Your professional translator

How many times have your read about the benefits of specialisation in translation? Many, I bet. A sure-fire way to differentiate and add you credibility in an overcrowded market of language services, they say. In my language combination (English to Russian), the competition is fierce. Numerous translators with the same education and the same tools offer their services to the same LSPs. Too often, everything comes down to price. To land clients who do care about their translators, you definitely need some extras — subject field excellence, impressive recommendations, huge experience, etc. Your authentic point of differentiation. But here comes the tricky part. Where is the way to translation expertise?

Would you like to know more about specialization in the language and translation industry? Ewa Erdmann is going to share her story with you now. How did she choose her fields? Here's what she says: Passion first Just as doctors and lawyers choose areas they want to specialise in, translators should decide what field they want to pursue. Unquestionably, it is a very important decision, since it will determine their future work, marketing efforts and lifestyle. The reasons behind their choice vary from translator to translator, but most frequently the determining factors are experience (being previously employed in a particular industry), passion / interests (depending on how strongly they feel about this area of specialisation) or academic background. 

I've been following Sarai's blog for a few months now, and I should say this unique lady continues to amaze me more and more. Her writing style, the issues she touches upon in her blog and her sincerity really help her to stand out among so many of her colleagues with similar specialty areas. I wrote an email to Sarai asking her to take part in my series and hoping to get a reply in the next couple days. Imagine my surprise when she wrote back immediately sharing her story! So here's what Sarai says: How I chose my specialty fields My answer is very simple: my entry into translation was completely the “wrong” way. I studied medicine and I didn’t enjoy it, and then I worked in IT for four years and decided to go freelance. Meanwhile, during my time at medical school, I had to do an elective rotation at a “real” hospital (i.e. not a training hospital) and they said we could go anywhere in the world – so I chose Japan. I’m fairly certain my classmates tho

Hi everybody! I am back! Pages are still being updated, but you can now search for pretty much any post (except for a couple personal ones) using the categories in the upper part of the website. I do hope that it will make the navigation easier for you. And you can still use the search field in the upper right corner of the page to look for any other topics. Marketing and social media posts are now grouped together under freelance business category, so don't worry, they did not disappear :) So, I am back with a fresh mind, and here's what a bit of rest does to me: I get creative :) And I thought it's high time to introduce a new topic to my blog, which is specialization and its importance for freelance translators . But instead of just me preaching about it, you will learn from fellow translators who have determined their spheres of expertise and are successfully growing their business. And my first guest is Konstantina Drakou ! Here's what she has to say.

Dear readers, I know how much you like my blog and are looking forward to new posts every week. This announcement is specially for you. Some of you have noticed that I've been doing some changes here lately in order to make all posts easier to find. I am also going to rewrite most of the pages. Some older posts which are of zero (or close to zero) value are going to be deleted. The rest are going to be grouped nicely, so you can search and find them by categories listed on top: Freelance business , Professional translation , Foreign language teaching , Russian culture , Blogging , and Tips for clients . You can still use the search box in the top right corner and type any keywords, including "personal" to find the posts that have that keyword. I am going to delete the page about guest blogging because I've been getting too many weird requests from people who can't even spell words in English. You know I am not a native English speaker, that is why I always do