While some translators had jet-setting parents who carted their kids with them across the globe, complete with international schooling, and others grew up amid several languages, surrounded by grandmothers or uncles muttering away in exotic tongues, Élisabeth Fuchs begins her interview by saying “My background’s not very interesting.” Ah, but appearances deceive. It may be true that she has lived her entire life in a 200-km radius, and that the most adventurous move was from Lorraine, in the northeast of France, to Alsace in the…er…northeast of France, when she was still a young child. But when you zoom in and look at the detail, every human story, every background, has its fascination, and Élisabeth’s is no exception.

Andrew Morris

Are you a freelancer constantly on the move? In a world where living as a digital nomad is again an option, it leaves us wondering how to transition from a traditional lifestyle to one unencumbered by physical boundaries. 

One of the largest concerns is financing; how do freelancers bank without a home? Let's discuss how freelancers can bank while on the move.

Mike Donlin

Imagine growing up in one country and enjoying your late adolescence and adult life in another – but without ever leaving your home town. Such was the experience of Tvrtko Štuka, who was born in Zagreb, in what was then Yugoslavia, although the city is now of course the capital of Croatia.

Andrew Morris

Every June 20th, the world celebrates World Refugee Day to honor refugees from around the world. The day, formerly known as Africa Refugee Day, was established in 2001 in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, and designated as an international day in 2000 by the United Nations.

Lucía Leszinsky

It’s vital to inhabit the right mindset as a freelancer, which includes both the story we tell ourselves, and the emotional state we inhabit. But none of that means we don’t have to have the core skills to do the job, day in day out, or the strategies to get the word out and begin to interact with clients.

Whether that’s in your website, your marketing, your social media pronouncements, or your attendance at trade fairs and industry conferences… the list goes on.

Mike Donlin

Any business or individual can outsource via ProZ.com using any of these two methods:  job postings and the directory.

The directory allows outsourcers to search over 1 million linguists with over 20 search criteria, and contact them directly through their profiles. The directory represents the primary means that outsourcers use to find translators and interpreters at ProZ.com.

Job postings, on the other hand, allow outsourcers to share an offer and receive quotes from suitable language professionals. 

Lucía Leszinsky

Professional membership puts ProZ.com to work for you as a marketing tool that helps freelancers connect with outsourcers - even when you are not working.

Mike Donlin

Just close your eyes for a few seconds and type a sentence or two at your keyboard. Then open them and see how you got on. If you’re a touch typist, chances are you didn’t do too badly, but nevertheless you’re keen to check – a task for which you use your vision of course. Now imagine operating “in the dark” throughout your professional career, typing sentence after sentence, translation after translation, without ever being able to see the page, and without using any kind of speech-to-text software. The trick? Well, on your keyboard, there are tiny key bumps on the F and J keys, as well as on the number 5 on your numerical keypad. Perhaps you’ve never stopped to give them much thought. But for a blind person, they are essential, and orientate the fingers around the entire keyboard.

Welcome to the extraordinary world of Stefan Paloka.

Andrew Morris

Ah, now you have an advantage over me, because you’ve seen the photograph. But when the online interview window opened to reveal Lola Sugimoto, my initial surprise was that she’s not Japanese at all, but rather Italian American (née Calabro), with bits of the original Dutch settlers in New York as well as a smattering of Irish and German genes thrown into the mix. All the same, she’s married to a Japanese, speaks the language fluently – although she speaks English to her son –and has been in the country over a decade, so we’re definitely talking bicultural here…

Andrew Morris

Imagine speaking one language at home, another while shopping in town, and yet another every time you come across someone who greets you in a third. That was a daily reality for the young Achille (pron: a-SHEEL) Yaya growing up in the central region of Benin in West Africa, tucked between Togo to the West and massive Nigeria to the East.

Andrew Morris

A Purchase Order (PO) --or Project Order-- is a commercial document issued by a buyer to a seller, indicating types, quantities, and agreed prices for products or services the seller will provide to the buyer. Sending a project order to a supplier constitutes a legal offer to buy products or services. Acceptance of a project order by a seller usually forms a contract between the buyer and seller, so no contract exists until the project order is accepted.

On today's quick poll, freelancers are being asked whether they required a PO before starting a project or not.

Lucía Leszinsky

Some translators end up feeling like fish out of water in their own families, where they are the only one with a penchant for languages, as if their gift sprang out of nowhere. Others are lucky enough to have parents who carefully foster and encourage a love of languages. Such was the case of Caroline Durant (stress the first syllable of the surname), whose mother was herself an aficionado of all things linguistic, and carefully nurtured her daughter’s interest. 

Andrew Morris

Epiphane Adjadji is an English <> French and English <> Fon translator from the Republic of Benin in West Africa. Despite the fact that he has been registered at ProZ.com since 2014, I virtually met Epiphane a few days ago when he replied to one of my email messages about the ProZ.com invoicing tool and ProZ*Pay.

Lucía Leszinsky