Articles for Translators
and Translation Companies
Translation Job Market
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Average wages in European countries
This is a map and list of countries containing monthly (annual divided by 12 months) gross and net income (after taxes) average wages in Europe in their local currency and in euros. The chart below reflects the average (mean) wage as reported by various data providers…
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Rosetta Stone and Translation Rates
The conversation slowly and lazily drifted into the matter of rates.
There was general agreement that we are underpaid. Different people
said that Indian and Chinese agencies were spoiling the market,
Latin-American agencies were no good and even some North-American
and West-European agencies offered terrible rates far below what
anybody would consider fair…
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the full article…
Milengo leverages Google Translator
Toolkit with Google Adwords
Last month when Milengo
announced they had been selected by Google as an official localization
vendor to help open translation accessibility to millions of users
globally we contacted Adam Blau, Rebellion Leader at Milengo, for
comment...
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the full article...
The Value of Translation
It is hard to embark on a career in translation without guansi,
or connections, in the Chinese society. The so-called guansi resembles
a network of people, where referrals of translations can be directed.
Student translators studying in the home country would benefit from
this network well before they graduate with client referrals passed
down from teachers who are too busy with other projects, whereas
overseas student translators would have to start from scratch for
a humble income that could barely keep them alive…
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the full article…
How
to Make More $$ without Really Trying
Have you noticed how different businesses are constantly inventing
new ways to nickel and dime their customers? Airlines have first
stopped offering free in-flight meals; then introduced a fee for
checked-in luggage; they reduced the leg space of their seats and
are now charging for "special" (exit row and bulkhead)
seats that leave you less cramped at the end of a two-hour flight…
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the fullarticle article…
How
a medium-sized LSP survived an economic crisis
2009 was tough. In our company we all had to take pay cuts back
in April. Everyone took pay cuts and we were happy to do that and
keep our jobs rather than end up in the unemployment line. So let’s
talk about last year and some of the challenges that we saw and
how we changed our business model to adapt and survive it. Not just
survive but change the way that we are doing business permanently
because of it…
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the fullarticle article…
The
European Library Opens Up 48 Jewel Boxes using TransiBar
In 2007 the collection descriptions from the European national libraries
were only available in the native language and in English via The
European Library portal. The European Library Office aimed to have
all 330 collection descriptions available in 27 languages by mid
2008…
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the fullarticle article…
Find
Jobs Using RSS Feeds
In addition to actually seeking a job, there are also other valid
reasons to monitor the job market. Perhaps you are satisfied in
your current position, but just want to keep an eye on new positions
in a specific sector. Perhaps you are just curious to know what
the wages are for similar positions. The job market can be monitored
quite easily using RSS feeds…
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the fullarticle article…
Everything’s
Comin’ up Roses (with apologies to Stephen Sondheim)
I often wonder whether the leaders (if one wishes to apply such
lofty nomenclature) of this country's numerous translator and interpreter
organizations live in some kind of blessed land of milk and honey,
a land of beautiful aromatic flowers and streams and brooks of pristine
water, a land of sunshine and smiles, where n'er a cloud darkens
the day. And if such land of milk and honey exists, I surely want
to go there…
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the fullarticle article…
The
Influence of the Market on Translating — A Tentative Study of the
Market-oriented Translation in China
It was not until the late 1970s, to be more exact, in 1978, the
year of reform and political opening-up, that the real market-oriented
translation appeared in mainland China. By market-oriented translation
I mean a kind of translation service which every individual or organization
can access. Before 1978 China was relatively closed, only open to
socialist and Third World (Chairman Mao's term) countries…
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the fullarticle article…
People,
People Who Need People
Your best sales person has just been headhunted elsewhere, your
strategic account manager for your biggest client is soon off on
maternity leave - or paternity, depending on where you are, there’s
a large new project coming in and you’ll need to hire new project
managers with a specific technical experience and German, plus an
engineer, and one of the new recruits is not working out…
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the fullarticle article…
How
to use a GILT Job recruiter
Keeping your career afloat can often feel like you’re navigating
through hazardous, murky waters, especially during times of company
mergers and acquisitions, downsizing, “right sizing,” and “offshoring.”
