By now, the entire world knows that the current Covid-19 outbreak has --and will continue to have--  an enormous impact on freelance financial lives. However, language professionals who usually work on-site --interpreters, project managers, teachers-- don't necessarily have to live off savings during the current quarantine. ProZ.com has a few tricks up its sleeve to make money starting this weekend and while at home, and supplement your income during these uncertain times.

Lucía Leszinsky

In part 1 of Henry's story, we saw how a moment in the company of Mona Lisa sparked a flash of inspiration that led to some research which resulted in a dream…

Andrew Morris

It's 1999, the human population of the world surpasses six billion, the number of Internet users worldwide has just reached 150 million, and the EURO currency is adopted by an important number of European countries; SpongeBob SquarePants premieres on Nickelodeon and The Matrix, The Sixth Sense and Star Wars: Episode I are released; Barbie Doll turns forty and the world is getting ready for the year 2000 by running tests for the millennium bug; My Space is officially released while Bluetooth is announced, and Red Hot Chili Peppers and Christina Aguilera take over the radio. And while these capture the world's attention, ProZ.com makes its first appearance as a website for freelancers in April, re-vamped in August as a translation-specific web portal.

Lucía Leszinsky

On Friday, August 30th, we met at a pancake cafe & diner in San Telmo, Buenos Aires, Argentina,to celebrate ProZ.com’s 20th anniversary. It was the first ProZ.com powwow for many of us, including the newly added staff members from the Argentinian team. We ended up being forty people —taking up more tables than planned— and we had a lot of fun!

Andrea Capuselli

On Wednesday 4th September 2019, twelve translators (one of whom arrived after this photo and one of whom was holding the camera!) met in the outdoor pergola of the fine Vista Corona restaurant in Barceloneta, the leisure and marina area of Barcelona, in one of the ProZ.com 20th anniversary powwows!

Andrew Morris

The ProZ.com team is multicultural, multilingual, and made up of talented individuals in different parts of the world who are passionate about helping translation industry professionals to achieve business success. 

Lucía Leszinsky

André Lisboa is an English - Portuguese translator based in Brazil. He is a ProZ.com member, and member of the Certified PRO Network (CPN). He has been working in the translation industry for over 25 years now, and has recently published a book, How to Become a Successful International Translator. In the book, he discusses some translation basics like resources and CAT tools, and also goes into detail on marketing, building a portfolio, time and resource management, and other subjects. The English edition of the book includes an interview with Ofer Tirosh, CEO of Tomedes Translations, on the translation industry in general, and what they look for when they hire new linguists.

I interviewed André about How to Become a Successful International Translator, and his thoughts on translation and the industry:

Jared Tabor

Founded in 1979, The National Center for Interpretation (NCI) is a research and outreach unit at the University of Arizona located in Tucson, Arizona. From its inception, the unit was charged with promoting intercultural communication and social justice for language minorities, mainly through training and testing for interpreters and translators. A corollary objective was that of advancing the professionalism of the field. Our previous director and founder, Dr. Roseann Gonzalez, provided the groundbreaking work that lead to the establishment of the process to assess and certify federal court interpreters in Spanish, Navajo, and Haitian Creole. Her work set the standard for interpreter testing for the entire profession of court interpreting, and helped to expand interpreter testing and training across many regions and professional fields in the USA. In 1983, Dr. Gonzalez founded the then 3-week Summer Court Institute for Court Interpretation. She also created the Medical Interpreter Training Institute and both institutes’ curricula continue to be valid -- and even considered a gold standard by some-- in today’s ever-changing world of interpreting.

Alejandro Cavalitto

Have you done post-editing work? Have your clients approached you about it? Have machine translation and post-editing changed the way you work, or the way you present your services to clients? There is a short survey running on the topic. If you have a few minutes, your input would be greatly appreciated:

Please share your experiences in this 18-question survey »

Jared Tabor

Hi translators and interpreters.

There have been significant changes in translation and interpreting in recent years. How are you, as a freelancer, adapting?

Henry