The Life of A Freelance Translator

It has been a relatively quiet week this week - I've only translated about 6000 words so far this week. Maybe people are busy going on a holiday since the peak tour season has started, so less business is done.

But in the last few weeks  I  translated at least 10,000 words per week and once I had to translate 25,000 words within 3 days! Mind you those 25,000 words of English-Chinese translation was not just some press release which is easy to handle, they were financial documents with the most technical and advanced information in the industry. Plus they are PowerPoint documents which make the translation even harder.

So you might wonder why PowerPoint document is harder to translate. Anyone who has no translation experience would ask the same question; but all the translators may find PowerPoint document is more difficult to translate because the content is in bulletin points rather than in complete sentences. Unless one has the complete background knowledge and information of the content, it is not easy to get the complete meaning of those bulletin points, not to mention they are very technical.

So I normally need twice of the time translating a technical document in PowerPoint as I handle a similar level document which is in Word with full sentences. In retrospect, in those 3 days when I was working my bum off to meet the deadline, I was sitting in front of my computer for more than 14 hours everyday translating - hardly standing up to go to the toilet. (Brad was a good boy - he brought the meals to my desk).

Translation is really hard work - not only that you have to be focused all the time which is exhausting mental work, but also that you work long hours in front of the computer which gives you physical fatigue (eyes, arms and back are constantly sore). Luckily Brad bought me a massage member card which he deposited 1500RMB so that I can go to have a deep tissue Shiatsu any time I want to.

But I love translating work - it gives me great sense of achievement and freedom , encourages and stimulates me to learn new things all the time. I read and learn things in the field of my translation every day to sharpen my mind and enrich my knowledge.