Hi people, I don’t know how to put this but my life has taken many twists and turns, however since last year I can finally say I can hold my ground (sort of): graduated as translator/interpreter/terminologist -it was a master- from one of the most distinguished universities in my country (global south).

Right now I’m working as a med interpreter and so far so good (though rates in this market are tipically terrible). I’ve also done some academic work in the field of diachronic terminology and have translated some fiction books too.

However I want to know what are my chances in this field? I understand there are some webpages to get one time jobs (like translating legal documents and stuff). My concern here is how to start having more requests with little experience beforehand. What to do to increase my revenue?

Thank you 🙌

Hi everyone,

I'd like to share LinguaTrans, a macOS-native CAT tool I use every day. I'm a long-time macOS user, and finding a proper CAT app has always been a pain. I think this is worth your attention if you're tired of running Parallels or browser-based tools, and you want to free up some hardware resources.

Full disclosure: the developer is a friend, and I help test the app and suggest features. This has been my daily driver for three months.

LinguaTrans is written in Swift for Apple Silicon, opens in seconds, and uses ~300MB of RAM on my machine. It works with the files clients typically send: SDLXLIFF, memoQ, Phrase and GlobalLink-specific formats. Translation memory, termbases, concordance search, and QA checks are all built in too.

Its companion app, LinguaAI Toolkit, takes care of the prep work. It converts Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and subtitle files to XLF and back, unpacks and repacks Trados packages, and converts TMs and termbases. Together they cover the whole workflow without leaving your Mac.

Both are one-time purchases on the Mac App Store: LinguaTrans is $50, LinguaAI Toolkit is $8. There is no subscription, and you can get them together at $48 as the LinguaTrans Essentials bundle. Prices may vary by country.

I'd like to get a conversation going, attract more users, have more fun working on new features and workflows. This is a niche app, so it would be nice to hear from other translators who use macOS or are looking to migrate.

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Thanks,
Alex

...now that Claude can actually accurately CONVERT into docx and translate complex PDFs with retained formatting, I don't see what we're doing in this friggin' industry anymore. I used to think that the conversion process would at least be the bottleneck of AI's slaughtering of this trade for some time to come, but nope.

And I've actually had pretty great monthly earnings this year (with last month being record-high), but still... not gonna last long.

I am studying at the UzSWLU Translation Faculty (English language). Is there anyone studying this field? Can we meet, or can any specialist give suggestions? Will I be able to find a proper job if I continue my studies, or should I choose another related field? I would appreciate it if you guys shared your thoughts and suggestions.

Or when there aren’t any resources to study from (lack of event info)

I am a student in translation department in libya.

I am looking forward to take some courses in interpreting as my college is like not that able to provide a suitable or even fair enough capabilities for the students.

so my demand is : Do you actually know or even heard of any online courses in diplimatic interpretaion?

Especially if you’re new in the field

A medium-sized agency client told me last week they had entered liquidation. They owe me around 700 euros, which I doubt I will get back. It seems freelancers are very low ranking in terms of debt. So what now? Is the contract void? Can I contact end clients and offer my services directly to them? The email mentioned something about ongoing operations while they try to restructure - if they offer me work under such a framework is it high risk I won't be paid again? I welcome any advice, tips and experience.

So I'm still a student studying translation and I'm thinking of getting into games translation or rather localization

I need to ask is it a good path to set for myself?

I'm already working on 2 games as a hobby but in the future I would like to work in this field would you recommend it?

hey all,

Spanish/English interpreter in Canada, freshly certified by an interpreting program. i just completed an interview with a Canadian freelance interpreting agency who wants to onboard me, and they asked me what my rate/hr would be in CAD, and i said between $23-$25/hr for OPI. they have it set up where they send an email with the info. about an appointment and i can choose to accept/reject and after completing assignments i can send them an invoice. should i charge higher or is it fine for starting out?

p.s. also have another agency who i am onboarding with that pays/minute.

Sigh... I don't even know how to say it. I'm ashamed. I've fallen for what most of you would call an obvious scam. But here we go...

Last week I had received this email:

Then I answered it. This "Lukas" guy sent me the contact of a woman (Becca Patten) via Teams and we talked. She even asked me to sign a purchase order. The payment cost would be almost €3,000, via Skrill (option I chose) and I had 8 days to finish the translation.

Eight days later (today), after having completed the work, this "Becca" instructs me to talk with "Elodie Campbell". She congratulates me for the job after reviewing it (the review took a few hours, what was very suspicious). In the end of the message, she tells me that I should create an account in a website called "Falcoglob(dot)online". AN OBVIOUS SCAM. So I started checking on Reddit and found some very similar cases. Suddenly, everything was falling apart.

