Post by habiba123820 on Nov 6, 2024 4:17:06 GMT -5
In the online translation gig economy, linguists face a daunting set of challenges. Steady work is often hard to come by. Even with a secure position, it’s often hard to find opportunities that offer compensation commensurate with your expertise. Whether you freelance for LSPs or contract directly with end clients, you’re likely to face a different set of creative and logistical hurdles. Let’s face it: it can be tough for professionals who want to get paid to translate.
The good news is that these challenges reveal just how far the translation industry has come in recent years. Today’s pain points are not the same pain points a translator faced five or ten years ago. All players in the localization ecosystem are evolving rapidly. If you’re looking to get paid to translate in the age of cloud computing and continuous localization , it can be helpful to gain perspective on how the industry has evolved and what really matters today when you’re considering positions that will advance wordpress web design agency your career as a translator. Pain points that no longer exist for translators Until very recently, technology used to be the most important limiting factor for job seekers and working translators. Looking at the pain points, we see how quickly things can change for translators and their employers. The following frustrations would seem absurd today, but they used to be commonplace:
Paying for Tools
As recently as 2010, translators who wanted to work had to buy their own translation software licenses. You had to buy, out of pocket, whatever tool your end client or LSP used for hundreds of dollars annually. Unless you wanted to buy multiple licenses, you were limited to contracts with companies that also used your tool. Today, CAT tools are cloud-based and easily accessible. Paying for translation tools is a thing of the past.
CAT Tool Preferences
Understandably, given the cost involved, many translators have stuck with their preferred CAT tools and required clients to work with their preferred systems – with varying degrees of success.→ The market has changed and CAT tools themselves have begun to converge in a way that makes the latest translation technology equally accessible, regardless of brand. It’s no longer realistic to assume that companies will work with your preferred editing tool, but you’re also no longer limited to jobs that use a specific software.
Working Online
Today’s translation economy runs almost entirely online, but some translators still cling to an antiquated reality of working offline with their own preferred tools. The downsides of this arrangement are obvious. Translators would spend countless hours sending files back and forth, and companies would struggle to find a single reliable source for translation memories. → Now that it’s relatively easy to connect to the internet from a wide variety of locations around the world, the industry has moved on. Part of being a professional translator is being able to work online in the cloud . It’s fascinating how the biggest challenge of an entire industry—technology—could eventually become the biggest potential benefit for modern professionals. Instead of worrying about the cost of CAT tools and the difficulty of switching between them, today’s translators can focus on making more important value judgments that shape the quality of their work experience.
The good news is that these challenges reveal just how far the translation industry has come in recent years. Today’s pain points are not the same pain points a translator faced five or ten years ago. All players in the localization ecosystem are evolving rapidly. If you’re looking to get paid to translate in the age of cloud computing and continuous localization , it can be helpful to gain perspective on how the industry has evolved and what really matters today when you’re considering positions that will advance wordpress web design agency your career as a translator. Pain points that no longer exist for translators Until very recently, technology used to be the most important limiting factor for job seekers and working translators. Looking at the pain points, we see how quickly things can change for translators and their employers. The following frustrations would seem absurd today, but they used to be commonplace:
Paying for Tools
As recently as 2010, translators who wanted to work had to buy their own translation software licenses. You had to buy, out of pocket, whatever tool your end client or LSP used for hundreds of dollars annually. Unless you wanted to buy multiple licenses, you were limited to contracts with companies that also used your tool. Today, CAT tools are cloud-based and easily accessible. Paying for translation tools is a thing of the past.
CAT Tool Preferences
Understandably, given the cost involved, many translators have stuck with their preferred CAT tools and required clients to work with their preferred systems – with varying degrees of success.→ The market has changed and CAT tools themselves have begun to converge in a way that makes the latest translation technology equally accessible, regardless of brand. It’s no longer realistic to assume that companies will work with your preferred editing tool, but you’re also no longer limited to jobs that use a specific software.
Working Online
Today’s translation economy runs almost entirely online, but some translators still cling to an antiquated reality of working offline with their own preferred tools. The downsides of this arrangement are obvious. Translators would spend countless hours sending files back and forth, and companies would struggle to find a single reliable source for translation memories. → Now that it’s relatively easy to connect to the internet from a wide variety of locations around the world, the industry has moved on. Part of being a professional translator is being able to work online in the cloud . It’s fascinating how the biggest challenge of an entire industry—technology—could eventually become the biggest potential benefit for modern professionals. Instead of worrying about the cost of CAT tools and the difficulty of switching between them, today’s translators can focus on making more important value judgments that shape the quality of their work experience.