Your professional translator

Hi! Hope your week was good and now you're ready for a new blog post :) This post is about some changes in my life and business that occurred since I wrote about my goals in winter. Do you remember my post " How well I have achieved my goals for 2010 "? It's time to see what's changed. First of all, my goal was to reach 150 readers in 2011. Right now I have 17 email subscribers to my posts.  I also have 4 members who joined me through the "Become a reader" top menu option. So that makes 21 people. Many thanks to each one of you who found my blog interesting enough to subscribe for it! I also have 114 Facebook fans and about half of them read my blog on a regular basis. I also have some readers on Twitter (to be honest, I have about 380 followers. I don't think all of them read my blog, but I do know of at least some of them), so I can say that right now about 100 people read my blog regularly! I'd like to thank each one of my readers! It...

As some of you may know, a few weeks ago we celebrated my niece's wedding. That event gave me an idea to share some Russian wedding traditions with you. I don't mean those ancient traditions that no longer exist. I would like you to see what our modern weddings are like, with all the ancient traditions which are still kept. You will also get to see some pictures of my niece's wedding. Hope you don't mind that :) Modern Russian weddings usually last for two days. During the first day there are some very important things that happen, like the process of buying-out the bride, the ceremony in the wedding palace, the church wedding (the ceremony in the church is optional, it can take place on a different day and in case with Russian Orthodox church it can even happen years before or after the civil ceremony), then the newlyweds visit different important sites, and then there's a banquet. The second day is normally a smaller celebration with family and friends where peo...

Hi! How've you been? I've missed you so much! The past couple weeks before my niece's wedding were so busy that I decided to take a week off right after the wedding. And I thoroughly enjoyed my small vacation! We celebrated the wedding which took part in Suzdal and in Vladimir, I did some reading for pleasure, slept a lot, took long walks with my hubby and my daughter and did many other things that I wouldn't normally be able to do. Now I feel a lot better. So it's time for a new post in "being a good translator" series. It's the last post in the series. Here we are going to talk not just about any translators, but about freelance translators in particular. Being  good specialists  and having great motivation  is not enough for becoming a good freelance translator. A freelance translator also needs good business skills, otherwise their business will fail. As I was thinking about this part, I realized that the subject is so vast that it may make a...

Today is a very special day in our city - 900th anniversary of Prince Andrey I of Vladimir, or Andrey Bogolyubsky . Andrey Bogolyubsky played an important part in the development of Russia as a state and of Vladimir as its capital (at that time Vladimir was the Russian capital). You can read more about him in this article . We went to the center to take part in the celebrations. First of all, there was a fair where you could see all the crafts that Russians are so good at. Here are a few pics for you to see. I love that box. It's so pretty :) Icons and pictures made of birch bark Master class in painting your own clay toys My daughter loved that horse! Porcelain dolls in traditional costumes All these wonderful things are made of straw Crystal from Gus-Khrustalny After the fair there was a concert. We didn't stay through all of it because we decided to visit a museum called "Old Vladimir" which shows what Vladimir used to...

I guess this is the most obvious truth about translation. If you are not bilingual, you can't be a translator. But you know what? I've met some people who honestly think that anybody can translate. Some even think that a machine can do it. You can read about one of such cases in my post called " A funny sad story ". But even being bilingual doesn't mean you'll be a good translator. As one of my very respected colleagues once said, being bilingual just doesn't cut it.  My post about proofreading  explains how being bilingual doesn't mean you'll be a good proofreader. The same can be said about translation! I think it's not a secret that when you are studying a foreign language you also absorb a foreign culture and many idioms/concepts/grammar structures that are unique only for this language. And if you don't possess relevant training and/or experience there's a risk that your translations will not sound native because they will be too ...

You may have already noticed that I am this kind of person who likes to meditate (in the Christian sense of this word) on different issues. So I've been thinking about this concept called "a good freelance translator". From a client's point of view . I intentionally avoid the term "successful translator" because I think it describes the translators' point of view. I've noticed that my clients don't quite care about how successful I am . All they care about is how good I am . So I decided to try thinking like a client and figure out what makes a good freelance translator. And the first thing I thought about was motivation . When your clients see that you put your whole heart into their project they will trust you more. If you are interested in the project your motivation will help you achieve the best possible results! A little tip for clients: Your appreciation, respect and friendly attitude can work miracles. I've had a few cases when m...

I am so glad it's Friday and I can have some quiet time to reflect on the past week. It was a fun week - there was a Christian English day camp in our church. The younger kids came in the mornings and the older ones came in the afternoons. My daughter Delia was one of the campers in the morning shift and I was glad to serve as a helper. I love helping other people :) First let me share some pics. You will see one and the same little girl in the pictures. That's my daughter ;) Playing a game to help the kids get acquainted with the American team The youngest group (4-6 year olds) with their favourite American young lady. Playing soccer More soccer :) Watching a cartoon First of all, I'd like to share the benefits of the camp : 1) The kids heard God's word; 2) They heard native English speakers and tried to understand them or at least get used to the rhythm of their speech and the pronunciation. On Wednesday my daughter shared one thing with me. Sh...