| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18] > | Moving on from freelance translation, starting a new career Thread poster: James Greenfield
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| Assuming makes.... :) | Feb 15 |
Christopher Schröder wrote:
Are you saying those translators went into senior/highly specialised roles? In which case, I'd be very interested to know how.
One was tempted out of freelance misery and into the joyous haven of 9-5 bliss by a direct client who offered her a job (I think there's a spot of translation there but the whole point of the move was that she was, like many of us, seeing a general decline she feared was permanent). The other saw the job ad, applied, went for an interview and got the gig. Not sure exactly what that role is, but it's decent enough for them to pay the costs of her relocating out of the UK.
As the years roll by, I am gradually understanding that there is almost nothing in this lark that can be said to apply to all of us universally. Which is why some of the pontificating on here raises a wry smile (absolutely not meaning you). Whenever some Great Universal Truth is expounded, I can almost always think of something or someone it doesn't apply to. Sometimes it's even me
| | | | Dan Lucas 
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:19
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
Christopher Schröder wrote:
I could have a decent stab at investing
Speaking as somebody who worked in a variety of investment banks and knew many people in hedge funds, you don't have to be employed by either to have a decent stab at investing. If you think you're good enough, put your money where your mouth is. Depending on the frequency and size of your positions, 24 months should be enough to get a sense of your abilities.
One advantage that individuals have is that they are not bound by particular "styles" and regulations. One disadvantage individuals have is that they tend to think it looks pretty simple until they've lost a lot of money. But then again, I saw (from a distance) several funds blow up so it wasn't as if the professionals were immune either. If you're still solvent in two years, come back and tell us how you did.
On the subject of "hard pivots", I think you are on safer ground.
I "know" in an internet sense somebody who pivoted about as hard as you can. He had made a ton of money for several years in a very specialized area of translation. Just to be clear, he also had domain-specific knowledge and he was at the sharp end of his field, so he probably deserved the money. Then MT started to eat into that particular territory (not surprising; even I saw that coming in 2015) and his income started to decline gradually from this unsustainable peak.
The thing is, once it had fallen to a level that he thought had rendered him penurious, but was probably better than 90% or 95% of freelancers, he panicked. And so about 18 months ago he obtained, with some difficulty, a proper qualification in a related industry, and basically quit translation. A few months later he very courageously reported back to say that he was struggling in this dog-eat-dog new market. By his own admission was making a fraction of what he was earning in his final years as a translator, and struggling to pay the mortgage.
Recently it looks to me as if things have been picking up a little bit, and maybe he is finally getting some momentum. To an extent, his skills were indeed transferable, and it has been winning clients that has proven difficult. Hopefully he will pull it off, and his new career will provide the security that he and his family need for the next couple of decades.
I think he has been very brave and very much on the front foot, and I also think he has shown poor judgment. Like you did at the end of last year, he extrapolated a short-term trend (one of the cardinal and most common sins of investing, by the way: still think you're a potential star of the markets?) and let himself get spooked. Unlike you he committed himself - jumped off the stage at Kiyomizu big time. As I said above, we don't yet know whether he survived the fall.
Changing career seems to me to be similar to running an entire marathon. The people who haven't done it tend to think it's not really feasible for normal people. Those who have done it know it's inevitably challenging and painful in places, but that it can be done if you have a plan. It also affords a new perspective on one's own potential. I've never run a marathon, but I've made several career changes, some large, some small, all successful. It's doable. You just have to want it or need it enough, and be prepared to compromise on one of your conditions.
Cordially,
Dan
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Dan Lucas wrote:
Speaking as somebody who worked in a variety of investment banks and knew many people in hedge funds, you don't have to be employed by either to have a decent stab at investing.
Ha, I knew as soon as I wrote it that I was walking into that trap! I felt the same about the financial advisers who pissed away my pension savings for 20 years until I took them over. If you’re so good at investing, why are you still driving a Toyota, was my thinking.
(I have also sometimes wondered why you don’t choose to live off investing?)
I’ve managed my own savings reasonably successfully for a decade but I guess I’m influenced by my translation clients who aim to match the market rather than beat it.
