| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5] > | estimating my worth Thread poster: Brian Joyce
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Lingua 5B 
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 11:25
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
| Samples please. | Mar 5, 2020 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
Also, his CV paints a believable picture of a young man willing to get his hands dirty (pipe fitter, etc.) in order to appreciate the finer things in life (fine art, print art and photography), who is now trying to branch out to his new love for language.
[Edited at 2020-03-05 09:50 GMT]
I would love to see samples of his art (or was he just a theorist?). I am curious as to why he did not become an artist if that was his major. We saw translation samples, but where are the samples of his art, aside from the vintage style profile photo?
| | | | Brian Joyce
United Kingdom
Member (2022)
French to English
TOPIC STARTER | Ai-je crachais dans le soupe moi? | Mar 5, 2020 |
For examples of my art google Brian Joyce artist, find my Saatchi page , also the online magazine the MASS featured my work last month
"There are more than 20,000 French-English translators at Proz with English as their native language"
Coming back to the main topic I would like to say I began this thread in all good faith, I need advice, and the thing I need most advice about is how do 20'000 people compete for work on a job board that can barely supply work for 10 peo... See more For examples of my art google Brian Joyce artist, find my Saatchi page , also the online magazine the MASS featured my work last month
"There are more than 20,000 French-English translators at Proz with English as their native language"
Coming back to the main topic I would like to say I began this thread in all good faith, I need advice, and the thing I need most advice about is how do 20'000 people compete for work on a job board that can barely supply work for 10 people?
HELLO HELLO the numbers don't add up, stop accusing me of having a joke and put your education to the service of society.
God bless you all. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Lincoln Hui
Hong Kong
Local time: 17:25
Member
Chinese to English
+ ...
Lingua 5B wrote: Samuel Murray wrote:
Also, his CV paints a believable picture of a young man willing to get his hands dirty (pipe fitter, etc.) in order to appreciate the finer things in life (fine art, print art and photography), who is now trying to branch out to his new love for language.
[Edited at 2020-03-05 09:50 GMT] I would love to see samples of his art (or was he just a theorist?). I am curious as to why he did not become an artist if that was his major. We saw translation samples, but where are the samples of his art, aside from the vintage style profile photo?
He said he has no future in art, remember?
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:25
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Not hard at all | Mar 5, 2020 |
Brian Joyce wrote:
HELLO HELLO the numbers don't add up, stop accusing me of having a joke and put your education to the service of society.
HELLO HELLO it's very easy to make the numbers add up; just assume that most freelance translators don't get much work, like you. According to one recent report, 1 in 5 freelancers earns less than $5,000 a year and 49% earn less than $20,000 a year. What percentage are making more than $50k? Maybe 15-20%, I'd guess.
This is possible because casual translation is close to a zero-cost business - all you need is a PC and an internet connection and that's it. There's no office to pay for, no mandatory professional memberships, no training required, even. And registering on ProZ.com is free. Because the market is unregulated, if somebody wants to call themselves a professional translator they can do so, even if they're only generating a few hundred dollars a year in income (or less) from translation, because it costs them nothing and because no qualifications are required.
That's why you have 20,000 people registered as translators on ProZ.com. It doesn't mean that 20,000 people are all making money, or are competent, or that they are even active in the market. And there are literally millions of companies out there with translation needs. It's a big market, but the prizes go to a small number of freelancers. Yes, that's right, the most professional and competent ones.
Regards,
Dan
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Brian Joyce
United Kingdom
Member (2022)
French to English
TOPIC STARTER
Thank you for your reply Dan, I appreciate all the time you have taken with this enquiry, I guess I'm going to be swimming with the 1 in 5s at least for a little while but that's okay, this is long term and I'll work it out.
Once again many thanks to all who contributed.
| | | | | 'Big' languages crowded | Mar 5, 2020 |
There’s another factor: the ‘big’ languages such as English, French, Spanish and German are crowded with competition.
The numbers are significantly lower for ‘small’ languages, between 200 and 1800 per combination in the combinations I offer at Proz.
A user manual, T&C document or website only has to be translated once, so the statistical probability of a given ‘small-language’ translator landing the contract is much higher than when only ‘big’ langua... See more There’s another factor: the ‘big’ languages such as English, French, Spanish and German are crowded with competition.
The numbers are significantly lower for ‘small’ languages, between 200 and 1800 per combination in the combinations I offer at Proz.
A user manual, T&C document or website only has to be translated once, so the statistical probability of a given ‘small-language’ translator landing the contract is much higher than when only ‘big’ languages are involved.
On the other hand, it can be argued that not as much is translated into ‘small’ languages as into ‘big’ languages.
Still, when you have 20,000 competitors on this site alone, in theory at least, it’s even more important to stand out in terms of quality, experience and specialisation.
You asked for advice and were told by many people that your expectations are unrealistic and that your perception of your abilities and client expectations is far from the reality in this market. It’s not going to change unless you demonstrate that you can actually meet the expectations of translation clients.
You need a plan B, at least while you improve your skills to an acceptable level. You have a lot of work to do. Maybe if you accidentally drop the contents of the bin on a drawing you can get away with calling it revolutionary anti-consumerist maverick art, but that doesn’t work in translation.
Good luck. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 10:25
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
| In addition to Dan's point | Mar 5, 2020 |
Brian Joyce wrote:
how do 20'000 people compete for work on a job board that can barely supply work for 10 people?
