Your professional translator

September 29th 2001 was a very special day. I know that this day happened in my life only by the grace of the Lord. Two years before that day I met a handsome young man who took my heart. A lot happened during those two years. When we decided to get married we realized that there were two main issues we were worried about. First of all, we belonged to two absolutely different cultures and had different mentalities. My husband is Armenian. His ancestors had to flee to Iran during the Turkish genocide of Armenians in 1915, so he was born in immigration. His family moved back to Armenia when my future husband, the youngest child in the gamily, was 2 years old. My family was Ukrainian-Russian, plus by that time I had traveled and worked in the US and Germany and had a pretty much Western mentality. Thank God, we didn't have any problems with getting our parents' blessings. Our dear pastor Ken Blake and his wife Marilyn were a huge source of blessing and encouragement for us. Her...

I am so excited about the International Translator's Day! I love my profession, learning new things related to my spheres of expertise, to the technical and marketing side of freelance translation and acquiring new skills, too! This year ProZ.com has prepared something absolutely special and unique - a whole week of interesting and useful events. You can visit the 2011 Virtual event series page for details and register for events that you are interested in. The program includes: September 26 -  Certified PRO Network virtual conference 
 September 27 -  ProZ.com site guidance day
 September 28 -  Recruitment day 
  September 29 -  TAUS & ProZ.com present: The Great Translation Debate
 September 30 -  Freelance translator virtual conference I have registered for the Certified Pro Network virtual conference, Recruitment day and Freelance translator virtual conference. I'd really like to register also for the TAUS & ProZ.com even...

Hi there! Glad to see you again! Remember my first post about social media marketing ? It's time for the second post in the series :) What I write here is solely my opinion  based on various posts, journals and other materials studied in the past year or so + my own small marketing experience. What's the most important thing in social media marketing? You need to show that you are an expert. There are literally thousands of possibilities for translators now thanks to the Internet. You can answer questions on LinkedIn, take part in terminology discussions on various translation portals and other networks; you can start blogging or tweeting about translation, or make your own Facebook fan page and publish relevant links there. And this is by no means an exhaustive list of options! Whichever way of promoting your skills you choose, it will help your prospective clients understand where your interests are and what fields you are most experienced in. You will also get to know ...

I started my journey in the freelance world in March 2007, so I am a relatively young freelance translator. My very first year as a freelance translator was pretty tough. In fact, I landed only one or two jobs during that year. But then (thank God!) I met the first two agencies who were satisfied with both my experience and quality enough to work with me on a regular basis. I got about 90% of all my translation work through them and was completely satisfied with that situation (big mistake! Now I know that I still had an employee's mentality back then, and this mentality didn't serve me well). But two years ago the situation changed and I started getting a lot less work from those agencies. That was horrible! I realized that I had made a mistake somewhere along the way. So I used my free time to surf all over the web and find information on how other freelancers look for clients and projects, what kind of rates they consider reasonable and how they build their schedule. And I c...

After having served (or better to say after having tried to serve) as a moderator at ProZ.com for about a month I am ready to share my first impressions and conclusions with you. It's a tremendous experience! Why? Let's see: - First of all, it made me finally learn ProZ.com rules :) - Secondly, it made me think how to behave in order to be an example for other site users. Which means not letting my emotions rule, staying calm and making sure I follow the rules, too! - Thirdly, I am learning to not be afraid of upsetting people if I am doing the right thing. I could never imagine how hard it is to do the right, but unpleasant things. And I could never imagine that I love pleasing people so much. At first I literally made myself remove KudoZ questions that didn't comply with the rules and carry out other necessary but unpleasant tasks. Now it's coming easier, as I have come to understanding that such a huge website as ProZ.com can't survive if the rules are not ...