27/1/11 13:07

Freelance translation

The job of a freelance translator has numerous strong and weak points. Some of these may depend on the perspective that translator and client adopt. For instance, the freelance translator exercises no direct inter-personal management skills, and team work only comes through coordination with either colleagues or outsourcers.

Freelance translators have to grow in awareness of how to make the most of these strong and weak points, before improving on their own particular skills and capacities.

It is generally accepted that good project management and well-coordinated translation teams lead to productive work flows, the quality and certainly the quantity of which an individual translator is unlikely to surpass. In contrast, it is unlikely that a successful author would prefer an agency, were it possible to engage directly with a translator. In any case, an author with an understanding of the target language would liaise more closely with the translator in a one-to-one relationship.

One of the fundamental strong points of working alone is that the translator may in theory accept (or indeed reject) jobs and adapt in more flexible ways, with quicker learning curves, to the constraints of each piece of work.

The basic weakness of working alone as a translator is that four eyes are better than two. Arguments over whether proofreading and translation can be done by the same person are again linked to time constraints. Even though it is not explicitly stated, translation involves drafting in a target language and then checking, which if done thoroughly is a near second best to proofreading. Others would argue, probably more persuasively, that two different minds will consistently produce better quality results than one, and that the same translator may only, with great difficulty, switch his translator’s hat for a proofreader’s hat for only part of the day. Once again, arrangements with colleagues and the creation of loose-knit networks to share proof-reading when required are signs of a freelance translator’s maturity.

Translator’s websites all too often praise individual mastery, punctuality and painstaking attention to detail; all sufficiently sharp to render any source language text in the target language and return what reads like a “native” (sometimes near-perfect) translation in English to the client; quite understandable, as it is a translation after all. Of course, punctuality and precision matter, but so do other skills and qualities which are of such a wide and varied nature that, one rather suspects, they could never all be neatly stored away within the mind of one single translator.

Punctuality, for instance, could be calculated in terms of creativity, speed of thought, speed of understanding, and keystrokes per minute. A large volume of work that exceeds the capacities of a single translator will often leave the organization that requires the translation with little or no alternative than to approach an outsourcer. Nonetheless, the freelance translator who is willing to act as an outsourcer for a particular period before returning (leaving behind the apprenticeship project-manager role) to the more peaceful existence of one job at a time, can happily liaise with a network of colleagues, between whom work may be distributed on the basis of availability and agreement. Thus, a good freelance translator will have greater capacity than that of a single translator if willing to become an outsourcer, although such periods of intense activity should not be eagerly sought out, unless the single translator’s business is ready to take up all the tasks of an agency. The translator travelling down the path to become an outsourcer is often motivated by a desire to attend to every single client, which although reasonable as a business attitude can distract and derail efforts to specialize.

Nonetheless, the realities of the translation world often leave many freelance translators largely dependent on agency outsourcers, unless they connect with one or more clients with whom they can work directly. There is a sensitive borderline territory between work done mainly by agencies (projects involving multiple target languages) and work that a freelancer is more than capable of doing in direct relation with the client, and yet is so often channelled through the agency. Clearly, direct relations with suitable clients are far preferable than relations with these kinds of outsourcers. Some freelancers, for example, enjoy exclusive relations with a large industrial production plant, and have accepted a degree of specialization in return for consistent, uniform work flows.

Thus, the freelance translator that produces high quality work and runs a reliable service, should in the long run consider clear cut decision-making over whether to accept work in new areas (or tend towards specialization), and would also do well to keep a work-leisure time balance in mind as a reason for refusing work. The freelance-translator-cum-outsourcer has embarked on a path that requires determination, as human relations between translator and outsourcers in the form of agencies are by no means comparable with those of liberal professionals working in collegiate networks. Cultivating the relationship with the client and acquiring lay knowledge of the subject can be of enormous help with the translation itself and any long-term aims to achieve further in-depth specialization.