First things first: HELLO! to anyone and everyone that has stumbled across this blog for one reason or another. Welcome to Freelance Translators from Scratch.
Now, let me explain why I have started this blog (you’re thinking: good idea, please explain… here goes):
My partner and I want to develop 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, French-English, German-English, German-French, Japanese-French, Japanese-English. I think we have something to work with here, don’t you?
One of us has studied languages and linguistics, some translation theory (more literary translation, however), and has a Master’s Degree in German Studies. The other (not in any particular order here) has been speaking 3 different languages for most of her life, often having to deal with 2 or 3 languages at one time.
We want to work our way into the translation profession in any way possible, starting first by working for agencies - if that happens to be the most sensible thing - with the ultimate goal of both of us working full-time hours wherever we happen to be located. Currently, we live in Japan, but we are Canadian and French citizens. We don’t want to be tied to one specific location at all times because, well, we have family in different countries and don’t want to be apart from one for too long.
Why a blog, you ask? Well, that’s an excellent question! We’ve been looking around a lot on the web and in the blogosphere and have come across some excellent blogs that discuss just about everything you can imagine that’s happening in the various worlds relating to the translation profession, and it seemed like the best place to find guidance would be there. You see, we are not afraid to say, we don’t know how to get there yet and 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 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 people who have been down this road and struggled to get themselves established as freelance translator. It is our goal to get linked into (and help further link together) the freelance translation web/blogosphere and, thereby, get help with getting on our feet, so to speak, as well as contribute to the building of a solid community of bloggers in the freelance translation field who want to make knowledge more accessible to themselves and others alike.
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 experience and have traveled enough to know what we want and have the patience to do things right. What do we need?
We need advice from people who were once in our situation. We need links to good sources of information (on this note, of course, we pledge to use this blog as a source for links to any information we find or are directed to). tips on good books to read on the subject. Possible contacts in the field. Answers to the many questions we have, such as: (1) which fields in the translation world have the most demand for qualified translators? (2) do we need to be certified and, if so, how do people from different countries, with different language fluencies, get certified? (i.e. are there international bodies that certify for multiple languages?) (3)what is the first step?…
It can go on and on. You get it, though, don’t you? You know the point at which the two of us are now and you know just how much knowledge we have yet to acquire. We humbly implore those of you out there who understand the desire we have to put our passion for languages to work and build a life and a business that suits people who need a bit more mobility in an increasingly globalised world - please, take part in this project of ours.