Anyway, my point was that I understand the mechanics but I’d still have an awful lot to learn if I wanted to apply my passive knowledge from 30 years of translating market reports. (Which mostly just explain why they’re revising their previous forecasts…)
[Edited at 2024-02-15 19:50 GMT]
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:19
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
Christopher Schröder wrote:
(I have also sometimes wondered why you don’t choose to live off investing?)
Because I'm not consistent enough to do so. Sad but true.
EDIT: I do believe that a careful, methodical, and diligent individual investor like yourself can do as well as or better than most institutional investors, by the way, but then again that is quite a low bar...
Dan
[Edited at 2024-02-15 19:54 GMT]
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| Moving on as well, but where | Feb 16 |
I have had all January and February to think about what I might do next, and advise my kid what to do (who had just started to build his translation career). He thinks about learning how to weld, I think that sounds sound.
Extend our small-scale farming adventures into something medium-scale? I could imagine going into mushroom growing or train my donkeys for tourist excursions or something such. But it'd be tough. It's often idyllic and often tough as it is, but making a living fro... See more I have had all January and February to think about what I might do next, and advise my kid what to do (who had just started to build his translation career). He thinks about learning how to weld, I think that sounds sound.
Extend our small-scale farming adventures into something medium-scale? I could imagine going into mushroom growing or train my donkeys for tourist excursions or something such. But it'd be tough. It's often idyllic and often tough as it is, but making a living from it (full-time) would probably be more than I can handle. Having a garden and a few animals however is great, as it makes me feel less vulnerable to whatever goes on 'out there'. I've got plenty of tasty food here.
What I did: read quite a lot about unions, strikes, protests, organization. Started to translate a few texts to help people fight for fair living conditions. Think about which online platform could be used to unite desktop freelancers so we can force big corporations to pay decent rates. Dive into the fediverse to see how the internet can work in alternative ways to those built by large corporations.
There is so much wrong with AI:
- steals intellectual property. If I, a mere mortal, download a movie via a certain torrent site it's illegal. But if OpenAI scrapes my texts, my images, my music from the web and feeds it into its copypastemachine it's okay.
- is potentially environmentally heavy. Just like with blockchain-technology, huge resources go into running AI. Someone needs to make the accounts whether feeding AI is actually more resource-heavy than feeding the workers.
- produces a kind of 'good-enough' uniform mush of texts that are just slightly off. MT has been off-setting languages since years, now it's accelerated. Garbage in, garbage out, in an ever-accelerating loop.
Did I forget anything? ▲ Collapse
| | | | | It's what end-clients wanted all along | Feb 16 |
Anna Sarah Krämer wrote: - produces a kind of 'good-enough' uniform mush of texts that are just slightly off.
This is what end-clients wanted all along, if it reduces their cost for 90% of translations. Nobody expects a new Mozart composition in music for elevators and shopping malls.
And yes, AI when used as just a "super computer" is both harmless and useful, but the way it's been used in Music, Scripts, Translations, Art etc., it has become a troll, stealing originals to reproduce generic versions. This is the evolution of the ethical model advanced by Silicon Valley two decades ago, starting with the "sharing economy" (wealthy heirs at Stanford didn't think that working artists should be compensated, but they did pay their lawyers huge sums).
Anna Sarah Krämer wrote: force big corporations to pay decent rates
I remember certain Project Managers, even in greedy agencies, advocating for the translator and trying to secure good rates. They also had common sense and good knowledge of the craft, at the time, and understood our frustrations. They are not in those roles anymore, instead you will find many adolescents in department management positions ghosting and sabotaging older translators who know what's going on in the background. They are married to the corporation themselves, because their little salaries are all they have in life.
PS. About your garden, regulatory ideas have been floating "out there" to make it illegal, they are characterizing it as bad for planetary warming (Google it). Maybe I was one of the few to notice ten years ago, "guys, the most common word I see lately in corporate translations is 'compliance'".
[Edited at 2024-02-16 14:33 GMT]
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 11:19
French to English
Lingua 5B wrote:
SEO is about reach, sales and conversions, not nice or readable writing.
