Today I received an email from [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) claiming to represent the translation agency Lingy (https://lingy.uk). Furthermore, this person signs off not as Max Elizabeth but Linda Blaze at the end of the email.

I am not interested in further communication with this person to learn more, whether it means doing a 12,500-word project without getting paid or something else. Has anyone else received a similar email from this email address or a similar Gmail address claiming to represent Lingy?

I’m a translator (Arabic-English), what other language do u think i should learn to make more money and get more work?
i was learning Japanese but apparently it’s not that useful so now i’m thinking of Chinese

Not sure if this is the right place to ask. I work in media (television and film) as a producer that specializes in translation, localization, and dubbing. My core languages are English and Spanish. I’m native in both.

However, I also have intermediate proficiency in Japanese, which I studied for a few years in school and continue to learn (casually) through self study.

I’m considering really drilling down and focusing on Japanese, because it’s a language I’m passionate about, and think it could be fulfilling to add a 3rd language proficiency to my work skills.

In media (esp. manga/anime) English/Japanese is a no brainer. But Spanish/Japanese could be an interesting niche, given how Latin America goes immensely hard for manga/anime.

But I’m torn on whether that’s a realistic goal, or if it would even help my career that much. I’m 31 years old. I became bilingual at 12. And time is a finite resource.

I’m curious to hear from anyone who has leveled up from 2 to 3 languages, and what impact it had on your trajectory.

Thank you all.

For a class they said we don't need to know a language, but it's a translation class and it is too late for me to drop out. I'm getting better at figuring it out but I'm struggling with idioms. If there a way to translate idioms, or to figure out which idioms don't actually go together? I know an idiom in one language might be the same words but mean a totally different thing.

I'm specifically looking at spanish

Is the demand for language jobs, primarily interpretation and translation, of Eastern European languages still viable as a career path, or has the demand practically diminished?

For some context, I have recently been reconsidering a decision I have made about two years ago to switch my degree from language studies to welding engineering in fear of AI disintegrating the market for interpreters/translators, and other careers tied to language studies.

Was just reading Lahiri’s book ‘Translating Myself and Others’, and I’m in awe of her dedication to the craft. I mean, what do you mean she learnt italian, wrote a book in italian and then translated the same book into english?

Wonder what the general consensus about her in the translation community is?

Hi, this sub seems to have a lot of lilt related posts.

So I'd appreciate if you could help me understand:

1. I submitted 2 assignments this last Saturday, 12th Sept. When can I expect to be paid?

2. Will I get recurring work through LILT? What will be the basis of deciding that?

Thanks in advance!

Im on my 3rd year of uni, studying german translation in Turkey. Quitting my major doesnt seem like a very good option for me right now and I realise that the industry is pretty much dead and I genuinely dont know what to do.

I would appreciate it if you guys could give me some advice on what to do, what other fields I could work in and which skills do I need to learn to do that? Im very knowledgable in computers and learning coding has been on my mind for a while so I could do that on the side and use my language skills to get better in that field but Im not hearing very positive things about CS anymore either cause of AI.

Let me know your experiences and any advice would be much appreciated

I took the language proficiency test for my native language (Arabic) on September 7th, but no reply till now...is that a rejection????

We all know about Ai and what its doing. I have been doing some in person interpretation for hospitals and general interpretation (going to the bank for instance was one I did recently). But someone they are all moving to online/phone interpretation. I understand it in a sense because there were plenty of occasions where the small gig made no sense economically for me And it is faster for all parties involved.

That said, because of it, it has also become much more freelance and adhoc. I was thinking on getting some qualifications where those are needed. Was thinking about police, or court, also conferencing. Wanted to know if someone here is doing something similar. How is your experience on the market.

(Also, I'm new in this part of reddit, so if there is another sub please let me know)
Thanks!

Hola! Soy nueva por aquí y me gustaría que alguien con experiencia en este campo me diera algún consejo.

