Archives for January 2008

The Blushing Translator…

I went along to a talk on becoming a Chartered Linguist this week, which was run by the London Regional Group of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI). It was good timing for me and I thought it would be a great way to speak to those involved in developing the application process to get answers to a couple of questions I had about it all.

I hadn’t been to an event organised by the London Regional Group for well over a year. The venue was a cosy bar in Chinatown and the room upstairs was literally bursting at the seams. There were lots of familiar faces from various stages of my working life over the past 5 years. It was great to see quite a few of the more newly-established translators too, in addition to the more experienced crowd. I was all set for a long-overdue evening of talking shop. Or so I thought. When I got home, I realised I’d spent the entire evening with my flies undone… nice!

Oh, the talk was very interesting, and I’ll post some of my notes soon 🙂

Alphabet Soup – How to Get More Letters After Your Name (Part Deux)

by Sarah Dillon

Following my last post on ITI Qualified ITI Member status, here’s my take on the requirements for gaining Chartered Linguist (Translator) status based on an information evening run by the ITI London Regional Group in January 2008:

Note this does not constitute official information. Please check the relevant body for information on current requirements.

Chartered Linguist (Translator) status is evidence of having reached the very highest standards as a professional. It’s only been possible to apply for Chartered Linguist (Translator) status since September 2007, so it’s still a very new and very exciting development. The requirements may well change as the application process is further refined over the coming months, so keep an eye on the CIOL website for updates. Remember, it’s a lot easier to keep the correct records as you go along, rather than having to backdate everything when the time comes to apply.

NOTE: Although Chartered Linguist (Translator) status is awarded by the Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL), the process is separate to applying for general membership of the CIOL (in fact, you don’t even need to be a member of the CIOL to apply). As I understand it, the requirements at the time of writing are as follows:

• Education: The CIOL Diploma in Translation or an MA level qualification which must include an assessed practical translation module in the languages for which you wish to register. Status: check.

• Experience: Five years’ full-time translation in the years prior to applying, and membership of the ITI, CIOL or AIIC for 2 years prior to applying. Status: getting there.

• Evidence of CPD: Submit CPD records for the 3 years prior to applying. Status: I’ve kept CPD records based on the ITI’s record sheet for a couple of years now, so I don’t expect this to be a problem. Saying that though, a lot of it hasn’t been “signed off”. Firstly, because it’s not compulsory within the ITI and I think the idea of asking someone to sign my little book is a bit like being back in the Brownies. And secondly, because a lot of my CPD is self-directed so it’s not suitable to ask someone else to sign it.

• References: Three in total: Two from clients or other persons “in a position to assess or report on a substantial portion of your work over a significant period of time”, covering all language combinations. One from someone able to comment on my professional repute, “someone with whom you have been associated in a professional context or who is otherwise able to speak about your commitment to professionalism, personal development and other relevant factors.” Status: to be addressed when the time comes. (I’ve already hassled my poor clients for references a couple of times in recent years.)

• Work volume: Provide evidence of having translated an average of 300,000 words a year over the five years prior to applying. Status: this is a pretty achievable volume, even for a part-time translator. Assuming 45 working weeks per year (I like to be generous when I’m working these things out), this equals an average of 6,666 words per week. However unless they issue more specific guidance, I’ll have to contact admissions to see how best to calculate the volume of my non-traditional translation work.

• Attend an interview: To explore my understanding of professional ethics. Status: I think I can cope with this.

Now this is the point where it gets interesting. Registration as a Chartered Linguist will be assessed on an ongoing basis, and will need to be renewed every 3 – 5 years. As a result, the following will also be required:

• CPD: Submission of an annual report stating that you still meet the criteria for which you were awarded Chartered Linguist (Translator) status, including the number of words translated over the year and CPD activities and plans for the following year.

• Attend an interview: Further interviews every 3 – 5 years.

• Cost: £350 to apply initially, with this cost to be reviewed annually (expect upward), plus £50 to “register” for first year. £100 + VAT each year thereafter, PLUS another sum of money TBD when your registration is reviewed every 3 – 5 years. This is not an insignificant amount of money, so I expect the CL (Translator) designation really will come to represent those translators who are most serious about being recognised within the wider industry.

And there we go – looks like I’ll have a busy few years ahead of me.

