Archives for March 2009

Don't ask, don't tell: translating and parenting

: Image via Wikipedia

One of translation’s biggest trump-cards is the opportunity to work for yourself. Long before I started my masters, I decided that if I couldn’t work freelance I wasn’t interested in being a translator at all. This might sound a little extreme, but it has always been important to me to be able to pursue personal projects outside of work. After a couple of years in the workplace, I realised that a traditional desk-job was never going to give me the flexibility I needed to do this. So I assessed my strengths and weaknesses, researched a couple of options and identified a course I was sure would prepare me in the areas I needed. And here I am, give or take a stage, working for myself.

I know that not everyone entering the profession has gone about it in such a deliberate way. But I’m certain that the lure of flexible working is a huge part of what keeps translators, both aspiring and experienced, in the game. [Read more…]

The knowledge base you can't Google

by Sarah Dillon

These days we all understand the value of information. We also understand the need for knowledge management and transfer. [Read more…]

4 things being a location-independent translator has taught me

by Sarah Dillon

We have a lot of flexibility around where and how we can choose to work as freelance translators. Sometimes we forget that we need to make the right choice for our individual set of circumstances, and that these choices will change along with our circumstances throughout our careers.

Last year I spent months running my office from just a laptop and a small folder when I was moving between London and Brisbane. I became a master of digitising, synchronising and reducing, and of setting up functioning workspaces in the least likely of places. While this was a great exercise in mobile working and streamlining more generally, it also made me realise a couple of things: [Read more…]