I did a silly thing the other day. I accepted a job from a regular client without asking what the subject was. It’s the kind of bread and butter job that translators rely on. 3500 words is not too short and not too long, the kind of stuff that keeps us going. All the PMs in the agency know what I like doing and what I don’t, but for once it was the big boss who called me. Perhaps I was so surprised it was him, I didn’t think to ask. More fool me. When I opened the file, I realised what the subject was. Refrigeration. Oh deep joy. I think I’d rather have my teeth pulled.

Let’s face it, life as a freelancer isn’t always perfect and we all get boring jobs to do from time to time. So how do you manage a day’s work without yawning?

Allow plenty of time

Boring jobs always take longer than they should, however well disciplined you are.

Make a plan

If it’s a translation, read the entire document first and identify the difficult bits, look for as much vocabulary as possible before you start, it’ll make the job flow better when you start. If it’s writing, do all the research first and plan it out. It’ll spread the pain out a bit and get the job done just that bit quicker.

Break it down into stages

When I was a kid, to stave off the “are we there yet?” question, my parents broke journeys down into bit-size chunks. I still do that with large jobs by counting the number of words left. It’s a great motivator because I find myself measuring performance from
one hour to the next. It also works for the short boring stuff. Writing jobs benefit from establishing milestones and achieving them. You’ll get there quicker (honest…)

Take breaks

Reward yourself with something nice. Coffee and a biscuit? A walk around the block? Twenty minutes daytime TV? Whatever works for you.

Sleep on it

I know I can hear legions of translators laughing at this. We just don’t get time to sleep on this generally because most clients don’t know the meaning of the word “reasonable deadlines”. Having extra time to review an intersting document is always a good thing, with a boring one it’s a lifeline because you’re more prone to make mistakes.

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The New Scientist predicts that by 2020 there may be two billion people speaking English across the world. Only 300 million of those will be native speakers. At that point English, Spanish, Hindi, Urdu and Arabic will have an equal number of native speakers.

Whilst English is not the most spoken language in the world, it is certainly the most influential. Varieties of it can be heard across the world that certainly wouldn’t be recognised in the English shires. So that begs the question, do we (us native English speakers) own our language any more?

What has become my language has come a long way. From the remnants of the Latin left behind by the Romans, it has been influenced and bastardised by Scandinavians, Germans and the French. It produced some of the world’s greatest writers in Chaucer and others even before it was recognisable to the modern ear. Then Shakespeare got hold of it and made an incalculable contribution to making it a language that would conquer the world like no other has ever done before.

In its conquering of the world, it has mutated. There are areas where the language that is spoken is as far from the way I speak on a daily basis as sixteenth century Shakespeare or even fourteenth century Chaucer. A century from now, there’s every chance that my grandchildren will not understand their American counterparts.

Even now, there are varieties of English developing in South East Asia that are taking it off in completely new directions. This is not hip-hop or any other sub-culture, these are new languages.

Singlish is a “Singaporean creole” spoken by a majority of Singaporeans and consisting of a mixture of modern English, Malay and Chinese. I’ve never heard it but I’m pretty certain I wouldn’t understand it.

Panglish is a version of the language that may develop as spoken by non-native speakers. As such, constructs that they find difficult may be eliminated. “The” will be replaced by
a “z” or an “s” and similarly the “s” will be lost from the third person singular removing the last piece of verb conjugation that remains to us.

Pedants may harrumph in the letters pages of The Times of London or make endless complaints to the BBC and I will still maintain that the “incorrect” use of language negates its ability to communicate. But lazy English is not the same as new English. BBC broadcaster John Humphrys holds that correct English is not about strictly adhering to a set of hard and fast rules like to some extent French is, but about maintaining a commonly held corpus of words and usage that is understood by all.

The French (and French Canadians) try to protect their language from outside influences – notably “Anglo-Saxon” – rather like King Canute trying to hold back the waters. English doesn’t have that luxury (or curse). It has developed as it has because is ready to accept outside influences, even French ones. Nobody owns it.

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As a speaker of English it’s very easy to feel superior. After all, everyone speaks English don’t they? In a world that is increasingly anglophone, why bother learning another language?

A survey by travelsupermarket.com shows that although they love to travel, more than half of British holidaymakers claim there is no point making an effort to speak the local language because everyone speaks English. 45% of those questioned said that locals acted negatively when spoken to in English. Now there’s a surprise. Imagine their reaction when someone speaks to them in French, Spanish or even worse, in German.

