translators was justified. He as a native Dutch had a PhD in some subject and I – stupid – did not have it.
I’ve been working for a client in the tourism industry for a few years now. Steady amount of work, only customer-facing and always under high pressure. Nothing special.
However, recently my client told she had received a severe complaint about the quality of the translations. Complaints should be solved so I asked for detailed information. That request was fulfilled and the results are…astonishing.
Last year I translated a picture book for the first time. Although I’ve translated several small books from English into Dutch I really like to get some more jobs in this field.
Getting a book translation task however requires patience and the luck to be found by publishers.
I don’t mind: as long as it doesn’t come I have plenty other exciting tasks.
I nevertheless want to share a preview of my translation. Click the “Read More” link to see the preview.
In my opinion a translator needs good devices to deliver good translations. That’s why I bought a powerful (gaming) computer and a new network printer last year. The gaming computer is powerful enough to compute things quickly and to deliver TM results in a snap. The network printer is pretty important to me because I can scan, copy and print from every location in my office. I chose for HP because I value the quality of the brand. Besides that I know the brand out of my profession as a translator. The company apparently moved to another translation agency and that resulted in two remarkable mistakes.*
* Please read my explanation below.