Life as a Translator

Life as a Translator

By Roger Chriss,
Language Realm,
U.S.A.

rbchriss@languagerealm.com
www.languagerealm.com

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Few people have any idea what it is that translators do. Some people argue that translators don't actually do anything because they are not creating anything new. Most people accept that what translators do is work, even if they don't understand how translators do what they do, or for that matter in what kind of environment a translator works.

While I can offer no concrete ideas on the mental gymnastics involved in rendering in the target language ideas expressed in the source language, I can shed some light on how translators do what they do. Having been a freelance translator for seven years now, I have developed certain routines and habits that should be of interest to readers who don't already translate, and might provide some new ideas, or perhaps a chuckle, to those who have been at it a while.

A Day in My Life as a Translator

I start my work day around 7:30 A.M., in part because I live and work in California but have clients on the East Coast that are still grappling with the concept of time zones, and in part because by starting early I am assured an hour of two of considerable quiet during which I can work at full concentration and without distraction.

First, a word about time zones. Freelance translators almost inevitably work for businesses hours ahead or behind them, sometimes even a day ahead if the International Date Line is involved. As such, some businesses may come to expect their freelancer to be on call 24 hours a day, not only able to accept faxes or email, a relatively automatic process, but to confirm on the telephone receipt of such faxes or email, and even to discuss a project, if not actually work on it. This is not a practice I support or recommend; I am willing to work hard for my clients, but I am also protective of my life outside of work and so discourage clients from thinking of me as being on-call at all times. Whether you choose to be available for your clients at all times or to ignore your business phone, fax, and email at certain times is up to you, but I strongly suggest the latter so as to prevent excess stress (will they never leave me alone!?), job dissatisfaction (all I do is work, work, work!), and burn out (I can't take it any more). A career is like a marathon: only by pacing yourself will you be able to retire with grace and poise.

If, by the way, you are awoken by your business phone at six in the morning, you are better off not answering it. You will not, regardless of how quickly you think you wake up, sound particularly coherent or give intelligent answers to questions. I made this mistake enough times that I now hope to help others avoid it; let your answering machine take the call, then call the client back once you are fully awake and aware, ready to work.

As said above, I like to start my day early so that I can work uninterrupted for a couple of hours. I find translation to require considerable concentration, particularly if I am working on a document with sticky syntax or troublesome terminology, with concepts that are new or unfamiliar to me, or with printing of such poor quality that the job turns into an exercise in archaeological decipherment. Phone calls and faxes can interrupt the flow I get in once I get started on a text, so I all but guarantee myself a couple of hours in which, except for rare cases, I can crank along at a steady, productive pace.

As an aside, organizing and tracking your jobs will make your life much easier. I do this by putting each job into its own folder, specifically a clear plastic folder that allows me to see what the job is and how far along I am in working on it. Any new job gets a folder, even if the job is merely pending and not yet confirmed (meaning that I don't yet have the go-ahead to work on the job). All active jobs are kept in a drawer so that I know where they all are at any given time, and with a glance in that drawer, I can see how much work there is to be done. When a job is finished, I remove the material from the clear plastic folder and place all documents related to the job into a large manila envelope, writing on the front the client's name, a description of the job, and the date the job was finished. That folder is then archived, and roughly three years later I shred and recycle the paper. Of course I also keep electronic copies of all material, archived on Zip discs. Enough of that aside; all I am suggesting here is that you keep your jobs organized so that you don't spend your days trying to figure out what you are supposed to do.

The rest of my day can unfold in one of a few ways, depending on how much work I have and when the work has to be done. I’ll tell you about each, one at a time. On days when I have a lot of work, I spend the rest of the day working on the translation until either it is done, or at least far enough along. Whenever I receive an assignment, I check the length of the source text, do a quick calculation, and figure out how many words I have to do every day. I then do a little more than that per day.

As I translate, when I find words or phrases I don’t know, I note them on a separate page and then look them up later. Sometimes, my search for these words takes me to one of the libraries nearby or has me on the phone, checking with someone who can either tell me the word, or at least explain the concept to me. I have spent up to four hours on a single day in the library sifting through dictionaries, encyclopedias, almanacs, and maps, looking for the words I need to finish an assignment.

On days when I have only a little work, I still begin the day by translating. Once finished with the day’s quota, I work on finding more work. This means sending letters to agencies, calling my clients, and most importantly, looking for new sources of work. I also spend time studying my languages and subject areas, working on articles such as the one you are reading now, updating and improving my web site, and keeping on contact with fellow translators and clients.