Not everyone is so negative. The other half of those questioned were embarrassed by their paltry efforts, ranging from learning the basics and key phrases to using phrase books. 11% of people in the South West took time ahead of leaving to learn the language.

On the other side of the coin, there is considerable resistance in non-English speaking countries to the tidal wave. I lived in France for a long time where there was and still is much controversy about the influence of English words and culture. A law was passed in the 1990s imposing a quota of 40% French songs on radio stations.

The French have taken on English words, often incorrectly converting a verb into a noun, like a “parking”. They’ve incorporated expressions like “making of” and “coming out” as though they were single words, or perhaps more controversially “un Black” to avoid saying “un Noir”. The effects of saying things in a foreign language are strange sometimes.

The Académie Française huffs and puffs against all this but has had the odd success. It has been successful in replacing Walkman with “baladeur” and email with the Canadian expression “courriel”, having tried unsuccessfully to impose the rather silly “mél”.

But maybe all this is in vain, according to Google’s Eric Schmidt, English will no longer dominate in 5 years time. Everyone won’t be speaking English.

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I was pretty good in French classes at school. I could write it well and understood most of the things that were put in front of me. When it came to speaking more than the stock answer that was expected of me however, it was torture. I was constantly looking for the perfect sentance rather than just getting the words out in the wrong order and risking falling flat on my face. Years later, my French assistant at the time still remembered trying to almost physically extract the words from me. Just how I was still talking to my French assistant (and still am) years later is a completely separate story that I may tell one day. The point here is that I was afraid of ridicule and was frustrated that I couldn’t express myself in the way I wanted.

After the end of my second year at university, I lived and worked in Paris for a couple of months. I remember going in on the first day and being shown the basics of what I was expected to do. After a couple of hours I was asked to pick up the phone. By then I was able to string together more than a few words, I could handle myself in a conversation, but speaking on the telephone in a foreign language is another level completely.

For two weeks I swam in a sea of words of which I only understood about 70%. I learnt technical vocabulary the hard way and lived by the seat of my pants using the words I did know to work out the ones I didn’t. I was ridiculed and complained at by the people I spoke to but I sure as hell wasn’t going to ask outright. I was taking this going native stuff seriously despite the problems it was causing me.

I lived in a chambermaid’s room on the fifth floor. The only washing facility was a wash basin on the room, so I often took a morning shower at the train station at Montparnasse. One morning I asked the rather imposing lady that officiated on the front desk if it was possible to have a “peignoir” (dressing gown) rather than a “peigne” (comb). The thunderous look she gave me had me convinced that I’d said something wrong so I didn’t persue the matter. It was only later when I was safely on the metro that I realised my error.

In another incident, a friend of mine had a cat with fleas (puces – beware if you’re scared by rude words here). She went to the chemist and asked for “quelque chose pour dépuceler ma chatte” ( I’d like something to “deflower” my fanny). I think the pharmacist kept a straight face and worked out what she wanted. Karen took it all in good humour although she may have been cringing internally.

Much more recently, I was on holiday in Spain in September and felt the same pangs of annoyance at having my extremely basic Spanish corrected. When I can’t think of a word I revert to French as though I’m thinking, “default foreign language = French”. My wife, on the other hand, hardly speaks a word of Spanish and really doesn’t care. She’d love to be able to speak it properly but certainly isn’t averse to pointing when required to get something she wants in a shop.

Ridicule is part of learning a language. I’ve got over it now mainly because I’m 30 years older and more mature, but I do know how excruciating it can be. Call it a rite of passage.

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I was talking to a photographer the other day who told me she was brought up in the Netherlands and spoke Dutch, “a useless foreign language to speak”, she said. That got me thinking. What do I get from speaking a foreign language (apart from a living that is)?

I spent a long time perfecting my French, through school, University and some embarrassing times in Paris. I quickly learnt the difference between a comb and a dressing gown in the public baths (peigne and peignoir). The hardest part was adapting to the culture. I made it though, my Fench is as damned near mother tonque as it will ever be.

