How to Become a Freelance Translator Online

Want to have a hobby of learning new languages? Have you thought of using language translation as a career? The modern world being the era of “Google Translator”, starting a freelance translation job can be doubtful. 

Owing to the current situation of the digital world, we face the primary question of whether it is rewarding to be a free translator. We will discuss all the growth opportunities and work possibilities available for a freelance translator in this article.

Job Description of a Professional Translator

A professional translator is a person who has the capability of proficiently speaking more than two languages and helps people with language barriers to communicate with locals or in foreign lands. Being a translator requires a person to have a near-native command over foreign languages. Suppose you want to be a professional for a translation job. In that case, it becomes your job responsibility to understand a message, translate it into a meaningful message in the mother-tongue of the foreigner.

The stakes of a professional translator’s job are higher than converting messages using a Google Translator.

The job of a translator is not just literally converting every word in a sentence into another language. You need to convert sentences to deliver a meaningful message keeping the original speaker’s/author’s intention in mind.

Things to consider while working as a translator:

• National and cultural psychologies and their differences
• Customs and traditions unfamiliar to the foreigner
• Puns and jokes are specific to a language, and translating them to other languages diminishes the real intentions.
• Translating colloquial expresses from its mother tongue makes them irrelevant.
• Always use respectful jargon while translating.

Translating a sentence from a local language into a foreign language is very similar to tightrope walking. There is a lot to consider – the author’s intent, a meaningful conversion, and the audience’s response. It might seem a time-consuming affair, but a translator needs to master the art of language translation such that they can communicate spontaneously with your foreign customer. You also need to decipher the language aptly to the foreigner so that the message sinks incorrectly and they can respond appropriately.

How to Become a language Translator?

Becoming a language translator requires a combination of qualifications and language skills. Depending on your language of expertise, a freelancer will require rigorous practice to develop as a translator. 

To become a freelance language translator, you need to meet the below general traits-

• A Bachelors Degree in Foreign Languages
• Diploma in Translation
• Strong time-management skills
• Proficiency in speaking and writing foreign languages
• Acquaintance with 8 various translation types
• Creativity
• Meticulous translation
• Consciousness about the responsibility of the job
• Consistency in translation
• Awareness of the local culture
• Adapting different styles of writing
• Lateral thinking capacity
• Skills in handling software translation

Why Should we Consider a Translation job Good for your Career?

Though there are challenges in the translation profession, there are several reasons why we consider it as a good business or freelancing opportunity.

1. The job offers a good amount of salary. Currently, Spanish and German-speaking translators get the highest pay. Command over Asian languages is also in high demand.
2. Global trading and travelling have made the language-translation job a relevant one.
3. A career as a freelance translator offers you the chance of diversifying your talent and pursuing your passion for learning new languages.
4. The scope of getting a job is high as every company now requires a translator to conduct global business.
5. It offers a constant learning opportunity and improving your IQ.
6. The job never gets boring. You need to adapt to different new styles of texts and speech.
7. Language translation job improves your proficiency in foreign languages.
8. Freelancing offers you the flexibility of work.
9. Translation job enhances your opportunity of getting a job abroad.
10. The freelance job helps in contact building.
11. A language translation job offers the chance of displaying your creativity.
12. Growth opportunity is relatively high in this field.

Translation Career vs Translation Software

Owing to the prevalence of the Google translator and similar software, machines now pose a serious threat to human translators. We often wonder if such software has the capability of replacing humans. After conducting a market survey, we have concluded that people still prefer a professional translator over a Google translator and other software while visiting a foreign land. The reasons why humans triumph over machines are-

• A translation professional can win over software because the latter lacks the competence of sensitivity.
• The software also fails to keep pace with language fluidity or any new word in the language. The database of words is limited for software.
• A machine will never be culturally enriched.
• Every software is pre-programmed with specific algorithms and language data. There is no scope for creativity in their translation.
• While a human translator can listen to a context and decipher its correct significance and meaning, software fails to understand the real intent behind a context.

Conclusion

The world is a global village where people from different countries belonging to different cultural and language backgrounds mix every day. People look for local translators to assist in such collaboration. If you have the expertise of speaking and translating different foreign languages to the local tongues, the language translation is a promising work opportunity for you.