Yes, friends, no Skrill, no payment... only a shady website created more or less six days ago.

Was I stupid for falling for the offering coming from a gmail address, the "glasglowlibraries(dot)live" website and the €3,000? Yes. Was I stupid for falling for the "falcoglob(dot)online"? No.

Bright side? Of course I didn't make an account in that "Falcoglob" website, so I didn't get scammed. But I wasted my time for nothing, while making plans and I still need the money.

I'm feeling so helpless... but I hope this post helps more people not to get scammed.

Hope you all have a nice day.

I use Reddit's automatic translation not because I need it, but because it's the automatic setting in the app. And I often find myself switching to the original language to read posts and comments because the automatic translation is sometimes inaccurate/of very poor quality.

I double checked the original language here because I was surprised by the number of what seemed to be troll responses below a video about a Russian missile attack. They were all saying the same thing, "Vive la Russie." I was more than a little surprised to find that all the comments actually said, "Fuck Russia."

Hello, I am a linguistics and translation undergrad and I am thinking of writing my thesis about Interpretation. For that, I need material to analyse. Does anyone know, where I can get recordings of interpreters doing their work??? I am Interested in both consecutive and simultaneous translations.

My language pair is EN-RU, accordingly, translation records for this language pair are in higher priority. But mainly I'm just interested if it's even possible to find enough material online for a thesis, are there any websites with such recordings??

Pls help 🙏

So, I am an inexperienced translator who has never worked with any publishing house before, so I don't know how translators end up working on books they are interested in. I am basically asking because I have to translate a text of more than 100 pages to graduate from university. It's certainly unpaid, so I guess I have the freedom to choose something I am eager to translate; I am doing that for myself first and foremost since the university's instructions are not restrictive. But at the same time, I would like to see my work published or at least read by many people. So, I wonder if publishing houses receive offers from translators directly or if translators can market themselves through their work.

I built a free checker for SRT files: https://captionspec.com

If you translate or adapt subtitles into English for Netflix, it lists every caption that's over the limits: reading speed (20 cps adult, 17 children's), 42 characters per line, 2 lines, duration, and gaps. It shows the measured value for each one, so you can see which captions need condensing.

It runs in your browser (the file is never uploaded), it's free, and there's no sign-up. Not affiliated with Netflix.

It's English only for now. Which target languages would be most useful to add next?,

From the BBC website today - "For plenty of use cases, raw AI translation is now the right call: multiplying your costs by 100 to catch the last few percent of errors isn't rational if you're translating internal documents or product listings". Makes sense I guess, even if sad for those of us still left in the industry. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1wxdjx27ypo

I'm signing contract with them right now. It's a government contract position and they send you to different states, reimburse your hotel/meal only at 75% of the local GSA rate, with no say about how long a case may last. I have no experience with long distance traveling, and I want to know what to expect (from the company and traveling interpreting in general)

Hello fellow linguists!

I have recently got an offer which consists of MTPE from English to my native language. In this case, however, the content is video, films, dialogues etc. so instead of a standard per word rate (which I am fairly familiar with), they apply USD / rated minute. I have no clue what a standard or a good rate should be though?

Do you have any experience or minimum rates recommended?

Thank you a lot

!

I am sitting the DipTrans next year. If you’ve done the exam what did you think? What were the challenges and did you pass or resit?

Freelancers who work with agencies: when an invoice gets paid late, what’s usually going on?

I came across a 2026 Accountable dataset of around 714,000 freelancer invoices. Translators had the longest wait of any profession: 19 days on average, with almost 3 in 10 invoices taking more than 30 days.

I’m curious whether that matches your experience. Is it usually something small, like a missing PO number or an invoice stuck waiting for approval in XTRF, Plunet or a portal? Is it the agency’s monthly payment run? Or do some agencies simply pay late?

And when it happens, do you follow up, or hold off because you want to keep the relationship good? How do you first notice a payment is overdue?

I’m working on a small project around this and would love to understand what actually happens day to day. No link or pitch.

Has anyone experiencing same issue with the new portal for thebigword interpreters ?
It’s showing £.00 on completed slots

Hi everyone!
I’m a freshman student studying translation, and I’m interested in how advertising slogans are translated from one language to another.
My presentation is about this topic, and I’d love to hear your opinions. What do you think is the best way to translate advertising slogans while preserving their meaning and impact?.

English-Somali
Swahili-somali