The Linguist

20 The Linguist Vol/61 No/1 2022 thelinguist.uberflip.com FEATURES New translator Anam Zafar finds out what her former classmates have learnt after one year in the business " I definitely found some things daunting when I was starting out, and I still do. For me, the drawbacks are outweighed by the positives, but freelancing isn't for everybody." This is what Ruth Hill tells me. A freelance translator, she offers French and Spanish > English translation services in the medical and literary fields under the name Ruth Hill Translations. Ruth is my former classmate from the University of Leeds' MA Applied Translation Studies course, which we finished in 2020. Another of our classmates was Andrew Bell, a freelance medical translator working from Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese into English as Bell Johnson Translations. Both Ruth and Andrew set up as freelance translators straight after the course ended – a brave move if there ever was one. So, if Ruth says freelance translation isn't for everybody, how did these recent graduates know it was for them? As MA students, all three of us were attracted to the idea of living a freelance life but agreed that finding an in-house position with a translation agency would be the ideal introduction to the language industry. This way we could hone our professional skills in a supportive environment before taking the leap and going it alone. "Alas, Covid-19 made sure that wasn't an option," says Andrew. Let's remember when we graduated: summer 2020, slap-bang in the middle of the lockdowns, making it that bit harder to find a salaried role. Ruth, too, intended to work in-house for a while, but for similar reasons ended up going straight into freelancing. As for me, I did find a three-month internship, but when I couldn't find any longer-term positions, I also went freelance. Now, after eight months of self- employment, I have started an in-house editing job. Andrew and Ruth, on the other hand, have decided that freelancing is where they want to stay. I talked to them to find out what the view is like as a freelancer one year down the line. Firstly, I was curious to know how our MA had helped them to enter the 'real world' of the language industry, which expects freelance translators to be able to do much more than translate. Our course included termly team projects – simulation exercises in which the classroom became a language service provider (LSP). For each project, students could choose whether they wanted to be a project manager (PM) or a freelancer. As a result, when I graduated, I already had a portfolio of invoice and quote templates to use with real clients. I also had experience in negotiating rates – and finding out which classmates had managed to nab better ones, which made me reconsider what starting rate to offer to real clients! "The MA course certainly prepared me for the admin side of freelancing," Andrew says. "I already had quote and invoice templates from the team projects, and was able to get a MemoQ licence through the university. What I wasn't prepared for was the responsibility of running my own business. I soon learnt that being a translator wasn't just translating; it was marketing, accounting, networking, studying and several other jobs. I think being able to wear all these hats is something that takes practice but will eventually become easier with time." The team projects had the comfort of being fictional: if we accepted a horrifically low rate, or mistranslated something, we knew that there was nothing really at stake. Ruth acknowledges how this sense of comfort changed after graduation, when "you're responsible for the entirety of your business and have no guaranteed regular income". So it seems that some things must be smoothed out in the real world, away from the simulated conditions of an MA course. But starting a career alone, from home, is very different to starting out in an office environment (even a remote one), where colleagues are always on hand to answer questions and help out if something goes wrong. Building a professional support network requires some proactivity on the part of the freelancer – a willingness to put yourself out there. "I found the CIOL mentoring programme really useful in this regard," says Ruth. "My mentor, Annabel Browne, gave me lots of advice regarding accounting and taxes, which was the area I was least confident in. I would also wholeheartedly recommend CIOL and ITI membership – it's an investment that really pays off." Making strides HOME OFFICE Andrew Bell (above); and Ruth Hill (right)

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