Old houses and barns with red tiles set in a patchwork of green meadows and fields. Farms and ranches scattered among hills and rivers. The echoing cry of long-necked cranes, fading into crepuscular silence. Buzzards circling high overhead. Air that smells different in every season, from springtime dew to summer fertiliser, the smoky tang of fireplaces and rotten leaves in the autumn, the brittle crunch of frost and snow in the frozen winter.

Andrew Morris

You already know how to assess a new client and decide if you're comfortable starting a professional relation with them. Unfortunately, clients new and old may sometimes get behind with payments for a number of reasons. From a change of personnel in the finance department, through an inefficient new management software, all the way to cashflow issues; there are a myriad factors that may cause a client who has long been reliable and trustworthy to leave your invoice unpaid.

Andrea Capuselli

On a foggy day, there’s a deep, resonant sound that rolls in from the water: the horns of freight tankers inching their way towards the commercial ports of New York Harbour, through the Narrows. We’re in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, a lower-middle-class district with rich Italian and Irish roots, so you can count on getting phenomenal pizza at Campania, world-class pignoli and cannoli at Paneantico, and a perfect cocktail of whiskey and banter at Kitty Kiernans. But look carefully and you can also make out Greek, Russian and Spanish threads in the local fabric. 

Andrew Morris

ProZ.com offers a free webinar on meeting clients. The webinar is offered to help members get the most out of the tools available through the site. Attend an upcoming webinar to get the most out of ProZ.com and meet more clients.

The “Meeting clients at ProZ.com” webinar is moderated by María Florencia Vita  of ProZ.com. It is part of the training available at ProZ.com.

Mike Donlin

International Women's Day is celebrated on March 8th, to commemorate Russian women's winning of the vote in 1917, after organizing a four-day strike that forced the Czar to abdicate. But the first Women's Day observance, called National Woman's Day, was actually held on February 28th, 1909, in New York City, organized by socialist activist Theresa Malkiel, a labor organizer and educator. Today, International Women's Day demonstrations are still largely protests against the oppression and inequality that women are subjected to.

Covers for The First Wife by Paulina Chizianc, One of Us is Sleeping by Josefine Klougart, and The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante

Andrea Capuselli

It’s winter in Finnsnes, Northern Norway. Some days it gets so cold, (minus 33 degrees anyone?), your glasses freeze over the moment you step outside – the clean, fresh Arctic Circle air searing into your lungs. There are fifty shades of snow: capping the distant mountains, stacking up in drifts at the side of the road, crunching as cars pass, or crisp underfoot. Kids can be seen skiing to school, women kick-sledding to work, and the odd granny has even been spotted whizzing to the doctor’s on a snow scooter. 

Andrew Morris

Do you enjoy reading this blog? Stay updated through the email updates feature. You can decide to receive notifications on new blog posts instantly, daily, weekly or monthly.

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Mike Donlin

ProZ.com regularly hosts translation contests for the entertainment of site users. As a contestant, this is an interesting opportunity to expand your experience. Source texts aim to be a bit of a challenge, perhaps even pushing you out of your comfort zone. 

Julieta Llamazares

Throw open the window and the air is spiced with the aroma of freshly fried Ta’amya (the Egyptian Falafel) and Ful (fava beans stewed in tomato sauce), overlaid with less attractive but equally persistent topnotes of household rubbish, in both the poorest and the richest districts of Cairo.

The streets are clogged with honking traffic, inching its way through the noisy, boisterous city. At times it feels the only way to escape and gulp in mouthfuls of fresh air is to head down to the majestic Nile.

It's against this background, in the upmarket middle-class district of Nasr City, that 29 year-old Norhan Mahmoud plies her trade as a translator and interpreter between Arabic and English.

Andrew Morris

As a freelance language professional on ProZ.com, there are many ways for you to find work. The vast majority of the workload that flows through the site comes from clients searching the Translators Directory or ProZ Find, so a good ProZ.com profile is a must to meet new clients through the site.

Andrea Capuselli