What I was up to in May

09.06.2016 Personal 2

Another month has flown by and it’s time for my monthly review. May was nothing like I thought it would be. In the last week of April, I came back from my road trip to Italy and I was sure that May will become a really productive month for me. But while going on vacation right after the BP16 conference was a smart way to avoid post-conference blues, I forgot that there would be the post-vacation one to deal with.   That was one of the reasons why the past month turned out to be the month of taking care of myself, which...

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What I was up to in April

02.05.2016 Personal 0

Today I want to try out something new. I got this idea while reading this post on Nikki Graham’s blog. I think that knowing where you stand is an important part of moving forward, so I decided to make the first Monday of each month a day when I step back and take a look at the events, achievements and lessons of the previous month. So let’s dive right into it!   The main event on my calendar in April was the BP16 Conference in Prague. It was my first event of the kind, so I was very excited about it and...

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My Side Project: Reasons to Do It and Practical Tips

04.04.2016 For translators 0

As some of you know, I have a small side project called I Love Mondays. A some time ago I already wrote about it here on my blog. Recently a colleague has asked me about some details of this passion project because she wanted to start something similar but in her own field. I figured that someone else would like to know more about it or that my example might inspire other translators so in today’s post I’m sharing my reasons for doing it as well as some practical tips.   But first of all, what is I Love Mondays? It’s a weekly...

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Why I Go to BP16 Translation Conference and What I Do to Prepare

25.03.2016 Uncategorized 2

As some of you might already know, I’m going to BP16 Translation Conference in Prague. Since this is the first event of this kind I’m going to attend, it’s a big deal for me! That is why I decided to write a blog post about what I expect to get from this conference and what I do to prepare.   The first time when the thought of attending the event crossed my mind was when I read about it in a blog post in late 2015. The venue and the time attracted my attention. April is when my non-freelancing husband usually takes...

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On Writing Content For Your Website In Your Non-Native Language

11.03.2016 For translators 5

Last week a Russian colleague asked me a question about website content. She was concerned that her English wasn’t good enough for crafting an excellent marketing copy or writing blog posts and she was afraid that a subpar work would scare off potential clients. I figured that this problem might be quite common for non-native speakers of English and decided to turn my reply to her into this blog post.   I want to start with clarifying my position on two things.   Recently I’ve come across an opinion that a translator should be native or near-native in both the source and the target...

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Be Good (To Yourself)

26.02.2016 For translators, Personal 0

I had some doubts about writing this post. The thing is it might look like I’m bragging, and no one likes that, right? But over the past couple of weeks I've been communicating with people much more than I usually do and it made me think about all sorts of things one of them being the fact that we all tend to be too hard on ourselves. This is why I decided to take the risk of coming across as a show-off to make an important point: we should give ourselves credit where credit is due.   The other day I was thinking that I must finally...

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Blabbing Translators: Behind the Scenes

10.02.2016 For translators 0

Last week Dmitry Kornyukhov announced the launch of our new project — the first live talk-show about the translation profession called Blabbing Translators. Today I’m going to share with you some "behind the scenes" of the preparation process and my thoughts about the whole thing.   But first a little story. When I stopped hiding under the rock and started to get more of myself out into the world back in June 2015, one of my constant sources of inspiration and ideas was listening to podcasts. I got a ton of useful information from Marketing Tips for Translators by Tess Whitty and 100...

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Loyalty Pays Off, or Reasons to Stick With Your Translator

03.02.2016 For translation buyers 0

Last year I was contacted by an agency offering me to work on a localization project for a travel portal. The PM mentioned that they had already translated several hundred thousand words for this client, but they kept getting regular updates and hence were looking for EN>RU translators. Since translations for travel industry is something I love working on, I readily agreed and sent them my CV and my rates.   Sadly I never got to hear from them again. I’m not sure why. Maybe the rate was too high, or maybe the project manager had too much to do and then...

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App Localization: Why Russia is Well Worth Considering

26.01.2016 For translation buyers 0

It’s still pretty early in the year and some of you might be in the process of planning your expansion into new markets. Today I want to share with you some reasons to provide high quality app localization for users in Russia.   Localization is one of the best ways to increase the visibility of your app and the number of downloads. It turns out that by localizing just the app description and the keywords you can increase the number of downloads by up to 700%.   This is especially true in the case of Russian market. Russia is sadly one of those countries,...

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Using a Photo in a Freelance Translator CV

19.01.2016 For translators 4

Last week I was sending out my updated translator CV to some agencies. To prepare the updated version of my CV I used Marta Stelmaszak ebook called You need a CV that works. And while Marta provides exhaustive information on almost all aspects of CV writing, including tips on what sections to include, what language to use and how to make your CV stand out from the point of view of design, there was one thing I couldn’t make up my mind about after working through the ebook and that was whether to use a photo in my CV or not.   So...

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