Translators work in a variety of contexts, whether independently as freelancers, with an agency, or as a manager and/or editor within their own agency. The career trajectory that some choose to pursue, after entering the industry under the wing of an agency, is to branch out on their own as a freelancer. Armed with the knowledge and experience they acquired at said agency, these guys are ready to conquer the world. But what happens when things are going too well, and they can’t handle all the work coming in?

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Many freelancers worry about building their client list so that they have enough work coming in on a consistent enough basis to pay the bills. But the other side of the coin is managing that work so that you’re not inundated and turning away clients who then look elsewhere. When the risk of turning away business arises, freelance translators may choose to find other freelancers and outsource the excess work. This can obviously be a positive development in their career and can mean growth for their fledgling business. But it can also carry some risks of its own.

The immediate benefit of outsourcing extra work is that a client list can continue to grow and create more consistency of work coming in. Translators may find that they have jobs on a more regular basis, as they can accept work without having to worry about high volume times, since they have a backup translator or two to help out. It can also allow them to be more choosy regarding the types of translations that they do—focusing on particular areas of interest, and doling out the others to the people they hire.

In these cases, specialization can take root not only with the independent translator, but also with the people that he or she hires to help out. However, it is important to remember that a certain amount of time may be required to sufficiently train the freelancers in their particular area. Whenever outsourcing occurs, the person who outsources the work and maintains client relations is ultimately responsible for the quality of submissions.

Indeed, translators who began their careers working for agencies may underestimate the amount of time required to train the freelancers that they outsource to. There may be a learning curve to consider when working with others to achieve consistency in translations, especially with highly technical terminology or in cases where the client has set expectations regarding how they want certain terms translated. This is important particularly if the outsourced work is for regular clients in order to free up more time for newer clients. Any time there is more than one translator working on documents from a particular client, consistency will be an issue that is front and center and that will require some time dedication, at least initially.

In the process of outsourcing extra work, some people will find that they have a talent not only in doing translations but in managing the work of others. And if that is the case, he or she might consider hiring translators who work with other language pairs. Of course it would be important to make sure qualified and reliable proofreaders are on hand to ensure consistency and accuracy with the other language pairs.

Ultimately, the option to outsource extra work can be highly rewarding for freelance translators who have a real talent for what they do. But they should also be aware that doing so makes them accountable to the work of other people, and will most certainly end up being more time-consuming with the addition of new tasks that must be managed.

It is becoming more common for agencies and freelance translators to get requests for proofreading translations done with a machine translation tool. As we’ve discussed before, these are tools such as Google Translate—the most widely used machine translation tool available—which use algorithms to translate text that you put into them. These tools have many shortcomings, some of which we have discussed in this blog, which can be problematic for anyone seeking a professional and accurate translation service.

Because there are some very common and obvious mistakes which these tools tend to make when producing the output, you can easily spot text that has been translated by a machine. Moreover, anyone can verify whether one of these tools has been used by simply copying a paragraph of the source text and translating it to the target language in Google Translate. But in the event that someone does decide to use a machine translation tool, they’ll have to be prepared for extensive editing prior to submitting the work.

And for those who have tried this method, thinking it would save some time, it quickly becomes clear that editing machine-translated text actually uses significantly more time than just translating the document from scratch. With the lure of a potentially time-saving aid, it might just be a process that each person needs to go through, and an option that understandably would tempt a client. But in the end, a professionally-done translation is just a much better option.

Are you a translator? Click on the image below and tell us if you would accept to be paid a proofreading or editing fee to correct this translation made with Google Translator.

Spanish, like most modern languages, is suffering from a lack of care and a candid disregard for the correct use of grammar, punctuation, spelling and tense.

Indeed, it is particularly concerning when members of the press, media and communications also fail to possess a clear understanding of how the language is correctly constructed. Fortunately, Fundéu (Fundación del Español Urgente) and RAE (Real Academia Española) are two sites that can be relied on.

As the world becomes more focused on technology, as we continue to send text messages that read, “Toy en el trabajo” or “Q hacés dp?,” and as we grow to accept the use of anglicized terms or “Spanglish” phrases such as marketing, pen drive and marketa, it doesn’t seem so important to know what the correct version should be. Understanding Spanish grammar, placing the tilde in the right place and knowing the difference between “a ver” and “haber” is growing out of fashion fast.

The rising issue today is that even amongst journalists, a group of professionals which, by nature, should be devoted to the delivery of flawless written material, also contribute to the production of grammatically correct written documents. As journalists tweet and post about their press releases all over the Internet, there is little concern for grammar and for the enrichment of the Spanish language.

This is why the work undertaken at both Fundéu and RAE is so important. Individually, both Fundéu and RAE act as guardian angels, working to promote, maintain and support the constant production of grammatically-correct Spanish across all spectrums of society.

A brief overview of RAE
The primary mission, the backbone off of which everything hangs, at RAE relates directly to the common union of all Spanish speaking societies through the correct use of the Spanish language. Even though Spanish is a language which changes, sometimes radically, from place to place, the roots of the language are fundamentally the same.

RAE aims to promote and maintain the use of these common traits in order to encourage Spanish speakers to pay more attention to the correct production of texts, for whatever purpose, in their native language.

One of the most impressive elements of the work done at RAE is the language guide, accessible via its website www.rae.es. This incredibly complete digital guide / dictionary covers all kinds of doubts and queries that the Spanish speaker might have about how to correctly construct a text in his or her native language. What’s more, the team at RAE is on hand to respond to these inquiries whenever possible.

RAE is also responsible for the publication of two texts. The first is entitled La Nueva Gramática de la Lengua and the second is an update of Spanish orthography. At 700 pages long, the text is particularly dense, but this is why RAE has also produced a reduced version, which covers the most important elements and a pocket book version to always have easily to hand.

A quick peek at Fundéu
Fundéu is a non-profit organization and was created by Efe and BBVA. Its prime objective is to ensure that the media and other forms of communication contribute to the correct use of the Spanish language. Indeed, the foundation believes that the media, the Internet and journalists in particular have a responsibility to produce quality, well-written texts at all times.

Thanks to the development of its website www.fundeu.es, Fundéu has been able to spread its work all over the world and it has been able to make a positive impact in a very short space of time. In fact, Fundéu, with a Twitter following of 126.321 (at the time of going to print) shows just how helpful technology can be in the repairing of language rules that have been lost in time.

Add to that number by following its tweets @Fundeu when you get the chance.

The use of correct Spanish, Spanish which obeys a common code of grammatical rules, does not have to continue down the road of destruction and indifference. The work of RAE and Fundéu provides two clear examples of institutions who still care about and value native language structures.

Fundéu’s channel in Youtube: