8 The Linguist MONTH/MONTH
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myself when attending courses run by
both American and British translators,
with the former generally being more
forthcoming, casual and willing to talk about
money than the latter. Often, it is considered
impolite to talk about money in British and
European circles, and it can be embarrassing
and feel intrusive when someone asks about
your rates, especially if you suspect that you
are not earning enough or if you're not
earning as much as you'd like.
Cultural ideas about money include
preconceptions about people who earn 'too
much' or 'too little', resulting in stigma for
both high and low earners. When a colleague
couldn't make it to a meeting once, a higher
earning peer rather insensitively quipped that
she was probably jumping off a ski lift
somewhere (assuming, with scant evidence,
that this translator was a high earner as well).
This can lead to unnecessary feelings of
inferiority (what if you don't earn enough to
go on holiday, let alone skiing?).
Our profession can feel very elitist and
class-conscious in this respect. Moreover,
most translators work as freelancers and
tend to have an introspective, introverted
nature, so it is difficult to organise collectively
and professionally around this matter.
Coming out of the woodwork can
be hard, particularly for a person who is
extremely shy or introverted, shuns
much of social media, and finds
networking or attending conferences
as attractive as cutting toe nails!
Rates also vary and often depend
on factors such as the level of
formatting required,
language combination
and subject matter.
WHY MONEY TALK IS GOOD
The number of questions on translator forums
concerning how much to charge is simply
astounding. This suggests not only that we
don't know what others are charging for
roughly the same type of work, but that we
don't even know the amount we could be
charging ourselves. Many a translator's mouth
has dropped when they learnt what they
could have been charging all along.
This lack of knowledge, combined with a
reluctance to address the topic of rates,
contributes to keeping fees low. Corinne
McKay, a well-known, reputable translator
based in the US, writes coherently about this
reticence on her blog.
4
Having taken a few of
her courses, I can testify that she was never
shy to broach the topic of earnings. She was
also the first person to really open my eyes to
a translator's earning potential. She didn't just
talk about rates in the general sense; instead,
she told us exactly what she was earning.
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