If I don’t have any work, I work on finding work. Unfortunately, I still have the occasional day when I don’t have any work. Translators generally say that the business is one of "feast or famine." You are either drowning in work, translating from dawn until late at night, trying to meet your impossible deadlines and fretting over carpal tunnel syndrome as you do so, or you are waiting by the phone, praying to the patron saint of translators, St. Jerome, or perhaps the patron saint of lost causes.

You probably noted the paradox here. When translators have lots of work, they have no time to market themselves for the upcoming and inevitable dry spell. When they have no work, it is too late to do the necessary marketing. Which leads to a truism for translators and all other free-lancers: market always!

Income

Income in translation, particularly freelance translation, varies over a considerable range. At the lower end, a freelance translator can have negative income, a result of spending more for business purposes than earning from translation in a given year. The upper end of the range is filled with rumors, from stories of individuals earning over $150,000 per year to claims by duos or small teams of generating in excess of $200,000 per year.

Realistically, few translators ever have negative income, except perhaps during their first year of business. This is most likely to happen if this first business year consists of the last two months of the calendar year, during which considerable funds are spent on computers and other office essentials. Also, few translators ever make over $60,000 per year, and you should be very skeptical of claims of income above $75,000. Of course, there are exceptions, but for the most part translators can expect to make between $35,000 and $45,000 per year. If you hear stories about income levels much higher than that, just smile and bear in mind that most people exaggerate their income, consciously or unconsciously, at least to some extent.

So if you are asked if you make a lot of money as a translator, your answer will probably be no, though that does depend on what you consider a lot of money. And it also depends on what month or year you are in, as translation, like all businesses, is not perfectly stable or predictable.

To be more specific, translators are almost always paid by the word in the United States (between $0.04 and $0.25, though sometimes higher) or by the line or page in other countries. Few translators can do more than about 3,000 words per day, though some do achieve far higher levels of productivity. Regardless, annual income can be calculated with a simple equation:

Annual income = Average Word Rate x Words Translated

If you are charging $0.20 per word and are doing 2,500 words per day, six days a week, 52 weeks per year, you’d earn $156,000. An impressive sum, to be sure, but let’s examine what you’d have to do to reach that level of earnings.

First, you’d have to find all your own clients, since no agency is going to pay you $0.20 per word except under extremely extenuating circumstances that could not possibly continue for a year's time. Even direct clients rarely pay that much these days, unless you are providing desktop publishing and other ancillary services, which themselves can take a lot of time and require expensive software and other technology. And direct clients generally expect a completed translation, one that has been edited, proof-read, and perhaps even prepared for printing. So you either have to do all of that yourself, or you have to pay someone else to do it. Either way, your overall income will fall.

Second, you’d have to be very fast and efficient to maintain that level of productivity over a year’s time. There are people who do it. There are even people who claim to do in excess of 7,000 words per day regularly, some of whom simply dictate their translation into a tape recorder, then pay others to transcribe and edit their work. As above though, your income will fall as you pay some of your gross earnings to the people who do this work for you. And as for doing it all yourself, that leads to…

Third, you’d spend a great deal of your time working, probably in excess of ninety hours per week. Remember that for every hour of translation you do, you will likely have five to ten minutes worth of other office work, including marketing, invoicing, accounts receivable and payable, banking, purchasing office supplies and equipment, maintaining and upgrading your computer system, evaluating and acquiring new dictionaries and other language resources, and doing taxes, to name a few possibilities. This is a part of running a business, and you can certainly pay other people to do this work for you, but again, what you pay others comes out of your income.

To reiterate, starting freelance translators can reasonably expect to make $25,000 in their first year, perhaps more, sometimes even considerably more, depending on their language combination and subject specialization. The average in the industry seems to be around $40,000 per year, with some people making in excess of $100,000 per year. But those that do rarely have time for little else but eating and sleeping. There are far easier, faster, and more humane ways to get rich. With the right education, such as in international law or finance, and a few languages, one can go very far and very high in industry, or so I’m told. In other words, translation is not a way to get rich quickly or make the Forbes’ 400.