The point of speaking a foreign language goes beyond simple communication. To speak it well requires a knowledge of its culture, history and the way of life of the people that speak it. My life would be less complete if I couldn’t watch films in French without the subtitles, if I couldn’t fully participate in political arguments around the dinner table or I couldn’t read Les Misérables in the original. And no doubt Claire’s life wouldn’t be the same without her Dutch components, whatever she thinks.

So what about languages I can’t speak properly?

I speak enough Spanish to know my way round a menu, order a beer or have very rudimentary conversations. I may get a few funny looks and people sometimes correct me, I get frustrated when I can’t say what I want to say, I can’t make small talk and whenever I get a blank I lapse back into French even though the person I’m talking to can’t understand a word I’m saying. But despite this, I can get my message across.

But enough of my holidays. I work with a wide variety of people. We all speak English – nominally at least – but do we speak the same language? I meet graphic designers that can’t communicate with words, I meet web coders that don’t know about graphics and art and although I’m interested in graphic design, I’m no better than a beginner.

Faking it

So I can only speak one language fluently? Not a problem. I can still communicate.

When I work on projects with other professionals, I don’t speak their language fluently either. I’ve taught myself the bits I need to know about Indesign, Photoshop and Illustrator. I now know what a layer is and why it’s important to put each thing I do on one because it’s easier to make corrections. I know what the various tools in Indesign do, although I struggle a bit in Photoshop or Illustrator.

Getting to know a new language means learning new skills that complement your own. I find the experience enriching. I’ll never be an expert but you’ll be able to talk the language of experts. Communication with others is all about speaking their language.

Speaking other people’s language, even partially, enhances your understanding of what they do and , in this collaborative world, work better with them

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Changing technology and the Internet have transformed the way translators work. I started 15 years ago with an IBM PS/2 with Windows 3.1 and floppy disks for back up and I either hand delivered my files or sent them using the Z modem protocole. I had piles of heavy paper dictionnaries and paid regular visits to University librries. We’ve come a long way since then. I still got paper dictionaries that get used sometimes but many are kept just for nostalgia. Any translator starting out today is going to be computer based and use the latest technologies. But which ones? Here’s a list of stuff you shouldn’t be without.

Word processor

You’ll recieve files mainly in the standard .doc (or the more recent XML-based .docx) format. That doesn’t mean you have to use Word! There are a number of much cheaper or free (well, just go for the free ones really) alternatives. Look at Open Office’s Writer, AbiWord or even Google Docs for simple documents (you’ll have to sign in to a Google account to see this).

Spreadsheet

Why a spreadsheet you ask? I remember when I was 17 being told by my French teacher that I had to learn vocabulary in order to pass my exams. So I bought a paper address book and wrote down all the new words I came across and learnt them by heart. A spreadsheet is the modern equivalent of my address book and ideal for compiling glossaries of frequently-used terms or client or industry-specific terminology. Professional translators don’t need to learn vocabulary off by heart but putting it into an easy to use format in a spreadsheet puts it at your fingertips rather than on random pieces of paper and makes it easy to export to Computer-Asssisted Translation (CAT) tools. Again, don’t think you have to use Excel. Cheaper solutions exist, particularly Open Office’s Calc or Google Docs.

Electronic dictionaries

One of the greatest time savers I’ve come across in my professional life. No more thumbing through pages and pages until I find the word I want. Enter the search term, the computer finds it and sometimes cross-references it with others. If it doesn’t find the term, move on to the next one. I still use the Collins-Lexibase on a PC and the Collins-Robert on a Mac.

Online bilingual dictionaries

These have superseded electronic ones to a certain extent. They have the advantage of being able to be updated instantly and regularly without waiting for a new version of the CD to come out. Since the demise (for non-EU staff that is) of Eurodictotum, the daddies for the French/English pair are the Grand Dictionnaire Terminologique and Termium Plus. Both are managed by the Canadian Government (more of them below), the GDT is free and Termium used to be available at a hefty but worth it price on CD. Now it’s gained a Spanish section and is available for an online subscription after a 15 day trial. I find the new interface a little clunky but it’s still worth it. The advantage of online dictionaries is of course that they’re not platform dependent and you can use them on any computer you like. Google searches will throw up a results in a variety of other online dictionaries the quality of which vary enormously.