HELLO HELLO the numbers don't add up
The job board is not the be all and end all of the site, by a long way.
Far more than 50% of the jobs landed here are never posted publicly. Clients can post a private job to a selected list of translators, or they can do a filtered search of the directory and contact those whose profiles interest them. There are also jobs that come from peers on here, e.g. they need holiday, sickness or maternity relief, or a client wants the opposite pair or a different specialisation, or they simply have more work than they can cope with so they want to outsource a little.
Of all my clients in the past 13 years, I'd say probably 80+% have a connection with this site. But only a small proportion of jobs were ever posted publicly. In fact, many of the later ones have come as a result of recomendations from clients who were recommended to me by clients... who found me here one way or another.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 11:25
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Brian Joyce wrote:
Also the online magazine The MASS featured my work last month.
That's nice. Just out of curiosity, do they have a web site?
The thing I need most advice about is how do "20'000 people" compete for work on a job board that can barely supply work for 10 people?
Well, it's hard to say how many people who have registered as "freelance translators" at ProZ.com are truly translators, truly freelancers or truly even people, but the current numbers are: 44000 people at ProZ.com claim to translate English-to-French, and 16000 of them have English as their native language. The "job board" is not the main way of getting translation work, though. The main way of getting work is (a) being contacted by clients who were impressed by what they saw on your profile page and (b) contacting agencies and clients yourself (the Blue Board list contains just under 14 000 agencies).
We're not saying that all people who register at ProZ.com get jobs. In fact, only a small number of people here get jobs. The rest are hopeful but are either entirely incapable of translation work or unwilling to put in the necessary effort. We're still trying to figure out in which category you are. You seem relatively incapable of providing the type of service that most clients are looking for, but if you put in a great effort, you might just be able to pull it off. There are bad translators out there who actually get clients.
Stop accusing me of having a joke...
Please try to understand what it looks like from our side:
- Your sample translation is full of mistakes.
- Your previous CV was full of mistakes (I'm glad to see that you've updated it, according to some of the criticism that you received).
[Edited at 2020-03-05 16:41 GMT]
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Brian Joyce
United Kingdom
Member (2022)
French to English
TOPIC STARTER | Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 11:25
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
| Conceptual art. | Mar 5, 2020 |
It seems you are a conceptual artist. Have you ever found a way to apply it in business and sell it? Are you aware that concepts on their own do not sell well, if at all, as they first have to be applied somewhere and somehow? Or if you have a
huge brand name and big team behind you, then yes you could also be selling concepts (that’s not the case with you I guess).
If you have never managed to sell your art, how do we trust you will be able to sell your translation?
<... See more It seems you are a conceptual artist. Have you ever found a way to apply it in business and sell it? Are you aware that concepts on their own do not sell well, if at all, as they first have to be applied somewhere and somehow? Or if you have a
huge brand name and big team behind you, then yes you could also be selling concepts (that’s not the case with you I guess).
If you have never managed to sell your art, how do we trust you will be able to sell your translation?
Free and conceptual art are great, if you have other people sponsoring your life and supporting you financially. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Dulz (X)
Germany
French to German
+ ...
deleted
[Edited at 2020-03-05 18:33 GMT]
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Where’s George Trail when you need him?
[Edited at 2020-03-05 21:36 GMT]
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:25
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Brian Joyce wrote:
Thank you for your reply Dan, I appreciate all the time you have taken with this enquiry, I guess I'm going to be swimming with the 1 in 5s at least for a little while but that's okay, this is long term and I'll work it out.
Once again many thanks to all who contributed.
Get your commas, full stops, and semicolons etc. sorted out. Here (for example) is my corrected version of what you just posted:
Thank you for your reply, Dan. I appreciate all the time you have taken with this enquiry. I guess I'm going to be swimming with the 1 in 5s at least for a little while, but that's okay; this is long-term and I'll work it out.
[Edited at 2020-03-06 10:23 GMT]
| | | | | Please don't stop this thread.... | Mar 7, 2020 |
.... this guy is so unbelievable, that it is almost hilarious.:-)
On the serious side, he writes 'Coming back to the main topic I would like to say I began this thread in all good faith, I need advice.....'
Well mate, I would suggest you change your attitude and read all the comments of the colleagues again. Sweet Tom even gave you a free lesson in English! What more adivice could one ask for?
It's all up to you.
[Edited at 2020-03-07 17:34 GMT]
<... See more .... this guy is so unbelievable, that it is almost hilarious.:-)
On the serious side, he writes 'Coming back to the main topic I would like to say I began this thread in all good faith, I need advice.....'
Well mate, I would suggest you change your attitude and read all the comments of the colleagues again. Sweet Tom even gave you a free lesson in English! What more adivice could one ask for?
It's all up to you.
[Edited at 2020-03-07 17:34 GMT]
[Edited at 2020-03-07 17:35 GMT]
[Edited at 2020-03-08 09:47 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Brian Joyce
United Kingdom
Member (2022)
French to English
TOPIC STARTER | The superiority of the masculine over the feminine | Mar 9, 2020 |
Hello everybody
I hope y'all is good. I wonder if my fervent critics are still with us. I have just uploaded " The superiority of the masculine over the feminine", to my sample translations. It says what I've been saying all along, it is my finest translation work and I challenge anyone to find fault with it. So happy hunting and enjoy yourselves.
Regards.
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