11 Things This Translator Wants to Say to You

This post and these thoughts were long overdue.

In my 10 years of working as a professional English<>Hindi<>Telugu translator, I have to daily communicate with direct clients who are totally clueless on how to interact with a translator and then there some translation agencies who think it’s beneath them to properly communicate with translators.

While I don’t blame my direct clients because some of them are first-timers and for some it is a new and an alien experience working with me. I can’t say the same about translation companies. Even though some are new in the industry and others very much reputable, they very much lack the etiquette to respect the profession and the challenges that come with it.

From ‘Oh, you mean I have pay for it’ to ‘I need this 20,000 word document translated by tomorrow’ to ‘Oh just Google Translate it, my client will never know’, I have seen it all. Even so, here are things that this translator wants to say to you:

1. Salutations: If you are a translation agency or a translation company, please do not address us as Hello Dear, Hello My Dear, Dear Linguist, Dear translator, Hi Translators, Hi Translation Family etc. We, translators have a name. Please address us with our names. If you have taken an effort to email us, please do us this favour too. And if you are an Indian translation agency or a translation company, get our names right. I have been addressed as Paravathi or Pavani or Pavitra. And sometimes…Rajiv, Naveen etc.

2. Rates: It doesn’t matter if you are an agency or a direct client; don’t just directly jump into rates. I have been asked this multiple times, ‘But what are your general rates? We don’t have a general or standard rate. It depends on the projects that you have or need done. And if your hiring process depends on our rates, it just goes to show that you are not professional.

But what troubles me most is that this ‘rates’ poison has sunken so deep inside the industry that I was once approached by a freelancer (just like me) who wanted to outsource her project. She contacted me via Whatsapp (I hate doing business via Whatsapp. Don’t ask.). And the first question she asked me was What are your rates? I was taken aback! I asked her how can she ask that question when she herself was a freelancer and knew about the rates issue. She told me in a deadpan tone, That’s how my clients approach me and that’s how I am going to ask you. Needless, to say, I didn’t work with her.

3. CVs: Dear translation agencies don’t ask for our CVs. They don’t serve any purpose except for adding us in your database. You know that, I know that. The reason we hesitate to share and send our CVs is because we are afraid that you will share our CVs to win bids and yet when it comes to assigning that job, you will hire a translator who quotes cheap. And we certainly do not want to be your partner in crime by supplying you with blind CVs which you can alter as per whims.

4. Potential project: Yes, we know that once in a while you might get a project that is not confirmed or still in talks or in negotiation. But that is no reason to bulk email everyone in your database and ask for their CVs and their rates.

5. Bulk email: That brings me to raise the subject of bulk emailing everyone; professional and newbies. Don’t bulk email everyone. It shows you in the poor light and makes us wary about you and question your professionalism.

6. Discount bulk project: Every now and then I get emails from translation agencies saying there is a bulk project and since it is a bulk project, you want to lower our already low rates. How does that benefit us? Bulk or no bulk, the effort, the time spent on that project is the same, actually even more. We have to refuse other projects in order to give our whole to deliver quality to this project.

7. Sample tests: I understand your dilemma that you need to be sure that you are hiring the right person. And you need to test our expertise. But that doesn’t mean you go about contacting every translator asking them to do a sample test for free. It takes time and effort and we expect to be paid for that. We are investing our valuable time to do it. And we expect to be compensated for it. Another reason why translators won’t do free sample tests because there have been (and still do) where an agency have gotten their whole project done by dividing it among translators in the name of quality sample test for free.

8. Payment terms:

a) Less payment: Agreed that the translation industry has become very competitive and agencies are outbidding each other to get hold of projects and as such bidding cheap quotes. But that is no reason to offer cheap rates. Like you, we too run a business. We too have business expenses. We too have a business to manage.

b) Selective payment: We need you to do a sample test. If the client likes it, only then we will pay you. Asking for a free sample test is in itself a crime and on top of it, your selective payment terms. Would you go to a dentist and say, ‘I have come for a root canal and if I like what you did only then shall I pay.’ No, you won’t. The dentist will kick you out for sure for saying that. It’s the same here.