You mean, reaching people and converting an idle click into a sale? How do you do that if not by writing something not only legible but compelling?
| | | | Susanna Martoni
Italy
Local time: 11:19
Member (2009)
Spanish to Italian
+ ...
[Modificato alle 2024-02-16 20:31 GMT]
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| I like the smell... | Feb 16 |
Anna Sarah Krämer wrote:
I have had all January and February to think about what I might do next, and advise my kid what to do (who had just started to build his translation career). He thinks about learning how to weld, I think that sounds sound.
...of welding fume in the morning!
Let him go for welding, a quite tough job, but high in demand and well paid. I have found my gap again in the industry as a service technician, combined with a lot of travel in my local area, with proofing their safety cabinets for hazardous material, to meet there all the key craftman shorttime I wouldn't cope with in a long term job on shop level. Space enough to bother them with my humour and with the story that I had a life sentence* (in translation) before I stepped back into "real jobs". Whenever I have to visit shipyards, metal factories, foundries and engineering companies of all kind, I always take a deep breath in their shops, loaded with welding fume, which reminds me of the time when I was an apprentice and when I travelled (almost) the world to service and install woodworking and packaging machines or camera installations. I hope it is not too early to say "I'm back again". And sometimes I ask the operators of the machines how satisfied they are with the translation of their operating manuals. That gives me motivation to spend my weekends with the few translation work left...
* Life sentence in Germany means 15 years in prison for murder and other severe crimes...
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 11:19
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
Kay Denney wrote: Lingua 5B wrote:
SEO is about reach, sales and conversions, not nice or readable writing. You mean, reaching people and converting an idle click into a sale? How do you do that if not by writing something not only legible but compelling?
That’s a difference between SEO writing and content writing (what you described in your second sentence). SEO is about pathways, not content writing. Content writing and nurturing is a different thing.
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Kay Denney wrote: Lingua 5B wrote:
SEO is about reach, sales and conversions, not nice or readable writing. You mean, reaching people and converting an idle click into a sale? How do you do that if not by writing something not only legible but compelling?
Yeah, there's a built-in contradiction, in a way. You have to be as tedious as everyone else to climb up the rankings organically, but utterly fascinating once they've found you. And length of time people spend on a page is a factor used in rankings. Hence some advise using video, so people spend a while watching.
Or you can spend money on Google Ads. Funny that.
Plus, as mentioned yesterday, the trend for Google at least is to endeavour to provide an "answer engine", so people can find what they're looking for without actually clicking anything.
I don't know if you've noticed how it's changed but, taking an example that interests me: time was if you googled say, translation french to english insurance policy, the websites of agencies and freelancers including me (eventually!) would appear. Nowadays, you get a load of suggestions for translations of 'insurance policy'. They are second-guessing what I want, and getting it wrong.
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 11:19
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
| Once they find you | Feb 16 |
Once they find you, their decision will be based on visuals, current mood and key words (etc.).
You can also run a blog and nurture (much, much slower conversion).
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Baran Keki wrote:
I could make a killing, if only I had the bottle...
...is already in your hands (or in your mind): Your English! I consider it as nearly perfect (although Tomáš in Chişinău would not agree with me) and why not use it in combination with your transferable skills and with your experienced age to become an economic consultant, e.g. for or with aid of a Turkish-English / American / Canadian / Australian Chamber of Commerce or similar institution? Applications in that direction would be worth a try at least. Let out your ghost from the bottle!
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:19
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Dan Lucas wrote: Christopher Schröder wrote:
(I have also sometimes wondered why you don’t choose to live off investing?) Because I'm not consistent enough to do so. Sad but true. EDIT: I do believe that a careful, methodical, and diligent individual investor like yourself can do as well as or better than most institutional investors, by the way, but then again that is quite a low bar... Dan [Edited at 2024-02-15 19:54 GMT]
Money isn't everything.
[Edited at 2024-02-16 19:18 GMT]
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 11:19
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
Matthias Brombach wrote:
...is already in your hands (or in your mind): Your English!
I agree completely. Baran's English is really outstanding, compared to almost all the other non-native speakers in these forums.
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