Want to know what it takes to be a good translator? Here are all the translator skills, abilities and qualities you need to be successful. We’ve split them into: 7 core competency translator skills 8 key personal translator qualities 4 crucial freelance translator business skills 5 “nice-to-have” translator abilities And best of all, we tell […]
A freelance translator cover letter targeting an agency should have one simple aim … get them to read your CV. That’s it, nothing more. Which means your e-mail should be short, spike interest, and deliberately omit key information. With this focus, knowing how to write an effective cover letter is really dead simple. In fact, […]
When writing your freelance translator CV to send to translation agencies it’s vital it’s … well, perfect. Any shortcomings, and believe me, we agencies will be quick to hit the reject button. The problem, of course, is you won’t always be sure exactly what, and how much, detail your CV should include. Until now, that […]
I love the 80/20 rule. I reckon it applies to just about everything. When it comes to agencies, you can bet 20% of the freelancers they regularly work with will be doing 80% of their translation jobs. With the majority offered only occasional projects. Want a free leg up to get into that 20% who get […]
We all know some freelance translators earn super high salaries, and our examples below show just how much the highest paid translators can make. But I’m picking what you’d also really like to know is … … how do they do it? Well, we’re going to tell you. We’ll break down the 5 very different […]
Some freelancers really struggle when it comes to setting their translation rates. They know they want to earn a decent living, but … don’t know what rate per word will let them do that. That’s understandable – doing those calculations can seem a bit daunting. Well, we’ve just changed all that … We’ve created simple […]
If you’re after a good quality translation, ensuring your documents are handled by a professional translator can be really important. This is irrespective of the type of translation you might need, whether it be: user manuals, marketing material, product labels, tourist brochures, business cards, a legal contract, literary or audiovisual content, or even documents for internal use […]
Arabic translators will always ensure their English to Arabic translation files will display correctly on their clients’ computers. However problems can arise if clients then make changes to those files, or attempt to use the Arabic translation elsewhere. The text display can change, and be incorrect. This can happen even when making minor formatting adjustments, […]
There are various systems for rendering Chinese names in English, and it’s important a Chinese translator uses the most appropriate method. First though, although we talk about Chinese name translation, in fact Chinese personal names aren’t actually “translated” into English at all. Instead, the approximate sounds of the Chinese name are expressed using English, or […]
The translation times suggested here will work for most business translation projects. We’ve based them on realistic translation speed and output expectations for professional translators taking care to translate to a high standard. Translation times in a nutshell: Up to 1000 words: 1-2 days translation time 1000 – 3000 words: 2-3 days 3000 – 5000 […]