HOW MUCH MONEY DO FREELANCE TRANSLATORS MAKE? (Real Numbers)
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In this video, I talk about money. How much can and should you make as a translator when you see it as a legitimate career path. Let me know in the comments what your salary goals are.
Portuguese Subtitles by Duarte Bandeira
Russian Subtitles by Daria Sinitsyna
Arabic Subtitles by Mousa Osama
Italian Subtitles by Lina Favre
Video by Adrian Probst
– useful links from the video –
Translators job/network site with rates calculator:
Costs of living calculator:
Feel free to connect on LinkedIn:
– Socials –
Check out the Freelanceverse on Spotify/Instagram/Twitter as well and give it a follow 🙂
Instagram:
Twitter:
#freelance #translator #salary
Would love to hear more on how you got your first major client and how many/what type/size of clients did you need to win in order to have a sufficient stream of income.
Thanks so much for the comment, Marco. Will definitely address this in the next Q&A or a separate upcoming video. In short, my two currently biggest clients simply contacted me on LinkedIn to start with. But of course, I needed other ones before in order to stand out on LinkedIn. This shows that every client and every job counts however small they are. I had the major advantage of knowing lots of people in the industry through my studies. More on that as well in a video coming soon 🙂
Thank you so much for your work. I have recently got interested in translation from Japanese/French/ English to my mother tongue (Spanish) and you have been by far the the most helpful youtuber when providing info about this field. By the way, I especially liked your video about linguistics related jobs 🙂 as a linguist myself I find that people aren’t knowledgeable enough about the great amount of job positions that language lovers can do so thanks! I’ll definately keep watching your videos since they’re REALLY INFORMATIVE. Regards from Spain and good luck
Wow, what a wonderful comment, Raquel! 🙂 thank you so much. These kind of words are so motivating. I’m very glad to hear that find value in my videos. Your language combinations are so interesting, you’ll definitely have an edge with these. Especially Japanese<>Spanish is super intersting and you could probably charge a nice niche price for it. What are you currently working on as a Linguist? If there are linguistic topics that you are passionate about, let me know. Would be cool to film a collab video together about it. 🙂 Make sure to connect on LinkedIn so that we have each other in our network. -Adrian
You’re one honest dude. I just watched some improbable promises before your channel. Thank you.
Thanks a lot, trying my best to share transparency 🙂 – Adrian
This was a very useful video! By the way, I believe Youtube has disabled the option of adding subtitles to other peoples videos as of 28 September 2020. However, if you’re interested, I would be glad to provide you with Portuguese subtitles for this video to help you out, and so I can practice!
Hi Duarte, yes exactly, they did unfortunately. How I do it now is I just send the SRT file directly to the people. Please get in touch with me on freelanceverse@gmail.com 🙂
dropped out of mech. engineering to study specialized translation and got somewhat worried since most of my teachers are former freelance translators and apparently most of the alumnis work in completely different fields. this video is actualy realy comforting, thank you
Glad you found it comforting. Especially for someone with your profile, there is great potential in the language industry. Just make sure not to be afraid of adapting to changes. Go with the flow and rely on your engineering knowledge. Keep it up.
Thank you so much for sharing this video, as I’m fluent in Mandarin Chinese, and finally decided to head into Freelance Translation stuff but since I just started I really do appreciate this video..
Awesome, thanks Angela! Good luck and make sure to check out my other videos too 🙂
Great video – finally someone who is open about the prices – would love a video about pricing too 😉
Thanks, Anja. That’s definitely on the list 🙂
Very useful content as always. I’m just about to take my translation business to the next level and become a full-time freelancer and your videos help a lot 🙂
Awesome! Good luck, Zsuzsa! What languages are you working with?
I’m a native Hungarian and I translate from English and Dutch. Have been translating for years but only as a side job. Thanks for your very insightful videos, keep up the good work because you help a lot of people 🙂
Thanks, that’s very encouraging to hear 🙂
@Zsuzsa Toth hi, how did it go? are your expectations met?