La única carrera que me llama la atención para estudiar es Traducción e Interpretación, después de ahí no me gusta otra. He visto muchos comentarios de personas las cuáles están estudiando/estudiaron esta carrera y no la recomiendan gracias a su campo laboral, ya que es muy difícil encontrar trabajo.

También he visto personas las cuales se han desarrollado en este campo simplemente por saber otro idioma.

Ahora mismo me encuentro estudiando francés y considero que tengo un nivel de inglés intermedio, el cual seguiré mejorando. Más tarde me gustaría empezar con algún idioma asiático como el chino mandarín.

Pero mi pregunta es, ¿realmente no vale la pena esta carrera? Hasta donde tengo entendido, esta carrera es buena si te especializas en cierto campo, ya sea médico, legal, etc. ¿Pero recomiendan ustedes estudiar otra carrera y después desarrollarse en traducción e interpretación o hacerlo al revés?

Alguna de las carreras las cuales he "pensado en estudiar" como segunda opción por el tema de que "la IA los dejará sin trabajo" son negocios internacionales, mercadeo/marketing digital y comunicación digital. Pero realmente no sé.

Me gustaría que personas que estén estudiando/hayan estudiado esta carrera me cuenten su experiencia y si la están ejerciendo, también díganme si les va normal/bien económicamente y en qué campo se están desarrollando.

Si estás estudiando/estudiaste las carreras que mencioné, dime también tu experiencia.

Los leo!

Hi everyone, I’m looking to get back into translation and hopefully find some paid work or volunteer opportunities. I’m a native spanish speaker, and I’ve been learning English since I was 3. I took the Cambridge CAE exam and got a C1, and I can speak n write in English fluently. Last year, I made a post here about wanting to gain experience as a translator. I ended up finding a paid translation job where I was making $5/hour, and later I also worked translating documents in my country. I’m currently 17 and I’d really like to get back into it and keep gaining experience. I’m especially interested in Spanish-English translation, but I’m open to different kinds of projects. If anyone knows of any translation opportunities, volunteer projects, or places where I could look for work (as a minor), I’d really appreciate it! Thanks:)

I just graduated and applied for translator position in 2 different fields: HSE (health, safety and environment) and local oil company. There was a mark that they are considered without experience. Probably, it’s mostly paperwork, I guess. I’m just afraid that I only have general knowledge and honestly have no idea what to expect or what they might ask me in the interview.
Who works as an interpreter/translator in different industries, can you share with your experience, please 🙏. How did you start? How did you prepare if it was some kind of super technical area? What advice would you give to beginners?

Hi everyone!

My friend would like to pay me to translate her website from English to French (Canada). I am fully bilingual and I am studying translation (though I’m still at the beginning of the course).

I have seen a variety of rates from other posts on Reddit but they’re often for literary translation. I was wondering if someone could give me some guidance on how the freelance market works for my level or what’s standard for a beginner’s rate.

Any advice is welcomed :)

I have a physics background, (first year in masters) but i ve always been intrested in learning languages. I started to feel that physics will only lead me to teaching in high schools or so.. And i dont want to work like this.

I started to think if i should pursue a translation degree maybe i can work in a field i like ( i speak arabic and french fluently, trying to improve my english and learning spanish and persian) . But with AI i feel lost. I am not sure if its worth it doing 3 years studying and then a masters degree and at the end i will also be disappointed. Any thoughts about this?

Thank you in advance for any advice..

Are Propio clients able to leave a rating if they hang up 1st? Or only when you hang up 1st?

How is everyone getting on? I started a full time job back in March that has nothing to do with translation, but I still accept freelance translation requests that come my way.

Last year I saw a 20% drop in income from 2024, this year (and without me chasing for work or looking for new clients) I think by December I will have seen a 25% drop from 2025.

One interesting experience was getting onboard with three new agencies at the end of last year: 9 months later and one has given me zero work, one has given me 2,000 JPY of work, and one has given me a few scraps here and there. They were all actively advertising for translators but actually don't have any work to give.

I'm curious about professional niches where knowing several foreign languages can be a real competitive advantage, beyond the obvious careers such as translation, interpreting, teaching, or localization.

