IS THE LANGUAGE INDUSTRY IN A BAD STATE!? (Q&A for Freelancers #21)

Welcome to number 21 of my Q&A series. Cool to have so many new subs to the channel this week. If you would like to be featured in the next episode, make sure to ask your question under this video.
Disclaimer
Please note that the Auto Translate function by KZbin provides translations of very poor quality and I suggest to only use it very sparingly. I always offer people to subtitle the videos into their native language if they want to build up a portfolio. In that case, drop me a message to:
[e-mail].
Video by Adrian Probst
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/ adrianpro. .
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adrianprobst.com/
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#QandA #For #freelancers

[@keo4604]

Thank you, very helpful!

[@susanpickford9948]

Hi Adrian, I think it would be important to add to your answer on copyright that you can translate whatever you like privately but you can't put the content online or otherwise publish it, even if you are not being paid or using it for marketing purposes.

[@SpectacularSuperSoup]

Interesting to hear you talk about the state of the industry for freelancers. I've been working full-time as a freelancer for almost 3 years now, and my experience has been quite similar to yours, i.e.: - I keep hearing from other freelancers how they're losing clients, rates are going down, and the only thing they're asked to do is MTPE. - But in my own experience, I've never lacked for work, my rates have steadily gone up, and demand is robust. There is a bit more demand for MTPE these days, but it's far from dominant. I wonder if part of it has to do with specific language combinations. As I live in Sweden, most of the translators I speak to are Swedish, working with the Swedish language (especially combined with English and/or other Nordic languages), and many are struggling. I, however, mostly work with Japanese. MT works much better between European languages than with Japanese, and Japanese companies tend to be quite uncomfortable with giving Big Tech companies access to their documents, so they don't like MT. Could there be any similarities with Swiss and German clients?

[@Keviiinlito]

Hello Adrian, once again thank you for the inspiring videos! I myself recently graduated in linguistics and communication and I'm aspiring to pursue a career within translation with SWE/ENG SPA as target languages. However, you have mentioned translation portfolios on your videos several times, could you show/explain how a translation portfolio looks like? What it should contain and so on? I've only seen portfolios for graphic design and similar fields. Thank you !

[@geolucasdt]

Hello, Adrian. Your videos are amazing. Thanks for sharing your time and so much knowledge with us. Best regards from Brazil.

[@Freelanceverse]

Glad you like them, Lucas :) where in Brazil are you from?

[@geolucasdt]

@@Freelanceverse I'm from a city called São José do Rio Preto, wich is on the State of São Paulo.

[@callmerays684]

Wow I didn't expect you to expand more on my question, a nice surprise indeed! I would like to ask, how can a young man starting his 1st year in university (translation obviously) be as ready as possible to strongly enter the work domain when he is done? I want to stand out from the others and not let declining rates affect me so that I can always have enough income to satisfy me (and perhaps a family if I get the chance to establish one?) I already got 1 month of experience volunteering for Ted-Ed but it obviously is not enough.

[@Freelanceverse]

Hi there, glad you enjoyed the episode and thanks for the additional question, I will make sure to answer that in detail soon!

[@user-ch4rg9dz5l]

Hi Adrian, I am from IRAQ 🇮🇶 and recently learned that a job like freelance interpreting exists. I wonder if it is feasible in countries like Iraq.( I mean Does it work for all countries or just Western countries? ) Another point is that payment methods like PayPal are not supported in Iraq.

[@yolegb1]

I have an online Translation Academy in Guatemala and I am looking for someone who can create a course of Subtitling. If you know someone who might be interested please let me know. Thank you

[@luiseduardo8806]

Hello, I'm Luis and I have commented on your KZbin channel a few days ago and firstly I want to sincerely thank you for your extremely valuable content, it helps a a lot and it's really well made! Secondly, I wanted to ask some questions because I know you have a lot of videos but I get overwhelmed quite easily so I didn't know where to begin my freelance translation journey. I speak English (I don't know if I can call it fluently but I can speak to my international friends and understand them very well so does it count as fluent?) and I want to start my career in this industry, I'm still 17 and I don't know how should I begin it. My main questions would be: - How can I gain experience with translation, if I don't have any professional jobs, and I need experience to get jobs? - How can I get jobs to start getting money? Which platforms should I use and how can I advertise myself? - How do I set up prices for my translations? - Do I need certifications (for example, course certificates, proficiency and language certificates) to prove my skills? - which tools should I use? Which ones do you recommend that are free and beginner-friendly? Which ones do you recommend me to use when I'm already used to translation? And more specific: which videos do you think a beginner should watch in your channel? Are there any ones who need subtitles? If there are I'm offering myself to help 😂 I'm sorry for this big text but I sincerely would be so thankful if you could answer it when it's best for you. Wish you the best and again thanks for your amazing content!

[@Freelanceverse]

Hi Luis, wooow what a great comment, I can make a single video just with your questions :D thank you so much. I will answer all these in a future episode.