Good question!! 🙂
Hi Adrian! My name is Andrew, and I live in the United States. I am really interested in learning the language of Japanese. The Asian cultures, especially Japan, has always been of particular interest to me. I love to travel, and be my own boss. I think translating fits in with a lot of my values, when it comes to living the life I want to live. I go to a local university, here. Maybe I can leverage my classes towards becoming a traveling, translator, freelance and or company worker. Translating just makes sense to me because it follows along with all these other goals in my life I want to accomplish like exploring cultures, helping people, eating delicious foreign delicacies, and learning the beautiful language of Japanese! I can’t wait to start my journey, and your video helped inspire me to lean me into a direction that I can brace myself on. Thanks for making this video, you are very, very easy to follow and understand from a practical standpoint, as well as a very, very likeable and affable guy! Congratulations on your translating success, man! Do you have any recommendations, on where to learn the language of Japanese? I am currently with Duolingo, the language site. Are there, or do you know of any other higher quality, more efficient language conduits to learn Japanese from? I thank you for being who you are, and making this video. You are very passionate about what you do (You are in a fit of passion), and it shows!! May God be good to you and me.
Andrew
Hi Andrew, thanks so much for you detailed comment, I appreciate your time. Apps like Duolingo and Babbel are definitely a good start. I can also recommend to watch the content from fellow YouTuber Sarah K. She used to make translation related content, now it’s more about Japanese culture and learning Japanese language. Maybe you can follow her course. As a next step, I’d recommend to take in-person classes once the pandemic allows it. It’s just so much more valuable when you can actually learn with peers and you’re in an unusual setting. Then I know from all the Japanese speakers I know, that you can only get it to a level at which you can work with it as a translator when you go to Japan and live there in a host familiy for couple of months or a year. So if you’re really serious about it, I’d recomment that 🙂 Afterwards there’s nothing stopping you from becoming the best JP>EN translator! Adrian
You and this video are such a bright ray of hope! Thank you for this! I have been working as a translator for 9 years now, and I want to start my own freelance journey! This video filled me with positive feelings about it!
Aww thats so nice to hear ♥️ good luck with your journey!
Thank you for making this video! I want to ask perhaps did you know different languages when you were growing up or was it taught to you in university when you’re pursuing the translation degree?
Hi Akiyama, I grew up in Switzerland, so French was always everywhere around me. On TV, on billboards etc., but I only started learning it properly in school from the age of around 10. Then later on we started English in school around the age of 15.
here before 1 million subs
Looooool
Thank you for the encouraging and inspiring words. Everybody needs money, but as a novice translator, one must consider investing time, money, skills and effort first before you think of scaling up for huge profits.
Exactly! 🙂
I confirm that you get most easily hired for nishes exotic languages. I still find cat tools difficult after 1 year and it takes some years to just gain experience. 1 year I was constantly hunting translation projects limited to one hour or 2 days and was forced to teach. At least it added up to my CV until the list got longer and longer. Still many international companies won’t hire me with until 2 years experience it’s a field that demands patience and persistence and to try out different approaches
💙💙💙
Thank you for your insights, they are really valuable. You mention that the practice in Switzerland is to charge by lines, would you recommend pitching to the clients/agencies based there using lines, words or both? Thank you and keep up the great work!
Herzlichen Dank für deine Videos, sie sind eine Riesen Hilfe für mich! Mach weiter so 😊
Danke für deinen Kommentar!! 🙂
I think that most of the time, people underestimate themselves thus, they accept low rates. It’s good to know that you may have a very decent salary from your translation job
Yes, underestimating is definitely a culprit, and then it’s so hard to get out of it, because it’s hard to raise your rates once you started too low.
Great video, so helpful as always. Thank you so much. Do you have any video where you compare the different fields in terms of job opportunities and profit? I mean like gaming vs legal vs education etc.
I don’t, but that is a fantastic idea 🙂
Hi, I’m Laura and currently studying translation, after having worked for 8 years in the chemistry field. I will most probably specialized in technical translation (English/French and German/French translation). I’d be happy to add French subtitles to your video (but I don’t see how when I click on the CC or parameter button). Thank you for all your useful videos and carry on!! 😃💪
thanks so much Laura! 🙂 unfortunately, youtube took the function away. You can reach out to freelanceverse@gmail.com for more info about subtitling