Alphabet Soup – How to Get More Letters After Your Name!

by Sarah Dillon

I’ve been reviewing my membership with some of the UK’s professional translation bodies lately as part of my CPD planning, and thought it might be useful to post my notes for anyone else at a similar stage of their career. My aim for the short to medium term is to upgrade my status with the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI) to Qualified Member, and then apply for Chartered Linguist (Translator) status. I’ve written before about the benefits of membership, so there is no doubt in my mind as to the value of this.

I first became a student member of the ITI in 2002 or 2003, then upgraded to associate membership after I became a full-time freelance translator in 2005. I joined the Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL) around then too, qualifying for full membership status immediately. It does require planning to meet some of the requirements of these associations, and I’d recommend that if you are considering joining a professional organisation, check the requirements and start preparing the necessary paperwork well in advance. (Full details and membership requirements here, here and here.)

Here’s a summary of the requirements for ITI Qualified ITI Member status (MITI). Details on Chartered Linguist (Translator) status (CL (Translator)) in a separate post here.

• References – 2 professional, 1 character: I know from experience that these take longer to gather than you might initially expect, and as I work out of three languages, I need to think carefully about who to ask in order to properly represent my experience. I really do dislike asking clients to complete these kind of reference forms though!

• Experience: A minimum of five years’ full-time work experience PLUS either successful assessment of work or a Pass in the ITI Membership Examination. The exam costs £200 + VAT per language combination, so I don’t believe that it’s a worthwhile option for me. I’m not sure what kind of work I’ll need to submit for assessment, so there’s my first action: I’ll need to speak to the ITI’s membership officer and clarify this. I’ll also speak to other translators about their experience of having work assessed.

• Work volume: supply details of work volume (word counts) per language combination for the previous 5 years. Again, I’m not clear on what the ITI expects in terms of volume, or indeed if there is a cut-off of some kind. Their 2001 survey found that most translators and presumably, therefore, their members, work part-time though, so as a full-timer I should be fine on this. I’ll have to trawl through my invoices from the past few years as I’ve not kept specific data of this, but at least I can start keeping note on future jobs. In addition, a lot of my work isn’t easily measured in word count, so I’ll have to speak to the membership officer about how best to quantify it.

• Cost: £200 + VAT annual membership fee. No charge for the application as I’ll be upgrading from my current associate status (it’s £30 + VAT for new ITI members).

Details on Chartered Linguist (Translator) status in a separate post here.

An outtage doesn't have to leave you down and out

by Sarah Dillon

I love thinking of different ways to be more mobile (or “location independent“) as a translator. One of the ways I do this is by trialling different web-based applications to see which best suit my needs. For example, I’m currently using Backpack, an organiser with a calendar, to do lists, notes, etc. to help me stay on top of both work and personal tasks.

So you can imagine how I felt last Friday when I logged in see to this (read from the bottom up):

Thankfully, I hadn’t been left high and dry. I’ve been using Backpack with PackRat, an application which works with Backpack, but which stores all your information on your computer like any other application. This meant I was able to access my information as usual, with no excuse not to get cracking on my to-do list. Phew.

So why is this remotely blog-worthy? This experience probably confirms the worst fears of a whole lot of people, but it hasn’t put me off using web-based tools and I’m convinced that it shouldn’t deter anyone else either.

Even before Friday, I was never seriously worried about my data being irretrievably lost. I’ve carried out my due diligence and I figure that the makers of Backpack are no more likely to lose my data than I am (and even less likely than the UK government, by all accounts). Nor am I excessively concerned about my personal data being “held” and potentially used for sinister commercial reasons – I don’t particularly like the idea, but I don’t buy the misinformed conspiracy theories either. I view it the same way I do my accounts with eBay, Amazon, Hotmail, or any other wonder of the internet age. Anything that important, or that confidential, is backed up and/or not uploaded in the first place. (I’m not using Backpack to store translations or client documents, for example.)

Most of all, there really is no excuse for not backing up regularly, especially as a professional with responsibility to your clients. Backpack’s outtage just emphazises that moving data server-side doesn’t relieve us of this responsibility. We can’t control when the technology is going to fail, we only know that it will; so shame on us if we’re caught out. It’s an oldie, but a goodie.

Why being your own boss is not as hard as you think

by Sarah Dillon

I often hear people comment that they are not motivated enough to work for themselves.

They imply the temptations of tellie, tea and comfy slippers would be too great. As if, somehow, the kind of willpower and discipline required to resist these delights are the preserve of a lucky, very motivated few.

This idea seemed to be re-enforced during a discussion following an interesting but unrelated post over at Employee Evolution. An artist aspiring to self-employment asked:

…since you are working for yourself how do you avoid the temptation to sleep in on rainy days and get daily motivation? … I fear the “oh I’ll do it later” mentality and being secluded, which I feel would get lonely…

To which another commenter suggested that working for a small company might better suit this person’s “mindset”.

It’s good to see people offering suggestions and support to others within an encouraging environment. But I’m concerned that comments like this lack vision.

Mindsets are just that – minds which have been set in a certain way. But it does not mean they are set in stone.

I don’t consider myself to have a lot of willpower. I’m not especially disciplined either, and, as I’ve explained before, I sometimes have to work hard to motivate myself to work. I’d bet these factors alone would see me fail many of the ubiquitous online quizzes offering to assess my suitability to be my own boss.

So how have I done it?

I suggest aspiring freelancers turn their fears around and ask themselves, “what do I need to do to ensure that I don’t feel secluded / lack motivation / [insert any other concerns here]?”. This technique really helped me when I was starting out, and still does today.

Greg Hollings over at Location Independent Living did a great job of showing how he overcame his freelancing fears in an excellent post called Three Fears I Had About Leaving The Rat Race That Came True (And How I Overcame Them). Best of all, he prompted some really useful and empowering suggestions from other freelancers in the comments section.

Properly thinking through the answers to these kinds of questions will offer you a more realistic insight into whether self-employment is a step you are truly willing and able to take.

Ultimately, it’s about creating new habits and a new mindset for yourself.

I’m not for a minute underestimating the skills required to work for yourself, or the complex combination of other internal and external factors. But I can’t help thinking that if I can work for myself, then there’s a lot more people out there who could too – if they really wanted to.

All of this shows that if you’re seriously considering whether you can cut it on your own, feeling afraid and unsure of yourself should not be reasons in themselves to deter you.

Instead, you can use your fear as fuel to feed your likelihood of success.

What fears do you have about freelancing? How can you turn them around?

The grand scheme of things and the translator place in it

by Sarah Dillon

I like to keep an eye on the Global Watchtower, the blog of the Common Sense Advisory. I enjoy their strong business-analytical approach to the language services industry, but I also relish their use of management speak which would occasionally give even Martin Lukes a run for his money.

Advisory analyst Donald A. De Palma has conducted some research into consolidation in the language services industry, with the aim of establishing what the industry might look like over the coming years. This data was used to extrapolate pretty wildly in a post earlier this week on the Global Watchtower, and I wasn’t especially surprised at today’s post which comments on some of the feedback they received from language service providers (LSPs) as a result.

I’ve been following all this with interest. Not because there’s anything especially life changing in there for me just yet – I don’t tend to work for the global companies covered in the study, as their business models don’t tend to fit mine. They often work to tighter deadlines than I can comfortably manage, with weekend work and low margins the norm. (I’m not saying that they are all like this or that I would not consider working with them in the future, of course. Just that it doesn’t suit me right now.) I’ve been following all this because I spied a couple of interesting nuggets that do a good job of placing the language services industry within the wider context of the business market. Here’s what I got from it:

A contradiction, well put: translation is an essential part of global business, yet translators, localisers, and other service suppliers are not very visible on the corporate scene. Until they make an expensive or embarrassing mistake, of course.

“Information asymmetry”: what a great term. De Palma says it exists when information relevant to a negotiation, business practice, or technology is unevenly distributed amongst the relevant parties. He concludes that this may lead to to inefficiencies as not everyone has enough data to make properly informed decisions. To me, this also sums up the situation between would-be freelance translators, their more experienced counterparts and potential work providers. (Hint: joining a professional body is a good way to address this imbalance!)