For those of you that dream of translating a great novel or book and living off the royalties, doing so will be extraordinarily difficult. Authors generally get about 10% of the hardback sales and 4% or the paperback sales in royalties and they have to fight very hard to get that. They’re not going to yield part of it to some translator unless they absolutely have to. I’ve translated books and gotten paid the same way I did for everything else: by the word. Many years ago, different relations existed between publishers and translators, but nowadays, the only advantage to translating a book is that you have a lot of work for a long time. Also, royalty payments generally are paid starting six to twelve months after the book hits the bookstores, which will likely be six to twelve months after you finish translating it. That is too long to wait for a substantial amount of income, though this may be offset by an advance from the publisher, should you be able to get one. In sum, translating books can be a fascinating process, but approach it as a business proposition. Do the math if you are offered multiple payment options and make a strategic business and financial decision about the job.

If you’re thinking of translating literature, think twice. It takes a long time to translate a work of art, and even more for it to be published. You might get some kind of royalty out of it, but hardly enough to justify the time and effort you’ll expend cultivating the necessary relations with the publishers, editors, and of course, the writer (if alive). You really need to love literature if you want to do this. It can be very rewarding, I say so having done a bit of that work myself, but it is also quite demanding. Enter into such projects slowly and carefully, if at all.

So if you think $35,000 to $45,000 a year is enough to live on, to raise your family, and to prepare for retirement, then you’ll be fine financially in translation. Of course, there is the theoretical maximum, and you can increase your income by finding your own clients, or providing other services. And, when you consider that the average individual income in the U.S. in 1998 was roughly $25,000, translation looks all right.

However, this varies from month to month and year to year. Translation is a very fickle industry, subject to the vagaries of politics and economics like few other professions are. In 1988, the demand for Arabic translators was minimal, but thanks to Sadaam Hussein, in 1990, the demand soared. Now, the demand is low again. Before the fall of the Soviet Union, most Eastern European languages saw low demand, but now, the demand is much higher and growing. Japanese was in very high demand until the economic bubble burst. Things haven’t been the same for Japanese translators since.

Your income in one year is not a good indication of your income for the next year. In fact, it is no indication at all, unless you are so well established and work in such an esoteric (but still in high demand) field that you can somehow count on work always.

Furthermore, your income from month to month fluctuates. While you will never make so little as to have to choose between feeding yourself or your cat, you may well have little left over after basic expenses in some months. Other months will leave you with enough to take a luxurious vacation, though you should save at least some of that extra income in preparation for the months with less income.

In sum, if you can handle variety and unpredictability in your income, freelance translation is the profession for you. If you want a paycheck every month with the same amount on it, and you want to see that amount go up incrementally over the years, then look for an in-house position or a new profession.

Other Financial Issues

Something that most translators don’t realize during their first year in the profession and most would-be translators don’t consider is the financial aspects of working for yourself. This is complex, and changes from year to year, so I’ll be general here. However, keep all this in mind, and keep track of all this, because it is not only important, but it’s the law. And consult with a tax professional for answers to any detailed or unusual questions.

Free-lance translators are self-employed, meaning that they have to file a "Schedule C" at the end of the tax year. They also have to pay quarterly estimated income tax (both federal and state, unless your state does not require payment of state income tax). This can be difficult to do since a translator typically doesn’t know what his or her income will be. And they have to pay self-employment tax.

Sound unpleasant? Well, there’s more. Free-lance translators also have to pay all their Social Security tax, all their FICA tax, and any other taxes your state and our federal government invent in the future. Freelancers also have to fund their own retirement plans, though this does have some advantages, including more control over how your retirement funds are invested and higher ceilings for annual investment in retirement funds. And self-employed people need to arrange for their own health coverage and life insurance (if necessary), both of which tend to cost progressively more per year as one ages. And to top it all off, you have to pay Self Employment Tax, though one-half of that amount is deductible from your overall income tax. All in all, free-lancers end up paying a lot more in tax than someone who works for someone else.

However, you can take many more deductions than people who are regular employees can. First and foremost is the well-known "Business Use of Home" deduction. You can also deduct as expenses any and all equipment, tools, and supplies (computer hardware and software, paper, stamps, envelopes, paper clips, erasers, dictionaries, etc.) that you use, as well as a percent of your telephone and utility bills, and a part of your medical insurance costs (this percentage changes every year). Furthermore, you can deduct advertising costs, finance charges for business stuff bought with a credit card, and cost of membership to professional associations and subscriptions to professional journals and magazines.

Does this all balance out somehow? For some people more than others it does. As long as you keep track of everything you do, keep the receipts and records of when and where you do it, and take the time to prepare your taxes accurately and completely, you shouldn’t have any problems in this area.

