Among the biggest buzzwords of the bizosphere over the last few years is the highly sought-after concept of remote working.
As translators we’re constantly resisting commoditisation, particularly among even our own colleagues, the agencies said to represent us.
Not counting the experience earned in the day to day running of a small business, which every translation practice will offer its owner, there are other ways in which you can gain professional experience in business just by virtue of being a translator.
Just a quick post to mark this milestone. The month of July was dedicated to finalising the basic LQ feature-set and to clean the site of any cruft that had accumulated over its several years of development.
We now have:
You might have heard about a security bug known as 'Heartbleed' in the news or from any online services you are registered with. If not, try checking the blogs of some of the other secure services you use and you might find a mention.
Things have been moving quite steadily here at Linguaquote towers. A bit like a canal barge. There are faster ways to reach a destination, but a barge will always get there in the end.
Recently discussed on translator marketing forums has been the topic of buying an off-the-shelf mailing list to prospect for new agencies to work with.
It is often assumed that an author's original text will lose feeling, meaning and style in the process of translation. However, when it comes to working with experienced professional translators this is certainly not true. In fact, translations can often be improvements on originals.
You know the problem if you've ever tried to find a team of linguists to translate your material: too many freelancers and untrustworthy middle-men with no way of objectively judging the quality of their work.
Just what happens at a freelance translator's desk? How does that document get translated? There are a few stages involved, so I thought it might be of use to note the major ones down for anyone interested.
1. Job negotiation
After recently trying this fun language game (link below), which has you guess which language is being spoken from an increasing number of multiple choice options (share your score below!), it reminded me of the varying abilities in people to discern sounds and 'utterances' being spoken.
When it comes to the usual career expectations the focus is on climbing 'the ladder'. This ladder, however, is completely imaginary. It has no top, there's no place to stop, and the satisfaction of being on it only comes from being 'higher' on it than peers.
Linguaquote's rebuild is not far off completion. This will be the 'major release' of the site which has been iterated on over the last few years, gathering users and interest along the way.
Knowing how to value your time during working hours can make certain decisions easier and increase productivity in your working routines.
In a Reddit AMA (ask me anything) style interview, Duolingo creator Luis von Ahn mentions the backlash from professional translators against his brainchild Duolingo, set to 'crowd-translate' the web in the way that a million monkeys with typewriters (iPads, nowadays, surely?) are set to recreate
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