Translations, invoices and coffee. A translator’s world is much more than that… or is it? Let’s have a look at these snippets of our daily life!

When you finally decide to become a freelance translator…

… and you realize what that really means.

Because being a freelancer doesn’t mean being absolutely free…

When you read what some people think of our job or even say, like “Google Translate is the future and human translators will no longer be needed” or “It is enough to speak two languages to be a translator” and other gems.

When you land a new job and start working with a new PM.

What some people recommend… and you pay no heed, of course.

When the project sounds very promising but the customer doesn’t accept your quote.

When someone you have been working with for ages refuses to pay you more per word.

When you have a new project and have to sign an NDA.

When the text you have to work on makes absolutely no sense.

When you realize the project is much more difficult than you expected. Yup, that happens!

When you’ve been translating for a very long time.

When you work so much you don’t even have time for social life…

…and you don’t know what language you are speaking anymore

…because you’ve been stuck up at home for so long

…that even your friends have to plan an intervention for you to go out.

When you do finally go out, though, you seem to find mistakes and mistranslations everywhere and you can’t avoid pointing them out to the people near you… like in the cinema while enjoying a dubbed or subtitled film.

Inspiration doesn’t come easily…

However, hard work pays off and after long hours the spark appears, you come up with le mot juste.

When you have to research on very strange topics for your translation.

But don’t be misled, translators are not bookworms. Ok, ok… Well, maybe we are.

When people just don’t get how you can spend the day typing…

Luckily there’s a thing called coffee, fuel for the translator’s mind.

When you see some of the things colleagues say about each other or the way people argue on some Facebook forums.

When you are offered a new project on a Friday evening…

…and you suspect they want you to edit a machine translated text

When you realize you’ve not been paying attention to your eating habits

…and you know you’ve been so absorbed that you’ve forgotten about your husband, dog or cactus.

When you finally finish a big project.

The following day, though…

And when a couple of days later you’re still waiting for a new translation project…

When you’re waiting for your customers to pay.

When you finally get your money.

When you read your published translation and you realize there’s a typo…

But, hey, we love what we do and wouldn’t change it for anything in the world! Or would we?

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Disclaimer: This is a just for fun post to celebrate that this blog has just turned three (yay!). Unfortunately, all the pictures have been found on pinterest and tumblr without credit to the author or title of the comic. If you have more information, please do not hesitate to contact me. And, of course, if you want to contribute with a comment, be my guest!