For translators who aspire to owning their own language services business, the report itself claims to offer an insight into what buyers may be looking for in the future. Now, I would think you’d need to have pretty concrete aspirations to purchase the full report for this reason alone, as Common Sense Advisory reports are generally only available to subscribers, with the price of subscription available on application. However, if you are interested in reading about the needs of the buyers of tomorrow, then it’s certainly worth keeping an eye out for future blog posts addressing this particular aspects of this research.

I gave a little whoop of joy when I saw De Palma also predicts an increasing interest in open-source content and collaboration from translation buyers. I’m sure there will be plenty of translators who will see this in terms of threats to the copyright of their work, translation memories, etc., but I see it as good news as it should increase the demand for, and hopefully availability of, open-source translation tools. It’s even better news for the developers of the excellent open-source translation memory OmegaT, who deserve to see their application being used more widely.

DePalma’s point about the language services industry experiencing an absence of direct comparables is an interesting one. He suggests accountancy and payroll services as potentials. Taking this down to the level of the freelance translator, accountants have already been compared to translators in terms of their status as portfolio workers. I’ve recently been thinking about how graphic designers would also make a useful comparable. And although not a direct comparison, Philippa Hammond over at the Blogging Translator sparked off a thought-provoking discussion when she drew a parallel between the career transitions of EFT teachers and translators. So I’ll be very interested to see what The Global Watchtower comes up with in this area.

Some characteristics of the language services industry include:

it has very few publicly-traded firms
LSPs can be categorised as Human-Delivered Services Companies
services are typically delivered “through a combination of wetware (that is, human power) plus automation” (wetware?! Is that’s what we translators have been reduced to?! 😉 )

All in all, useful information for any translator interested in learning more about the wider industry in which they practice.

Are professional bodies worth the effort?

by Sarah Dillon

Most would-be translators find online translation communities such as Proz or Translators Café pretty early on in their career. They fill out the necessary forms, create the relevant profiles and spend hours lurking on the discussion boards.

But I’m always surprised at how few students and career starters join a proper association for professional translators, such as the American Translators Association, or the UK’s Institute of Translation and Interpreting. (See here for a lengthy list of options worldwide.)

I appreciate that the application process is decidedly offline compared to the online communities, and I know it’s not easy to contact colleagues for references. But really, nothing worth having is easy.

These associations are in a league of their own when it comes to honing your craft and engaging with the profession. They usually do a pretty good job of outlining the key benefits of membership for themselves (see examples here, here and here), but there are other benefits which are not quite as obvious. For example:

Being accepted for membership gives you a sense of validation. This is because professional bodies often (and quite rightly) have demanding membership requirements. When you meet them, it can give your confidence a well-deserved and very welcome boost. Also, while the extra letters after your name won’t necessarily impress your clients (see proviso below), they may give you a little extra kudos among family and friends who don’t really believe that working from home is real work at all.

Membership is valued by exactly the kind of clients you want – that is, those who are aware of what it means to be a translator, and are therefore more likely to be prepared to pay a fair rate for your services.

It’s a great way to build relationships with other translators. There’s a lot more value in this than you might think. After word of mouth, my second most important source of work has been other translators. It’s a welcome surprise to see how willing others are to pass work your way and give you a chance to prove yourself. Even more satisfying is the feeling you get when you are in a position to pay it back and do the same for other translators.

You have instant access to a vast body of experts. No matter what translation, business or freelance-related problem you are facing, chances are you have access to someone who has already been through it and is more than happy to offer advice. Even better, it is often country and/ or language specific – invaluable when it comes to sorting out your tax or banking issues, for example. And as membership is restricted, information shared is likely to be a lot more reliable and transparent than you might find in a public forum.

Professional bodies can be good for your social life. Freelance translation is a pretty solitary pursuit. If meeting people is a top priority for you, then joining a translation association probably isn’t the only thing you should do to help with this. You may have to travel long distances to attend events, some associations are more active than others, and each group is will be as different as the people in it. Saying that, I often see recently established translators quickly absorbed into the social scene of their local networks. Over time, these connections can be invaluable.

If you’re serious about being a translator, joining a proper professional association is a must.

My Personal Productivity Nirvana

by Sarah Dillon

One of the biggest problems I face as a home-working freelancer is maintaining my motivation levels. I’ve found that one of the best ways to do this is to ensure I feel organised, productive and ultimately, on top of things. But believe it or not(!), this is something I have to work very, very hard at. Flagging energy is probably something all workers face, but there’s nothing like having your income based on your output to ensure that it’s not something that gets swept under the carpet for too long.