Online and offline monolingual dictionaries and thesaurii

These are almost as important if not more than their bilingual counterparts. It’s easy to forget that translators are writers who refer to another language for guidance and structure in what they write. I’ve often used a French thesaurus (dictionnaire des synonymes) to get me out of a hole. For us UK-based people, obviously the grand old man is the OED. It’s available as a pricey CD or on subscription. To be honest, it’s overkill for the majority of us. I use the one-volume Oxford Dictionary of English, the Oxford Thesaurus and the Oxford Style Manual.

Google

The day I discovered search engines was the last day I spent in a University library. Online search obviously provides enormous help for translators. Use the Advanced Tools to drill down to specific pages and specific languages. For French-English translators, the Canadian government government is great. All government web sites are bilingual, but additionally, when you click on the English tab on a French page, you actually get the same page translated.

Computer-Aided Translation (CAT)

CAT tools build up databases of the translations you do and if you have jobs with repetitions in them, you translate only once. That’s the theory anyway. A detailed analysis would be the subject of another long post. They are a big investment for a beginner but if you have jobs with lots of repetition, you could make the money back quickly. Especially if you’re a Mac user, it’s difficult to get away from the majors, Trados, Déjà Vu and Transit. Free options exist, the multi-platform Omega T or Cafe Tran, my particular jury’s out on those at the moment. You can use Wordfast 5.5 if you have small(ish) projects, but it doesn’t work very well on a Mac.

Specialist dictionaries

Whilst paper generalist dictionaries are all but dead, specialist ones are very much alive and kicking.

Voice dictation software

This won’t suit everyone and it’s not suitable for all types of text. I never learnt to touch type properly and even if I’ve attempted to do so over the years, I’m two or three times more productive talking to a computer rather than doing battle with the keyboard.

This is not an exhaustive list, just the stuff I use. Any other suggestions are of course more than welcome.

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11 things to do when starting out as a translator with no formal training

Apart from the obvious like being more than competent in another language, there are a few things you need to know before embarking on the crazy world that is being a freelance translator.

1. Think about areas you know or that you can easily research. Then specialise in them. Don’t even think about taking work that you don’t have some kind of expertise in, even if the money’s good.

2. Specialise even more.

3. Invest in good hardware and make sure you have a decent office space with plenty of natural light. Ergonomics are important in stay-at-home professions, I’d say that a second screen was well worth the investment. Use one for working and the other for YouTube (no, research!). Unless you always work in areas where you know all the vocabulary, you’ll be spending time with online dictionaries and glossaries and our old friend Google. More screen isn’t a luxury.

4. Depending on your specialism, software will play an essential role. Computer-Aided Translation (CAT) tools have their detractors but are generally a good thing, if nothing else to manage terminology. They build up a database or corpus of the translations you have already done. When a segment (usually a sentence, but you can set them to recognise anything up to a paragraph) that you have already worked on appears, it translates it for you.

5. There are many more ways of getting clients these days than when I started. Contact agencies directly and build up relationships with them once they start sending you work. You’ll get more pleasure and better rates than from the brokerage web sites where you’ll find yourself in a downward price plunge and where agencies often just sell to the lowest bidder.

6. Hang around in forums and discussion groups, be helpful and make yourself known.

7. Be interested in everything. One of the upsides of being a translator is that you get to work on a wide variety of subjects, even within areas of specialism. You’ll enhance your areas of specialism with your general knowledge. The more “things” you know, the more specialisms and professionalism you’ll be able to bring to the table.

8. Did I say specialise? I was told when I first started that there were two types of translator, the specialised and the hungry. If your background is in engineering, go for machine tools, if you have a history degree (like me), stay well clear. Plain pasta is cheap but it gets very boring, very quickly. This is a maxim that applies to all freelancers of course, not just translators.

9. Promote yourself relentlessly. Set yourself goals when business is quiet like writing three emails or letters to potential clients a day or posting three or four comments in forums a day. That makes 15 letters a week, assuming you don’t work weekends, and 60 a month. That’s much easier than doing 60 in a day.

10. Don’t get down when things aren’t going well. I played a lot of Solitaire when I started waiting for the phone to ring. The Internet and broadband have made it much easier to get out there and hustle. The more you do, the more the phone will ring and the more you’ll feel like you’re doing something.

11. Take time out to recharge the batteries, whether it’s just going for a walk or going on holiday. If you get too tired or stressed, you’ll make mistakes. The world won’t come to an end just because you get an extra hour’s sleep.