A word of advice, however. Although recent changes to how the IRS performs audits as well as improvements to the IRS’s computer systems seem to be leading to more responsible auditing, all self-employed people are still vulnerable, particularly those whose annual income is higher than roughly $75,000 or whose deductions represent a substantial percentage of their annual income. In other words, don’t get too cute or clever with the IRS, or at least do so under the expert advice of an accountant.

How to Survive

There are two fundamental rules in the translation profession. Most successful translators seem to follow both, though some successful translators follow neither.

Rule Number One: Work in the country of your B language.

Rule Number Two: Marry a native speaker of your B language.

These rules are not meant to be humorous. Translators typically do make ten to twenty percent more working into a foreign language in the United States as compared to translating into English. And some agencies and employers are more comfortable giving work to a translator whose spouse is a native speaker of the translator’s B language. I’ve had a few agencies choose not to give me work because I was not married to a Japanese woman (Japanese is one of my B languages). Obviously these rules are not meant to suggest that those who break them are doomed to failure, but those who do will have to work harder.

Now then, what to do when there isn’t much work coming in? One possibility is rely on your spouse’s income (not feasible unless you are married). Another possibility is rely on the money you have in your bank account (assumes you have enough money). A third possibility is do something else part time.

Many translators also do other things on the side. I personally consider myself a consultant who provides language services to anyone who wants them. I have taught English, Japanese, and Spanish over the years. I have done copy editing, proofreading, and written abstracts and text analyses for people. I have worked part-time as a desktop publisher and a database consultant. I do some technical and commercial writing, including short articles for Transparent Language and operating manuals for QXCOM (now a part of Computer Associates). And I teach one class per year at the Monterey Institute of International Studies (the course is called, not surprisingly, "Translation as a Profession").

Never forget that the suite of abilities which translators possess can be applied productively to numerous related fields. Translators are often quite capable copy editors, proofreaders, and desktop publishers. Translators can readily make the transition to writing manuals for computer companies, articles for local papers or magazines, and even short stories or books. Translators can also teach the languages they know or prepare reference or educational materials. Some translators even make the move into interpretation, but be warned: interpretation is a very different animal from translation and requires thorough schooling in the techniques of consecutive and simultaneous interpretation.

Because translation is catch-as-catch-can and can even be seasonal, having a fall-back position is a good idea, particularly as you’re getting started in translation. I don’t know many translators whose clientele is so reliable that they have a constant and unending flow of work. You have to be ready for those dry spells. If you need money, then go get a part-time job or do something on the side. You can always work for a temporary agency. If you don’t need the money, then do one of those things you talk about doing all the time.

How to Succeed

So how do people succeed in this profession? Is there a secret, and if so, what is it? And why, some people might ask, would anyone bother becoming a translator? All good questions; let’s examine each in turn.

First: how to succeed. In a nutshell, you succeed by working hard. Sorry, that’s really all there is to it. You can sit in your home office, watch your screen saver draw little fish or flying toasters on your computer monitor, and think that you are failing simply because you are an unrecognized and undiscovered genius, you are working in a language with little demand, or you don’t have the right background or equipment. However, the truth is much simpler.

If you are not succeeding, you are not working hard enough.

Of course, this assumes that you do have some equipment (translations hewn in stone or written on parchment are not acceptable these days), that you know a good language (little demand nowadays for Hawaiian or Basque), and that you have some ability (though if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be reading this article). Maybe you are the next great literary translator, the person who will bring new meaning to the Upanishads or the Iliad. But most translators are not literary geniuses, and they don’t have to be. In other words:

If you’re not succeeding, you’re not working hard enough.

So what do I mean? Simply this: being a free-lance translator involves a lot of business and a little translation. You will have to spend your time marketing yourself, telling clients that you exist and are available to do work, proving to people that you can do what you say you can, and continuing to do this for the duration of your stay in the profession. No matter how long you’ve been a translator, you’ll have to market yourself incessantly. Send your resume hither, dither, and yon. Cold call potential agencies or clients. Walk into local companies (for example: law firms and consulting houses) and see what their needs are. Contact your local Chamber of Commerce or the appropriate embassy or consulate.

Do all this and keep doing it. The people who succeed in translation are the ones who are willing to do all this and more.

Second: what’s the secret? I wonder if I should let you in on this, because if I do, then it won’t be much of a secret. And I might create more competition for myself by doing so. However, like most secrets, it’s not really a secret. And saying it is much easier than doing it. So, without further ado, here it is. The secret of success in translation is: TIMING.

