TRANSLATION AND INTERPRETATION | Spreading the word.

This list was taken from the blog I posted last week Guide To Professional Freelance Translation-Interpretation | Part 4: Fees. Per-Word, Hourly or by the Job Rule 1. You set your fees. Decide on a fee which you find fair and acceptable to you .    Rule 2. Know how long a job will take you . Before anything else find out as much as you can about the job and review the source text(s).   Get an approximate word count.   After reviewing the job details, inform the potential client of your fee and a feasible delivery time ( giving yourself time for research, formatting, proofreading, revising, contingencies, and any unexpected problems) , one which you can guarantee quality and professional services. Rule 3. You decide your minimum hourly baseline fee. In other words the minimum amount you are willing to accept in order for you to stay in business. Rule 4. You decide if you charge rush fees. Rule 5. You decide if yo

Last night I read the article, If Other Professions Were Treated Like Photography...   by Brent McCombs (see #everyonesaphotographer).   In the article Brent was frustrated that professional photographers lose jobs to part-time amateur photographers doing horrible work for extremely less.  He wondered: what if other careers were treated like photography? Brent mentions various professions and points to that fact that simply having some of the tools, basic knowledge, or desire to do a job, is not enough to practice a job at a professional level or even do the job at all. And in many respects translation and interpretation is in a very similar situation. Many bilingual and monolingual people think that simply knowing two languages is enough to qualify a bilingual person to translate or interpret.  No formal training, education, credentials, or experience required. Is just being bilingual enough to translate or interpret professionally? Thinking any person can transla

Translators And Interpreters Do You Charge Per-Word, Hourly, Or By The Job? What makes more sense? By the word? By the hour? Or by the job? Does it make a difference? No matter what method you use, per-word, hourly or by the job, they all have time as their common denominator. Yes, it all comes down to time.  Your time. Because as the saying goes, "time is money". Your time and expertise -not just words- helps you determine your fee for each of these three common methods.   In the end, it is you who gets to decide what method is right for you . Since you might already have an idea of what you want your  target annual salary  to look like, you simply need to figure out your time and the role it plays in determining your fees. Regardless of which method you use, keep the 5 golden rules in mind. The 5 Golden Rules Professional Translators and Interpreters  Follow When It Comes To Fees ********** Rule 1.

The following blog was inspired by my Guide To Professional Freelance Translation And Interpretation  series, previous other blogs and what occurred to me in two situations last month. What happened last month? First. After completing an interpretation job, the client said to me: "You are the best interpreter I've ever had." I replied: "Thank you, but I'm no big deal.  I'm just doing what I love and I stay within my areas of expertise." That afternoon, that comment got me thinking. I wondered.  What is really out there?  Am I really the best interpreter that client has ever had? I simply interpreted the way I always do.  Nothing special. I did what all professional interpreters do. Second. A week later, I was at my son's school assembly where the teacher was talking about the importance of regular school attendance. A technician was asking around if anyone wanted headphones to hear the Spanish Interpreter. I was excited