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Poll: Were you nervous to start your career as a freelance translator? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Were you nervous to start your career as a freelance translator?".
This poll was originally submitted by Mrs. Chiltern. View the poll results »
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Ty Kendall 
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:19
Hebrew to English
I honestly can't remember.
I don't think so. I didn't have much to lose and/or prove.
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Ricki Farn
Germany
Local time: 15:19
English to German
I guess I should have been, but I dissociated. I remember feeling that anything was better than the inhouse job I was leaving. Any other emotion was superseded by that one.
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Mike Sadler (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:19
Spanish to English
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| I was excited | Mar 4, 2016 |
And when my first invoice, in 1987, was for £150 I was thrilled. The next three after that were for £20, £8 and £20, so it wasn't all beer and skittles.
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For several years I held an in-house translator position and I freelanced part-time, so when I started freelancing full-time I had a client base already established...
P.S. I think I was more excited than nervous...
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Kristina Cosumano (X)
Germany
Local time: 15:19
German to English
| I was nervous to *committing* to it, | Mar 4, 2016 |
by way of paying hundreds of euros for CAT tools and other software, putting my full name up, and otherwise turning it into a "no going back now" career path. Turned out to be all fine and good, although I do somewhat regret buying the CAT tool, which I decided that I dislike immensely (at least it was part of a group buy-in).
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I was a little anxious that my circus training might not have prepared me fully for a career in financial translation, but when you've been walking the high wire from the age of 3 months you don't get nervous as such.
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DZiW (X)
Ukraine
English to Russian
+ ...
Not really, because I started working in a team and had no time to worry--till it was too late)
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Mariam Osmann
Egypt
Local time: 16:19
Member (2007)
English to Arabic
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This is what describes it the most.
Nervousness came later when the business or the "work at home" started to grow, so are my commitments and personal life, with the thinking about how to reconcile between them.
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Mónica Algazi
Uruguay
Local time: 10:19
Member (2005)
English to Spanish
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Simon Klys
Germany
Local time: 15:19
Norwegian to English
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| Excitedly anxious | Mar 4, 2016 |
Planning to make the move in a couple of months - am working consistently for a number of agencies whilst still working full-time, but have an irrational fear of this work drying up!
Will just have to wait and see!
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neilmac
Spain
Local time: 15:19
Spanish to English
+ ...
I was working as a TEFL teacher in Spain for several years before eventually drifting into translation as the allure of teaching wore off. I might occasionally get nervous in situations like interviews or hospital appointments, but nowadays I'm a bit long in the tooth to be apprehensive about work-related situations. I think I'm sufficiently aware of my strengths and weaknesses not to worry too much about things like that.
PS: As an EFL teacher I sometimes worked with some people th... See more I was working as a TEFL teacher in Spain for several years before eventually drifting into translation as the allure of teaching wore off. I might occasionally get nervous in situations like interviews or hospital appointments, but nowadays I'm a bit long in the tooth to be apprehensive about work-related situations. I think I'm sufficiently aware of my strengths and weaknesses not to worry too much about things like that.
PS: As an EFL teacher I sometimes worked with some people that might be considered daunting, such as company directors or high-ranking politicians, but to me they were all just pupils. Just imagine them naked and any potential fears should be defused.
[Edited at 2016-03-04 11:01 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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or apprehensive, rather.
It was not so much the translating, but I was especially worried about the marketing part and also being on my own with any IT issues.
Well, in fact I should not have worried. After registering with proz and TC the clients literally came by themselves, no other marketing necessary.
IT, both hardware and software has been a challenge, but I have learned a lot the hard way and today I am much more confident in this respect.
[... See more or apprehensive, rather.
It was not so much the translating, but I was especially worried about the marketing part and also being on my own with any IT issues.
Well, in fact I should not have worried. After registering with proz and TC the clients literally came by themselves, no other marketing necessary.
IT, both hardware and software has been a challenge, but I have learned a lot the hard way and today I am much more confident in this respect.
[Edited at 2016-03-04 12:00 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Ana Rolim
United States
Local time: 06:19
Member (2016)
English to Portuguese
I left my in-house job nervous about it taking too long for me to get clients. But I was sure it was the best move at the time, and I had to give it a try. In the end, it was the best thing I ever did.
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Julian Holmes
Japan
Local time: 22:19
Member (2011)
Japanese to English
I was too scared to be nervous 'cos I jumped in the deep end with lead boots on.
To achieve my dream of being a translator, I canceled several small TEFL teaching jobs I had. I then tore out the Translation section of the Kansai Area Yellow Pages - it was only half a page long (short) - and made a round of companies, both small and large, in that list, armed with nothing but a bunch of CVs and a healthy helping of gumption. It was quite an eye-opener and I made lots of conne... See more I was too scared to be nervous 'cos I jumped in the deep end with lead boots on.
To achieve my dream of being a translator, I canceled several small TEFL teaching jobs I had. I then tore out the Translation section of the Kansai Area Yellow Pages - it was only half a page long (short) - and made a round of companies, both small and large, in that list, armed with nothing but a bunch of CVs and a healthy helping of gumption. It was quite an eye-opener and I made lots of connections with people who admired by 'gutsy attitude' (their words not mine).
The hard work paid off  ▲ Collapse
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