Request for Test Translation‏

Quite Frequently, I have been asked to provide a sample of my translation services to measure my competency. A couple of clients offered to pay for such effort. I did invoiced them however and am glad that i did got paid, which resulted in me getting further jobs.

My question is if I'm asked to do a test/sample translation, what is the magnitude of work that is considered sample? a couple paragraphs, and a lines here and there would be fine, but how do you find balance when a client needs his entire first job to be a test job? I believe that a maximum of two paragraphs will be a good starting point, whereby client can judge your ability, use of grammar and linguistic skills.  Shall there be more than that,  I would definitely would like to be remunerated accordingly.

How to Predict The Quality of the Translation‏

With advent of technology, and many technological tools available to make a translators job easier. Most of the tools like  spell checks, thesaurus  and synonyms available in your common office products, there are on-line translators that help make our job easier. However all these tools fail to accurately translate the content in its true spirit without the human interaction. A human translator and truly understand the true spirit of the words, and can accurately place them where needed. 

Thanks to internet we translators do have a platform to advertise our services and get more jobs. However a start-up translator always may be burdened with the creditability or image issues. When it comes to clients they would always like to check references, see previous work samples, or perhaps depend on comments/feedback left by previous clients. That is catch 22 situation, when a new translator needs to break in this business. And without such portfolio and feedback he/she might face difficulty in getting work. 

For new translators, their own work is their judge and feedback. The best way for a freelance translation business to lift off the ground is by creating a website. Explain your services in detail and give examples of translations -- they don't have to have been assigned by a client. Show potential customers that you can successfully translate from one language to another without losing context and meaning. Once you've established a website, you can advertise for free on websites like  mudah.my , db88, gumtree and many other classified websites.

 

If you're looking into a career in writing but want something specialized that every writer can't do, starting a freelance translation business might be the best career move for you.

Marketing communication fast, good and cheap?

Sometimes clients will demand their job done fast, good and cheap. This is especially true when they work with freelancers.

In reality, you can only have two of these at the same time.

If you want good and fast, there is no way it can be cheap. To get your job done, your freelancer must reschedule all other jobs, work long hours and spend at worst two or three days juggling with the backlog your job created. Priority always has a price.

If you want good and cheap, it cannot be fast. Jobs with fixed production deadlines and jobs that are more profitable will take priority. Your freelancer will be able to attend to this type of jobs only when there is nothing more urgent in the works.

If you want fast and cheap, it won’t be good. Even if your freelancer is willing to accept a job like this (his or her own reputation will be on line), there won’t be time to do any background research, plan the work in much detail or polish it to the usual standards. Quality will always suffer from being rushed.

This is why you should always plan for enough time and have a reasonable budget when ordering marketing copy, visual design, software development or any other creative job.