To one and to all: Welcome to Freelance Translators from Scratch!
My partner and I are currently in the process of developing ourselves into a freelance translating business/team. Between the two of us, we have fluency in English, French, German, and Japanese.
Possible language pairs would be English<>French, German>English, German>French, Japanese>French, Japanese>English. Having said that, and in all humility, I think we have something to work with here, don’t you?
Currently, we live in Japan, but Caroline and I hail from Japan/France and Canada, respectively. We don’t want to be tied to one specific location at all times, for many reasons. To give you but one: We have family in different countries and don’t want to be apart from one or the other for too long.
Why a blog, you ask? In three simple words: We need help.
It seems that this blog can be useful to us and to others in the future. It will document every step along the way from the very beginning (thus the “from Scratch” part of the blog title). Others who have similar aspirations for their own professional lives will have this blog to help guide them. But, the main thing is, we cannot do it alone
We need the help of kind and generous souls who have been down this road and struggled to get themselves established as freelance translators. It is our wish to get connected with (and help further link together) the freelance translation web/blogosphere, to find help with getting on our feet, as well as contribute to the ongoing development of a community of bloggers in the freelance translation field who want to make knowledge of the profession more accessible.
Having said this, we are requesting any help you can possibly provide in guiding us from where we are now to where we hope to be. We are not afraid of hard work and in no real rush. We are in our 30s now and have enough life and travel experience to know the things we want for us and we have developed the patience to do things well.
What do we need?
We need advice from people who were once in our our shoes, so to speak. Please contribute, if you feel inspired.
2 responses so far ↓
Michael // March 13, 2008 at 12:56 am
Mark, I started a translation business in Tokyo in 1980 and a design and photo typesetting business in 1982, both quite successful. I did so after a number of years of freelance translating for agencies and direct clients. Then (and it has not changed for me over the years) all business came from word of mouth. We invested heavily in networking, spending a lot of spare time volunteering and doing pro-bono projects. Japan has changed since then, but the basics of networking haven’t. I don’t know what kind of organizations exist today, but if you are not active in at least two or three of them, you are missing out on opportunities.
My 2 cents.
Tamer Elzein // March 21, 2008 at 9:57 am
Hi Mark, it’s me again
Listen, I’m thinking about writing an article about “translators helping translators,” and I was wondering whether it’d be alright for me to use your blog as one of the examples.
Let me know what you think
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