Timing is everything in translation; and I mean this in the broadest sense possible. When you sent your resumes and cover letters to potential clients, when you submit samples of your work to agencies, when you take vacations, when you make new purchases, when you pay taxes, when you get paid, and most importantly, when you submit work.

Let’s start with the last first. Submitting work to an agency or client is what you have to do in order to get paid. Clients and agencies want the work on time. That means don’t submit anything late, ever! If you think it will be late, then call them ahead of time and make arrangements. Be sure to fix a date and time when you negotiate the terms of delivery. And keep in mind where you are and where the agency or client is. I often have to wake up quite early to deliver something to New York at 9:00 a.m. (I live in California) or submit it in the evening of the prior day.

In sum: NEVER SUBMIT ANYTHING LATE!

Next, when you give and receive money. The government has this rule that self-employed people have to pay taxes quarterly (by April 15, June 15, September 15, and then January 15). When you do your annual income taxes, you figure out what you owe, then subtract what you’ve already paid and then pay the government the remainder (unless you paid too much, in which case you get some back). Financially, the best strategy is to pay something every quarter so that you avoid the penalties for underpayment at the end of the year and the shock of a large payment on or before April 15. If you have already paid most of what you owe at year’s end, you won’t have to pay much of an underpayment penalty, if anything at all.

You should also plan your purchases, be they personal or business, around your finances and payment schedules. Any large business purchase is best made at the end of the year when you are close to getting your deduction for it. Any large personal expenditure is best made when you have a lot of work and a bit in money in the bank. And always keep some extra in the bank, just in case.

As for when to take a vacation, this depends a lot on your personal life. However, it’s very easy to get work around Christmas and New Year’s because almost no one is around to do it. Also, during August, the supply of translators drops (they all migrate somewhere) and so if you’re available, it might be easier to get work. And, you should know the annual cycle for the languages you’re working in so that you know when the busy and off seasons are.

Finally, the when of marketing. I have harped on marketing as being the element which separates the successful translators from the failures. Maybe this is harsh, but I do believe it’s true. However, although marketing may involve some subtle and ethereal qualities which are difficult to define and explain, one quality which is easy to explain is timing. You have to send resumes to agencies and clients regularly. Time your mailings so that they correspond to the busy season for your language (it’s up to you to find out when that is). Also, know when to call them. Wait at least a few days if not a week after sending a resume before calling. Call around mid-morning because that’s when people are available but still reasonably relaxed. Call during midweek, for the same reason. And most of all, do all this regularly.

Remember, the secret is timing, and experience is the best way to master it.

Finally, we’ll close this article with a brief exploration of why people become translators. I imagine that other translators reading this will find my reasons familiar, though they might differ from your own. I’ll also add what I’ve heard from others, and then you can add your own. If you are thinking of becoming a translator, this might help you make your decision. If you are working with translators, this should help you better understand those mysterious people who work alone to reproduce information.

I translate because I like to write and I like languages. I am a free-lance translator because I like to work for myself. I have translated in-house in Japan and have had teaching jobs on both sides of the Pacific. I’ve also worked as an hospital orderly, as a desktop publisher, graphic artist, database consultant, truck driver, stock boy, and garbage shoveler (yes, that really is a job). I prefer working for myself and that’s certainly one of the reasons I like translation.

Some people are in translation because they like to translate. They enjoy the challenge of taking information in one language and discovering a way to render it into another. They relish the challenge of wading through uncharted linguistic and terminological waters. They thrive under the pressure of harsh deadlines and irregular work schedules. And, they like the income.

Some become translators because they know two or more languages and a subject area and want to do something with this knowledge. Bilingual computer scientists and software engineers find the move into technical translation to be smooth, though not necessarily easy. Many people blindly enter translation, not realizing just what it is like to sit alone at a computer, dictionaries piled around you, working for six to twelve hours on a document which came in the day before and has to go out the following morning.

Is there a right reason to be a translator? I doubt it. Is there a wrong reason? Sure. Knowing two languages is not a good reason to be a translator. It’s a start, of course, but there is a lot more. Loving languages is also a start, but I know people who love languages and hate translation; they seem to head into linguistics.

So in closing: if you’re a translator, great. If you want to be one, great. If you don’t want to be one, great. I like this profession and I know may others who do. With any luck, more of us will be able to know each other better, and the profession itself will be better for it.