8 Essential Tips to Ensure Quality

Essential Tips to Ensure Quality In a world of fierce competition, the one factor that separates the leaders is the ability to provide work that has been completed with great efficiency and quality. The work of these people speaks tomes by itself and helps them stand apart on a pedestal. So, what is it that these people concentrate on that makes them so different and special? Quality is a very important factor that needs to be maintained in order to excel in the work that you do. So, how do you ensure quality in the work that you do? If you follow some simple guidelines while taking up and executing any project anyone can incorporate quality in their work too. Quality assurance does not start once the translation is completed but begins much before right from the time the project is being discussed and is completed only at the end of the project. 1. Discuss with the client before hand what needs to be accomplished and what the requirements of the project are. If you feel that you cannot meet the client’s needs refuse to take up the project then and there. 2. Ask the client for a preview of what needs to be done. Take up the work only if it falls within the purview of your specialization. 3. Build a detailed glossary containing the terminology specific to the client. Ask the client for reference material if it is available with them. 4. If any doubts remain due to bad source material or indecipherable material, discuss with the client and get it clarified. 5. Use software tools such as Trados while translating which will help in preventing unwanted errors and omissions in translations. 6. Perform a review of your work once the translation is completed. 7. Use the services of a proofreader, if permissible to check the quality of your work and to check the correctness of grammar, syntax, spellings, etc. 8. Check with the client if everything is to their satisfaction and be open to make changes if found necessary. A little extra time and effort put in the right direction will help you provide quality work and you will be definitely crowned one among the cream of the creed of freelancers.

Tips for Better Subtitling

Tips for Better Subtitling Many of you might have observed that even though the translation in subtitles is quite good you often have great difficulty in reading through it and following the plot of what you are viewing. This is because the person placing the subtitles has just put them in without giving any consideration to certain important aspects of subtitling. While burning subtitles after a translation, it is important to keep in mind a few things in mind such that it becomes easy for the viewer to read the subtitles easily and follow what is being conveyed. The translation should be concise and apt and communicate what needs to be understood as simple as possible. For easy reading it is important not to place too many characters in a line while subtitling. Also, it is important to bear in mind the average speed at which the viewers can read through the subtitles, yet it should match the speed at which things are transpiring on the screen. As grammar is important to any translation, proper division of the lines is necessary for subtitling. This enables the viewer to read through the subtitles with ease and yet can see what is happening on the screen. If proper division of lines is not maintained, it will just end up like a jumble of sentences causing undue confusion to the viewer. If the entire text cannot be placed in one line, then the division of lines has to be performed. The best way to divide lines is after a punctuation mark and prior to conjunctions (and, because, or, etc) and prepositions (for, in, on, etc). A few other things to remember is not to break down names, abbreviations, numbers, phrases, etc that will make it difficult for the viewer to understand what is being conveyed. The best method to follow while subtitling is to think of whether the target audience will be able to read through your subtitles in the manner in which they are appearing along with following the events on screen.

6 tips to Improvise on Your Success

Photo Credit Alfaneque A Few Pointers to Improvise on Your Success As a freelancer who has been in the industry for quite sometime, many of you would at some point reach a stage where the level of earnings is not increasing any more because there is absolutely no way in which more projects can be taken up in addition to the existing work simultaneously. So, the question arises as to how to improve and get on to the next level. Here are a few suggestions that may help if you are facing the same kind of dilemma as mentioned above: 1. One method to improve the earnings would be take up work from better paying clients. If you are working for agencies, it is better to look for direct clients as the amount earned through them will be much higher than what is paid out through agencies. 2. If there is any scope for you to increase your rates to your existing clients try and do it. 3. You can by yourself look at starting a new agency where in you can employ a few translators and improve the volume of your business. But, here you will be faced up with the task of managing administrative work and the possibility of you carrying on with translation work comes down drastically. So take up this option only if you are ready for this. 4. You can even try to rope in more clients and outsource some of the new work to some others in the field. But, this carries the risk of you getting blamed for any shoddy work that the person whom you have outsourced the work to does. 5. You can try to form a team of like-minded freelancers who will work in tandem with you for various projects that you may have. Here the greatest drawback is finding such people to work with you. 6. To break free from the monotony, you can even try to put in your skills in some other fields such as teaching at a university or training some newcomers to your field. But, this again carries the limitations of time and you can take it up only if you can devote the time needed to do this. Remember, there are no shortcuts to success. Whatever route you take up, it needs the required time and efforts to nurture it to fruition.

Few Advantages of Using Trados for Translations

Photo credit wandering_angel Few Advantages of Using Trados for Translations While the use of software tools such as Trados is becoming increasingly popular there are still many translators who are not comfortable even with the thought of using software tools for translation. Many people who abhor programs such as Trados do not like it because they think that it is too complicated to learn and master. Contrary to the belief that software tools are difficult to learn, programs such as Trados can help you in achieving higher efficiency in terms of quality as well as quantity. Let us get a brief insight into the many advantages of using programs such as Trados for your work. 1. Trados is useful in recalling repetitive texts that get stored within the memory of the program. 2. It is also useful in storing terminologies that are specific to a client which need to be used frequently. 3. It prevents skipping of lines as the translated text and the source text are open together. This also avoids missing out on important details such as numbers, names, etc and prevents wrong spelling of the same. 4. It can help you get more projects as many clients now enlist the possession of a software tool as a prerequisite to provide you the project. 5. It can help you in increasing the speeds at which you work as both the texts are open simultaneously thereby enhancing the volume of work completed. This also helps in improving the quality of your work. 6. It can also help in performing a proofreading of your work and can function as a quality assurance tool. While the use of software programs is increasing by the day, clients are often seen utilizing the benefits of using a program such as repetitive texts not needing translation again as a means to cut their costs by asking the translator for discounts when translating complete and partial matches. This does not sit too well with some translators as they feel that even though they have spent a substantial amount of money towards buying the software they now have to put up with such requests for discounts. But, some feel that such discounts are justified and do not mind giving them out to get better business prospects.

Photo Credit visualpanic Overcoming Pricing Issues as a Newcomer A dilemma that is most definitely faced by every rookie that comes into the translation field is to decide upon what rates to quote while taking up projects. The difficulty lies in not knowing whatever the price you have zeroed upon is too high, too low or the right one. So how does one go about fixing a price for the services offered such that it is not too high or too low? One method to know more is to become a member of the various translation websites that are available. Being a member helps you access details about other members in the website and can give you some know-how about the average pricing of the others. There are even some tools on certain websites that will help you calculate the price that you need to quote keeping in mind some important factors while deciding. Some even suggest you to think of a figure that you would like to earn in a month to which certain expenditure like taxes that need to be paid are added. This figure is then compared with the amount of work load that you can complete in a working day of around 8 hours. This comparison can help you arrive at a rate that you need to charge per word to reach your dream figure every month. But, some argue that the above method could not be a right indicator for pricing the services offered as it is valued at expected monthly earnings which may or may not be at realistic levels. Another factor to be remembered while taking up work through translation websites is that many a times there is a chain of outsourcing of work before it reaches you. So chances are high that the price at which you are offered work may be very low. Also, another point to remember is that agencies generally offer work at much lower prices than when you get work from clients directly. So, a good option to get good pricing for your services is to look for direct clients to provide you work. But, this may be easier said than done for which you might need to compromise and not be too rigid in selecting work initially.