Today, more and more people are choosing the laptop lifestyle, which means that they can do work anywhere in the world via an internet connection, using a laptop. Such work includes translation. In this article, I’m going to take a look at the world of translation from the professional point of view of the benefits of working for an agency. Why, as an external client, it is better to entrust a professional team with the translation of a project?
A translator can seem like a lone wolf in the midst of all his projects, happily working on his laptop on a tiny island by the sea. From the outside, he or she may not have any social connections. Many freelance translators don’t, as there are nowadays more and more online platforms for freelancers to get translation work and more and more people are starting their own online translation business. Many freelancers point to the advantages of being able to make all the decisions themselves, without a boss and with their own schedule. The question is: can they meet all the challenges professionally? Are there really more advantages to freelancing and not belonging to a translation agency?
Why can it be an advantage to be part of a team?
When a translator is part of a team in a translation agency, there are reviewers who help him or her by spotting errors that are subject to his or her control. In addition to spotting mistakes, a reviewer can make a lot of good suggestions to make a translation really polished and great.
When a translation is carried out by a complex agency, the whole project can be broken down into parts. The translation, editing and proofreading phases can be entrusted to professionals who specialise in the field.
In a translation agency team, you are likely to find a translator who can help you understand and translate the parts of a technical project that require deeper technical background knowledge, so that you are sure that there will be no technical errors in the translation.
When translating a large project, the ability to work with several specialist translators in a team also helps to meet tight deadlines.
Of course, teamwork also has its drawbacks. There are always colleagues who are not real team players and don’t meet deadlines or don’t do things as agreed, but with so many advantages, this is a minor problem in terms of the quality of the translation produced.
In professional circles, people are much more motivated to attend translation clubs and conferences. They can support each other, an older and more experienced translator can mentor a beginner translator. Even though they are part of a team, they can still live a laptop lifestyle, because in today’s modern world all these complex processes can be done online, even on an island with your laptop.