Indeed, many things might lead us to reinvent our careers, and we
invariably need to understand our job markets. Every career-minded
person faces this reality, and the world of localization offers
no exception…
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the full article…
ESL
Jobs FAQ
Are there really any ESL jobs for me? Yes, there are. Rightly or
wrongly, the whole world wants to learn English. People everywhere,
especially young people, are convinced that speaking good English
is their passport to a successful career. What is more, they are
being encouraged in this by many governments. Worldwide, there are
many more ESL jobs than there are native-speaking EFL teachers to
fill them…
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the full article…
Why I don't like bidding systems
I don't think many people could imagine a lawyer bidding to get
a contract in reply to an ad saying, "Legal advice needed for big
company, please offer your best price, no more than $ 5 an hour
please." Yet this type of ad is seen every day on the main translation
portals, with price being the main, if not only, selection criteria…
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the full article…
Inttranews Special Report: Translation Centre for the Bodies of
the European Union
The Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union is one
of the smaller translation services of the EU, regularly translating
documents in an extremely varied range of subjects into and out
of all 20 official languages of the European Union. So how does
it operate? What are its deadlines? How does it meet them? What
are its quality criteria? Inttranews set out to find the answers,
which will no doubt be of keen interest to freelancers and translation
companies alike …
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the full article…
Why Are Most Translators Underpaid? A descriptive explanation using
asymmetric information and a suggested solution from signaling theory
It is a common observation that most professional translators are
not paid well. Most attribute this to the low perceived status of
translators and their work. Because of the low pay, many good translators
have left the profession for other jobs. This line of thought sounds
reasonable but it is also highly evaluative which makes empirical
testing impossible …
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the full article…
From Tea Leaves to Coffee Grounds
Here's the doom and gloom, using the U.S. high-tech sector as the
bellwether. According to a survey of 100 CIOs (chief information
officers) at leading U.S. companies conducted in December, average
spending on hardware and software will decline by 1% compared with
2002. And perhaps even worse, the percentage of those expecting
to delay higher IT spending until 2004 or later has jumped from
26% in an October survey to 43% in December…
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the full article…
Major mistakes when responding to job offers
Wondering why you never got an answer to your e-mail? Sometimes
potential clients do not have the time or simply do not need your
services. Other times, it could very well be that your message is
the real reason. Have a look at the following mistakes to see if
any of them sound familiar and find out how to avoid these mistakes
in the future…
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the full article…
Why communication is so important
when selling to a global market
Today it is easier than ever to start and run a global business.
Our advances in technology has made the world shrink into one manageable
market…
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An Easy Translation Job
The client who claims the
job is easy just wants a discount and quicker turnaround. There
is no such a thing as an easy translation job. This does not mean
the guys are lying: they may believe their own words. However, whatever
people say, no matter why or how they say it, there is no such a
thing as an easy translation job. Often the translator is unable
to identify the difficulties posed by the job—but that is altogether
another story, and often a tragic one…
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Translation Economics 101
Translators, like everybody
else, with the possible exception of monks and vagrants, wish they
could make a little more money and work a little less for it. There
is nothing wrong with this. However, many of us try to justify this
yearning for a better material life by claiming we are paid comparatively
less than other professionals or than our due. To support those
claims, some of us often compare our earnings with those of others,
mainly bilingual secretaries, plumbers, and sanitation workers.
This is a question of ethics: we want to show we are nice guys shortchanged
by society, not greedy hogs. In addition, we usually compare our
earnings with those we consider ourselves superior to…
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Translation: A Market in Crisis?
Colleagues who attended the
2002 ATA meeting complained that there was a significant reduction
in the number of agencies present. Nothing wrong with the ATA itself:
just a sign of the times, for our trade is in a state of crisis
and the signs of deterioration are seen everywhere, not only in
the paucity of participants in the ATA job exchange. Responses to
the crisis have been many, diverse and often lacking in objectivity.
It seems that translators, usually so logical in dealing with technical
issues, tend to be a little bit emotional and subjective when the
matter is money…
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The Nine Markets
From the point
of view of the translator, all the languages spoken and written
in this world may be divided into three groups, although borders
between groups are not always very sharp. Classifications always
imply a certain degree of generalization; generalization, in any
degree, entails loss of precision. However I hope the basic ideas
derived from this article may be of some interest, if not of any
use…
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Test translations - an update
There are two kinds of test translations. A translator should learn
to differentiate between them and respond accordingly…
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