Last week ProZ.com, the website for freelance translators, anounced the nominations for the ProZ.Com Community Choice Awards. This year I am honoured to have three nominations on the list for translator’s resources. Every vote is welcome!
Rates in the translation industry have been under pressure for a long time now. Not only are companies increasingly asking to reduce word rates and hourly rates in order to stay competitive, but at the same time translators seem to be increasing their self-esteem and forming a front to defend their professional image and their living. Translators are in a rat race for ever lower rates, to be compensated by something they can’t do (increase their productivity) or won’t do(embrace disruptive technologies). Where will this ‘race to the bottom’ end?
Mobile game developers enabling their communities to take part in the localization of their games; TM-Town offering professional translators a chance to have a free or discounted membership based on the amount of words they translate (e.g. time they devote) for the website: crowdsourcing has reached the translator’s land. The interesting concept of free translations by a community of devotees is beneficial for companies, but what does it bring to translators?
Machine translation is a hot potato nowadays. While some translators embrace the technology and welcome it as the promise for the future, other translators refuse to even talk about it, whether it be out of professional ethics or because they fear its implications on the future demand for translation work. But is the fear of machine translation justified and will the technology make translators and interpreters redundant?
It has taken a long time to find it out, but today I was finally able to translate INDD files in Trados Studio. That’s why I’m sharing this blog post today to make clear how you can translate InDesign files in Trados Studio. It requires a quick turn around, but it is certainly worth the effort!
On a round-table discussion with project managers and owners from translation agencies last year I discussed the concept of offering different quality standards to clients. While the concept has been used for years already, a new approach was introduced to manage price pressure and satisfy varying demands from various types of customers. But will offering different quality levels to customers work for freelancers?
A couple of weeks ago a colleague proudly mentioned on Twitter that she was working on an exciting project. Right after breakfast she would start working on the translation of something to do with adult toys. I was a bit surprised. Apart from the fact that I won’t take on such projects I would also be ashamed if it were publicly known that I had. I bet that for proper use, even the manual of such a ‘‘toy’’ should be translated by professionals who would not want to risk something with inverse polarity resulting from improper translations), but then I would prefer the discretion that surrounds much of anything to do with it.
The tweet of that honoured colleague taught me that conscience and scruples are personal matters. In the same week, however, I learned that not everything can be anticipated.
When I published my Periodic Table of Trados Shortcuts back in 2014, I didn’t dare to hope for so much positive feedback. Now finally, after almost two years (the Trados Shortcuts poster was published on March 19, 2014), here is the continuation: the Periodic Table of MemoQ Shortcuts!