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In 1996 I was flat broke. I was counting the pennies every time I went to the supermarket (literally). I’d just failed the competitive exam bonanza that the French hold every year to recruit new teachers by 0.4%. I was seriously pissed at the time but grateful in retrospect. Why would I want to go to some crummy school on a Parisian sink estate to teach 13-year olds who just didn’t want to be there some basic English? I was far better off with my frozen beefburgers, cheap beer and benefits. But I did need some money.

So what was the solution?

I didn’t have any formal qualifications in translation, only a love of writing and my language. I had a 15 year old History degree, not even one in English. My interest was sparked by a job ad I saw for translators from a recently formed company. I called and got a gig. It was a medical translation. At the time I thought nothing of doing a technical translation with a Harrap’s dictionary and a University library nearby for reference, but in retrospect it was complete madness. I got through and got paid so I was happy.

The company was local so I delivered the work by hand on my bike as I didn’t even have a fax machine, let alone a modem. Sometimes I was even invited to lunch and I worked for them for about 18 months until the company moved on to pastures new. .

More customers?

Having got one customer, I needed more. In the days before a viable Internet and with little or no knowledge of marketing, the only way to do so was to take the phone directory (those big old books with phone numbers and addresses in) and write to agencies. There were 160 or so in Paris at the time and I wrote to them all, even the Chinese and Arabic specialists I think. A handful of them replied and even sent me work. I’m still working with some of them today. Some of the work they sent me included a job about the work of Médecins sans Frontières in the Phillipines, some technical specifications for the yet to be completed VAL driverless metro in Rennes and a 9,000 word document for the construction industry without a single punctuation mark. My Harrap’s dictionary was being seriously streched by then.

There are two types of translator, the specialist and the hungry

There’s only one real piece of advice I can give budding translators (or copywriters). Specialise, specialise and specialise. My experience with the construction industry, machine tools and anything vaguely technical that’s not IT taught me that if I’m not interested in the subject or I don’t know anything about it, I shouldn’t touch it. It can be tempting when all you have to keep you busy is Solitaire (or YouTube, its modern equivalent) just to take anything. If you make a mess of it, you’ll do your reputation no good.

So I specialised. I only ever did one medical document, but there were to be no more construction, machine tools or scientific texts. I focused on the commercial , marketing and cultural ones and started to build up some loyal customers. I hate marketing so I had to keep hold of them as far as I could. 10 years down the line I’ve branched out into other things but the basic principles are the same. Keep an interest in everything, deliver quality and have a good relationship with your customers and you’ll do just fine.

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I hate marketing. It takes time away from doing the sexy and interesting stuff, it can be soul destroying when we seem not to be getting anywhere and those prospects that we do get to talk to don’t see why they should hire a specialist because they cost too much and well, they can do the job themselves anyway.

And on top of that, it’s scary. Especially for shy and retiring types like me. The prospect of cold calling chills me to the bone.

I’ve picked up a good customer base over the years through a combination of mailshots and networking and I make every effort to hold on to them. Here’s a few basic rules for doing this:

• Rule one of customer service (in fact the only rule of customer service), create expectations and exceed them. So always deliver on time, and when you can, early. There is no excuse for not doing this. When life gets in the way and things do go wrong, you must communicate with your client. No-one likes being kept in the dark. And often you have more time than you think because the real deadline is further away than you’ve been told. Just pick up the phone and have the conversation.
• Deliver quality, the best you call, all the time. Sounds obvious doesn’t it? Have you you never been tempted to cut a corner or two. “Oh, that’ll do”, “I’ll make it up next time”, the best way to lose a client’s trust is to do it gradually. A big howler can often be forgiven, 5 mediocre jobs might not be. So it’s the best you can be and do, always.
• Be nice to them and don’t treat them like a pay cheque waiting to happen. This means being interested in them and building a relationship with them. You don’t have to become best buddies but let’s face it, we do business with people we like.
• Admit to your mistakes. No-one (not even you) is perfect. We all have bad days from time to time. Admitting to it and learning from the mistakes you made will drastically reduce the chances of it happening again. Failing to own up will only make things worse.
• When your client is wrong, stand your ground. I had one last year that radically changed the text of a marketing brochure I’d translated (marketing agencies, always think they know better!). The modified text was riddled with errors. I wrote back listing them all and why they were wrong. They paid up.

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