I’m certain that my situation is not helped by a natural tendency towards ill-discipline and blissful chaos 🙂 However, given the proliferation of personal productivity blogs maintained by home-working marketeers, writers and techies of every programming persuasion, I’m inclined to think that dips in output are common to many home-workers.

Luckily, I learned ways of keeping my scattered side more or less in check long before I went freelance. Working part-time while also studying part-time for my Masters was a great exercise in self-management. Once I got into the swing of things, I found I thrived on the demands of these very different environments. (In fact, I consider this to be one of the most productive portfolio periods of my life.)

But I have the short-term memory of a goldfish, and if I don’t record it, I don’t remember it. That’s a lot of recording, and it’s probably why I’m such a sucker for anything promising personal-productivity nirvana. And if the stairs to heaven are paved with a limited number of easy-to-follow steps, then all the better. So, here’s my list of some of the personal productivity tools I have tried and discarded, either wholly or partially, over the last year alone.*

Electronic tools

Microsoft Office Outlook: my default organisation system for some time now, a legacy from my office-working days. Undoubtedly a one-stop-shop, but long overdue a change, not least because I’m tired of looking at its dull interface and overflowing inbox. More cubicle-dweller than freelancer, I’m afraid.

37 Signal’s Backpack: a free web-based information manager. I’m enjoying this a lot at the moment. I use it with InfiniteNIL’s Packrat for offline working too. Nice to look at, which is always a bonus, but you need a system of some kind to get the most from it.

MindjetMindManager: a mind-mapping application. I loved the idea of this, but my mind just doesn’t work in this way so it never felt intuitive. And I really don’t need another excuse for not being organised – one for the more visually-stimulated amongst us.

Blackberry Pearl 8100: I normally prefer my phone without the whistles and bells, but I really like getting my emails on my phone. It means I can go about my day without worrying about missing a job offer if I’m not in front of the computer. This year I set up filters so I only receive my clients’ work-offer emails (everything else I check from my regular email programme), and it’s even better!

Tiddlywiki: a free, non-linear personal web notebook. This is an amazing tool and I’m sure it will be perfect for something I do, some day. For now though, it’s just not what I’m looking for – again, I just don’t seem to organise my thoughts in this way. But I had some pretty geeky fun playing around with it for a couple of days! It’s true what they say, the best things in life are free.

Omni Group’s OmniOutliner: this application came free with my Mac. It’s offers what the outline view of Microsoft Word offers, only more features, more easily organisable and more pleasing to the eye. Guess what – this does seem to suit the way my mind works, and I’m hooked.

Paper-based tools

Russell and Hazel‘s 3-ring binder planner system: a stationary marvel, really and truly, and a joy to use, but it’s just too bulky to carry around with me. I need to have my info to hand if I’m working out of office. Plus, I prefer something a little further along the electronic spectrum for easy updating.

Moleskin 18 month pocket-sized calendar: currently my favourite calendar. Can’t beat it for portability AND ease of use. And I’m a sucker for the soft covers, mmmm.

Black’n’Red A5 wirebound notebooks: I started using these in a former office job and they’re still my favourite for general notes and lists. They’re just the right size, the wire means the cover folds back neatly and I like the paper quality too.

And for variety, here’s a selection of some of the books I’ve read on the topic.

Do It Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management, by Mark Forster: This gets my productivity book of 2007 award, and it was the best value too at only £2.97 on Amazon. It has some very realistic but thought-provoking ideas on effectively managing your workload, including how to decide what kind of tasks to take on in the first place. Most of these ideas are particularly suited to being freelance. Best of all, it’s the ONLY book I’ve read that clearly states that there is only finite number of hours in the day, and if you’re not getting everything done then you may just be doing too much. Revolutionary!!

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-free Productivity, by David Allen: I’d heard a lot about this book before I actually read it. It’s essential reading in the sphere of life hacks and personal productivity, but I’m suspicious of systems with as many fanatical followers as this. The full GTD system is not for me, but there are some useful techniques in there, all the same. If nothing else, you’ll at least understand the lengths people are prepared to go to get organised.