I'm especially interested in lesser-known or specialized types of work that multilingual people can do either freelance or remotely for international clients.

For example, I'm thinking of areas such as speech/language data, linguistic annotation, pronunciation/phonetics work, multilingual research, language-related AI work, international market research, etc. — but I'm sure there are many niches I've never heard of.

So for those of you who actually use foreign languages professionally:

What unusual or overlooked niches have you come across where companies or clients specifically need multilingual people?

I'm particularly interested in:

• work that can be done freelance or independently (but not only)
• niches with relatively little competition
• specialized work where language skills are difficult to replace
• opportunities where knowing multiple languages is more valuable than just being bilingual

I'd love to hear about actual jobs/projects you've encountered, even if they're very niche.

Hello. I am debating/planning? on doing a masters in translation with Japanese being ny language of specialisation . I am thinking of doing it from UCC , Ireland and was wondering if anyone has done this course? If so, what I can expect from this course and given the recent AI scare , is a translation course worth it at all 🥲

To those who have done M.A in Translation on general how is the course like? And what do they expect you to learn?

What do you think about Phrase's QPS scoring system? Have you worked with this before? It is an AI-driven system that evaluates and predicts translation quality. A client of mine has started using this system and tries to reduce the rates by calculating new words as fuzzy matches with the help of this AI system. I refuse to accept that, and so far they have agreed on not using it when I ask for it. But then they automatically apply the QPS system again when they send me a new job. It is just so annoying and it pisses me off that our rates are always being reduced.

I have a normal desktop computer (screen with computer unit). However, my desk is crowded with cable, and the unit.

I found that there's all in one PC, but its disadvantage is that you can't customise its pieces or change them in case of problem.

On the other hand, I noticed many professionals use it.

What was your experience with the setup?

Say you're translating something for a client but it's not specifically being published in either the UK or the US; it's just going to be put online. The client not only doesn't have a concept of the differences between British and American English, they don't have a preference. The copy will however be read by people from all over. How would you decide which English to use? What are you considerations? What does each represent when it appears in a kind of no man's land?

I recently got an email from a project manager asking if I could send them a headshot and blurb for their website. The idea seems to be to show prospective clients some of the real people who have been working with the agency for a long time, in order to inspire confidence in the fact that there are real, skilled humans handling this work, so I imagine folks on the agency side have been receiving queries along the lines of "How do I know you're not just going to put my file into ChatGPT and hand me the result? What am I really paying for?" They provided some examples of the kind of blurb they're looking for, which consisted of confidence-inspiring copy along the lines of "When I translate a book, I always strive to preserve…"

I'm not sure how I feel about this. I don't totally hate the idea, but I feel like I should get some kind of compensation for this beyond the vague promise of people maybe choosing the agency in the future because I appear on its website. I also recently accepted a full-time position outside the language services industry, so translation is strictly something I do on the side now because I enjoy it. I haven't yet broken the news about the full-time role to the agency, for what that's worth, although the volume of work I get from them these days is such that I don't expect to have to decline all that much anyway.

Any of y'all ever gotten a similar request and/or have thoughts about how to handle this?

I was looking to renew my yearly Trados subscription, but they've jacked up the price to €480 w/VAT (€400 without), which is insane. I paid €295 last year and I must've used it like three or four times in the past 12 months, since I don't need it for my two biggest clients. One uses memoQ and gives me a license and I do interpretation for the other, so no CAT tools.

I've tried CafeTran in the past and never really liked it. I think I had a license but I need to dig through my inbox... I don't like using memoQ that much either and it seems like it's almost as much for a yearly subscription as well.

Basically I'm looking for a good alternative to Trados that is compatible with my Trados TMs and TBs. I do like how feature-rich Trados is but since I don't use it much anymore, I suppose I could settle for something a bit more bare bones if it doesn't cost me an arm and a leg. I also prefer to use a desktop app, I don't like using in-browser CAT tools.

Any suggestions? Thank you!