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November 13, 2007 - #012

Table of Contents

1. Content 2.0 - Now you can share your expertise!
2. Payment Problems (and how to deal with them)
3. Quote: The science of assessing translation quality

1. Content 2.0 - Now you can share your expertise!

This is one of the most exciting announcements I've made on Translator Techniques since I started publishing it...

First some background.

A good translator knows that there are always things about the industry that he/she can learn from other more experienced translators, and having this website has helped me realize that learning from other translators isn't a sign of weakness or incompetence on my part, but rather is an opportunity for me to get better.

Well, I know that many of you have a lot you can teach me and other translators (especially those just starting out), and now I've added some functionality to the site that allows you to share some of that expertise with your fellow translators (including me!).

To see how this works, check out bad-translation-pictures.html or Translation Myths. Basically, how it works is that you can go to either (or both) of these pages and add your own photos or comments, essentially creating your own page on the site!

Anyways, check it out and feel free to add some more to the site. I'll be adding more pages in the future and you can keep updated by checking out The Translators Blog.

====Translator's Ebook==== Don't forget to get your copy of The Freelance Translator's Ultimate List of Translation Agencies today! To celebrate how well sales have gone so far, I've just lowered the price to an unbelievable amount of $7 so that more people can get the book. It's a great way to increase your number of clients for a very cheap price. ==========================

2. Payment problems (and how to solve them)

If a freelancer translator's hardest task was translating, the translation profession would be a cinch. Translating is nothing compared to some of the other aspects of the business that freelancers have to deal with. One of the hardest things is...

...getting paid. :(

Why does getting paid from someone have to be so hard? You would think that everyone would live up to the contract (whether spoken or written) and get you the payment they owe you. But if you've been translating for any amount of time, you know that this isn't always the case.

There are many reasons why getting paid can be a pain. First of all, it takes time to keep emailing or calling people and letting them know that, hey, they still owe for that job you did two months ago.

Check out the rest of this article on Getting paid as a translator.

Oh, yeah, and I just added the new functionality to this page so you can share ways that you make sure you get paid. Please share with the rest of us!

3. Quote - Peter Fawcett

"Translation quality assessment proceeds according to the lordly, completely unexplained, whimsy of “It doesn’t sound right”.

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Anything you want to say? Let me know. I'd love to hear anything you've got to say, from suggestions to comments to your translation experiences. Just reply to this zine and tell me what you think!