c) Withholding payment: We can’t pay you until our client pay us. Please remember our deal, our agreement to work is with you not your client. We did not make the agreement with your client. We made an agreement with you. We signed the agreement with you. It is none of our concern when you’ll receive your payment from your client. If we have agreed, if we have signed the contract with you, then it is you who has to pay us within the agreed timeline. We are not responsible for your client’s delayed payment.

d) Empty promises payment: If you could do this for $00.0x (read dirt cheap), you will continuously get future projects from us. This is a small project and we are not charging our client for this. We would be grateful if you do not charge us for this. In return we promise that we will give all future projects to you. In other words, work for us at this rate for this project and the same rate for future projects (which is subjective). It has now become a common occurrence and practice for translation agencies. We, translators do believe in charity but we never mix charity with business. We give our best in project we take up. We put our time and effort in it. What makes you think that you are entitled to bring down our rates or work for you for free?

9. Wrong language pair: Day in day out, I get emails from translation agencies asking me and offering me translation projects in Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam etc. I am an English<>Hindi<>Telugu translator. It is very much visible on my LinkedIn page, my website and other social media platforms. I remember this project manager who contacted me through LinkedIn. She said she was looking for Marathi translators. I replied, I am not sure where you got the idea that I provide Marathi translation. I do not provide Marathi translation. Her response, Sorry, it is Telugu translators we are looking for! I was multi tasking and discussing Marathi, so that crept in too! Great news that you offer Telugu too.

Sending me emails about other languages implies that you didn’t even take the effort to know me or my language pairs. 

10. Document sharing: If you want to work with us, if you want us to translate for you, you need to share the documents. We translators need to see what we are going to translate. We need to see the tone, style of the text. We need to crosscheck the word count, the number of pages in the said files. For reason unknown and puzzling to us, many agencies and direct clients have the habit of not sharing the documents and instead directly jump to rates. You are not only not helping us; you are making it difficult for you too.

11. NDA without project details: ‘You need to sign this NDA in order to see the document. It’s our company policy’. I can’t tell you how many times, I’ve heard this, how many times I’ve been asked to sign an NDA in order for me to see the actual document. And truth be told, in my fresher years, I did actually sign NDAs...only to be ghosted by the translation agencies and never to hear from them again.

12. NDA with simply outrageous clauses: A fee of xx% will be deducted if the delivery is delayed or a fee of xx% will be deducted if there are errors in the translated document or a fee of xx% will be deducted for project management fees or a fee of xx% will be deducted for failure to answer to our email or call. Yes, these were some of the outrageous clauses I came across when communicating with translation agencies. It is simply unethical and unprofessional. Delays happen. Errors happen. We, translators strive to be professional and do our best to keep our word but we are humans. We do not control the events in our lives. But that is no reason to take away our hard earned money. Be human. Stop creating such clauses. Stop forcing us to sign such clauses.

This profession may be a remote one for many but don’t undervalue it. For professional translators us, it is not a hobby or a side hustle or a means to earn some pocket money. This is our profession. It is our livelihood. We invest our time and effort into it. And let’s not forget, you are in this industry too. You are as much answerable to your client as we are to you.

Imagine all the above scenarios with your client. Would you agree to it? No. So, why should we? Cutting corners, ghosting on us, underpaying us, scamming us, binding us with NDAs by including clauses that are tipped in your favour is not the way to go about running your business. Sooner or later, your pretense will be exposed. It will come back to bite you.

If you cut corners you’ll end up hiring people who have no clue what is translation about, of moral responsibility, about who your client is, about the importance of that document, about the need to deliver translations accurately, about how important those translations are to your client. If anything goes wrong, not only will you lose your reputation and your company’s reputation, your client will end up upsetting and antagonising her/ his target audience and getting embroiled in a legal drama.

Look, we care about you and your company just as you do. We also care about your reputation and your relationship with your client. We take our work our profession seriously. We know the risks and repercussion that come with it and we tackle it head on.

So, next time if you have a project in hand try your very best to find real and the right translators, go through our profile, know our names right, know our language pairs, get our language pairs right, not to jump directly to rates, not to ask for CVs, to give the job specifics in detail, to pay for sample tests, not to ask for discounts, to share the documents and files, to draft a reasonable NDA.

Be ethical.

Be professional.

Be human.