How to find a translator

Describing your job ?????

Translators are like love – all around us, but hard to find.

Whatever the reason you need a translator – you’re part of the team overseeing an expansion into a new market, or you got married (or divorced) abroad and you need to file the paperwork in your home country – what, literally, do you do to find a translator?

First of all, write a translation blurb. By that I mean a clear, concise description of your translation job. Translators who hear about your needs for their services probably won’t know you or be familiar with what you’re working on. So, to pique the interest of linguists who would be a good match for your project, you’ll need a snappy description of the translation work you need done that lets a translator quickly decide if your job fits their skillset and schedule.

I recommend including these four parts in your blurb:

1.) Source and target languages — e.g. from German into Spanish

2.) Job length — More specific is better, with word count (as opposed to number of pages) being the preferred measurement for most languages; please also avoid vague descriptions like short, a bunch of pages, easy or huge PDF file ??

3.) Timeframe — when do you need the translation?

4.) Document type — Contract? Machine operation manual? Scholarly article on supernovae? What is your document exactly?

Here are some example blurbs:

A. I’d like to get more French visitors at my vacation rental, and so I need my rental contract translated from English into French. I’d like to be ready before the summer starts, so I would need it no later than March 1 – though sooner is better -- and it’s 4500 words long.

B. One of my family law clients is from Argentina and we need the prosecutor’s file from her ex-husband’s criminal case in Buenos Aires translated from Spanish into English. It’s 77 scanned PDF pages and I need it by May 13.

C. We are XYZPetCare, the world’s best platform for veterinarians and pet owners to connect with each other and manage care for creatures great and small. We’re expanding in Europe and we need translators who work from English into Polish and Hungarian. We would need the text of our app and website translated, and we would also need translations of marketing emails, social media ads and other content to support our launch. All in all, it would be about 35,000 words per language in the next six months.

These sample blurbs don’t address every detail of the jobs, but they have enough that a translator could look at them and say Yes, I think I’d be a good fit, tell me more or No, thank you, that’s not for me.

Before sending out your translation blurb, I recommend asking yourself, If someone gets a screenshot of this, will they understand what I need? That is, if all that a translator knows about your project is what you put in the blurb — with no extra context or chance to ask you for clarification — will it be enough for that translator to determine if your job is something they could take on? A thorough, easy-to-read blurb will get second looks and thus more consideration from people who might have the skillset you need. That, in turn, increases the odds of you quickly finding the linguist for the job. There will of course be project details to hammer out before work begins, but if you can confidently answer Yes to the screenshot question, then your blurb is ready to publish.

Where to look ???????

A natural question then is, Where, exactly, do I publish my blurb?

I advise putting it in front of the people in your network who may have worked with translators before (you probably do have some of those; remember – like love, we are everywhere). Referrals are a big part of how translators find clients, so if you tell your network that you’re looking for a translator, there’s a good chance you’ll get the names of translators who worked on something for someone in your personal or professional circles. Maybe you’re a lawyer or meteorologist who is a member of a Facebook group for people in your profession. A blurb posted there would probably reach people in your field who have worked with translators. Perhaps your sister-in-law or your buddy from college was involved in their company’s expansion into a new country last year and they needed things translated. Talking to them and getting the contact info of linguists they worked with would probably yield some leads.

Likewise, look for people in your network with global, international, localization (“localization” is the industry term for adapting translations to specific countries or regions) or the country/language you need in their job title. People with positions like Country Office Director — South Korea, International Content Coordinator, Head of Global Growth or Localization Coordinator often work with translators or supervise people who do. If someone like that is in your network, they might be able to refer you to a translator if you ask.

Even if the first references you get are of translators who don’t work with the language or specialty you need, translators tend to know other translators and could probably help you out. Using myself as an example, I work from Spanish and from Catalan into English, and could put you in touch with people who work between Spanish and Russian or Chinese and Spanish.

To cast a wider net, you might have luck on translator job boards. The websites ProZ and Translators Cafe specialize in connecting translators and people who need them. Their interfaces are the peak of 2003 web design, but many translators keep profiles there. You might also have luck with sites like Upwork and Fiverr, which are for freelancers more generally.

The last option I’ll leave you with is to consult the directories of professional associations. In the United States, the American Translators Association lists its members in a searchable directory. In Spain, there are also regional professional groups, such as the Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters of Catalonia (APTIC), that have searchable member lists and means for soliciting bids from enrolled linguists. You might find the translator you need in the membership rolls of professional associations like that.

With a bit of luck, you’ll quickly match with a translator and start talking about the details!

What do you think? ????

Friends who hire translators or might hire one: what other questions do you have about finding or working with translators?

Friends who are translators and interpreters: what would you like clients and potential clients to know about working with you?

You’re all invited to leave your thoughts in the comments and I might take up your questions in future posts!

Thank you for taking the time to read.

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I’m Andrew Bartels, a translator who works from Catalan and from Spanish into English, with a focus on legal translation. I live in Barcelona. You can get in touch with me at [email protected].