Organizing from the Inside Out: The Foolproof System for Organizing Your Home, Your Office and Your Life, by Julie Morgenstern: Lots of common sense, of course, but I really liked some of the ideas. For example, the idea of organising your spaces into specific work or task-based zones, rather than trying to make your tasks fit your space. This one is definitely a case of not judging a book by its cover.

The Simplicity Survival Handbook: 32 Ways to Do Less and Accomplish More, by Bill Jensen: I bought this on a recommendation I saw on another blog, but it wasn’t for me. The author is a strong proponent of keeping things simple (which we like), but this book verged very heavily on the side of complete dumbing down. I found the whacky use of different font sizes really annoying, and it’s clearly aimed at people building their careers in hierarchical, corporate companies. I’d say give it a miss.

Cut to the Chase: And 99 Other Rules to Liberate Yourself and Gain Back the Gift of Time, by Stuart R. Levine: I guess this might be useful if you had a system
you were happy with and were just looking for a few tweaks, or were happy to dip and and out of a selection of tips. Otherwise, nothing very special here.

Finally, some blogs on personal productivity from my RSS reader. These are especially relevant to freelance workers.

43 Folders: based around David Allen’s GTD system

David Seah: has developed his own productivity system called the Printable CEO System. Oh yes, forgot to mention I’ve dabbled with this too 😉

GoogleTutor: productivity 101 – ensure you are using your most frequently referred-to tools as efficiently as possible.

Lifehacker: making computers more productive. Because let’s face it, they’re not really.

Pimp Your Work: mostly, I love the name, but it has some fun tips too.

Adventures in home working: even I find productivity boring after a while, but this blogger keeps me coming back for more as he covers that and so much more. Plus, he’s based on this side of the pond, which is always refreshing.

Tim Ferriss’s blog: this guy is a bit of a productivity ninja, the ultimate portfolio worker and the author of a book called The Four-Hour Workweek. His book has a lot of buzz about at it the moment (inciting controversy and compliments in not-so-equal measure). Love him or hate him, he seems to be doing something right.

WebWorkerDaily: good for a heads-up on new (and often free) bits of software, which are often relevant to freelance workers.

Contract Worker: The blurb sums it up nicely and is also pretty funny: “A lot of people still have a wrong impression of contract work or freelancing, thinking it only involves selling your skills to the highest bidder; in short, turning your expertise into a prostitute for money (thus the F-word). I’ll show why this isn’t so, by presenting freelancing as a legitimately lucrative career option that allows improvement and growth.”

Who knows, one day I may stumble across the holy grail of personal productivity (you’ll be the first to hear about it if I do). Until then, I’ll continue to spend more time revving up my motivation levels by testing the latest hair-brained tools than actually Getting Anything Done.

*disclaimer: I receive no incentives for any of these links

There's Something About Translation: 2007 in review

by Sarah Dillon

I’m going to do a more in-depth review of my experience of blogging after March 2008, the 12 month anniversary of when I started to regularly blog. In the meantime, here’s a quick’n’dirty review of 2007, based on Google Analytics stats from the entire year:

Top 10 most popular posts

Top 10 keywords entered into search engines to find this blog

chand lakhwani proz (by a LONG shot – not sure why or how, either!)
naked translator
freelance translat english to portuguese blog (again, not sure why this exact search string is so popular, or why it finds me…)
grindhopper
the naked translator
nakedtranslator something
about translation
jed schmidt (yay to the original mobile translator!)
harry potter translations (still going strong. If it was traffic pure and simple I was after, I’d build an entire blog around this. Too easy… )
naked translation

Top sites referring visitors to this blog

I’m pleased with how the year has gone in blogging terms. I only started to blog regularly from March, but posted a total of 100 times. I’ve experimented with different kinds of posts (lists, reports, quick link referrals, humourous posts, opinion pieces, etc.) and I hope I’ve started to find a more consistent voice for myself too. I’m looking forward to taking full stock of the experience later in the year!

For 2008, I’d like to continue to blog at an average of 2 – 3 posts per week, but hopefully concentrate a little more on opinion and reporting-style pieces. No doubt the blogosphere will have its own opinion, but I find I get more out of it when I take the time to craft an article of sorts about whatever has caught my attention at the time.

Onwards and upwards for us all, then!