In the last few months, I’ve been thinking a lot about my career and life. I don’t know if it was because of the New Year, the Chinese New Year, or the end of 2024 that marked my 10th year living in London, and my brain just wanted to do some reflections, but this is what happened. I kept thinking about how much things have changed since I moved here, how I have evolved and

Having a creative career like mine always comes with mixed feelings: your love for the job and your struggle to make it your main source of income. In the beginning, you’re always very excited, and then, little by little, this feeling starts to fade, and you face the reality that you must pay the bills but have no requests in your inbox. While doing my reflections, I thought of 10 things I wish I could tell my younger self, who has recently moved to London to study translation.

1. Be patient! Everyone always saves this for last, but I think it should be first. Nothing happens overnight; if it does, it is extremely rare and not in every sector. Gaining experience, getting your first clients, specialising- it takes time, and you shouldn’t be discouraged by it. I remember when I first became a student member of ITI and six months later an associate member and member of the CIOL, I was already calculating the years it would take me to become a Chartered Linguist. Why was I thinking I needed that designation to work as a translator? I don’t know. Now I am a Chartered Linguist and, although I am very happy about it, nothing has changed. So be patient, learn, and enjoy your journey!

2. Your academic specialisation may not be what you end up dealing with full-time. And that is ok. I studied audiovisual translation (subtitles, dubbing and voice-over) and literary translation, but these days, I hardly ever translate anything for these industries. Later, I focused on other studies, and now I offer certified and legal translations, as well as some medical and tourism translations. To be honest, I enjoy this mix so much more. I love audiovisual translation, but it’s so time-consuming, and it doesn’t pay well. I don’t think literary translation is for me. And that is also ok. Nothing is set in stone.

3. You don’t need everything you think you need to start working as a translator. A website, a blog, 5 memberships, translation software, a logo, branded material, an office, and so on. All these things come with time, and you should take time to do some business reviews every 6 months to understand where you are, what you need, and what you don’t. In the beginning, you probably only need a polished CV, a working computer with Microsoft package, some business cards, and maybe one membership. These are the essentials that will get you started. Many people don’t care about a special logo or branding, not in the translation industry anyway, they only care about you being good at translating, reliable, and punctual. Don’t get fooled by those who want to influence you; stick to your profession.

4. Don’t say yes to every translation project! I know that it is tempting because you want to work and gain experience and reviews; however, if you suddenly start randomly translating everything, you may make some mistakes. For example, texts for the legal, financial and medical industries are extremely specialised, and you may not know how to approach them. In addition, there have been cases where a client has sued the translator for their mistakes – I don’t think it’s worth it! On the other hand, I also know that you may not know if you like to translate a topic unless you try. In that case, I recommend doing some research on the most popular types of texts for each industry and starting to translate during your free time. By doing this, you can easily figure out which ones get you excited and which ones don’t.

5. Translation agencies may not be your best option when it comes to getting translation work. When we think of ways to start finding work as a translator, the first thought always goes to agencies. From one point of view, it is correct because once you register with them, they may start sending you work, and you don’t have to do anything else. However, I have discovered that this is largely false. Nowadays, there are so many translators that it’s quite difficult to register with an agency, especially for language combinations among European languages. You can have more luck with combinations with other languages like Asian or African languages. Most established translation agencies already have their own trusted translators’ circles and don’t need anyone else. Sometimes, they may need other translators as a backup in case the main one is on holiday or unavailable, but that means that you won’t get a lot of work. The pay is also an issue; it is well known that agencies don’t pay well because they think of their profit margin. Having said that, I don’t think it’s a bad idea to work with agencies; if you manage to register with some, you can gain experience and have some work without doing any other type of marketing. However, I don’t think you should rely on them. I’ve learnt this the hard way, especially because my language combinations are very popular.

6. You will probably need a full-time or part-time job for a long time. When I first decided to start offering translation services, I thought I would only have my full-time job for six months or so, change to part-time after a year, and then finally become self-employed after only two years. Needless to say, I was very wrong! In some ways, I was lucky because my full-time job was with a Notary Public and often did translations or learnt about the legal industry, but my translation services requests were very slow, and it took me a lot of time to get some extra income. Even after this, it wasn’t reliable at all; there were months when I was doing a lot of translations and others only a few, if none at all. Be ready for upsides and disappointments, and plan financially! At first, I considered my translation earnings as pocket money, either reinvesting it or saving it.

7. Clients or people in general don’t understand your job and skills. It may or may not have happened to you to hear someone saying that they are bilingual and can translate or complaining that they have to pay such high prices for translation services. This frustrates me so much even today. People often think that we use Google Translate or other automatic translation software or that our services and skills are overpriced. Although I am not the best person to advise on this because I always take things personally, it is important to distance yourself from these people, either by answering politely if they are a client or any other person or by ignoring them altogether if you see them on social media. Either way walk away, they are not worth the headache. Laugh about it and don’t think too much about what they said. They wouldn’t be able to use a translation template if they had one.

8. Networking works best! This is quite painful for me to admit because I am terrible at networking, but I’ve seen how it works. I received a few requests after some networking, which wasn’t really networking though; I was simply telling people what I do. This is a teaching of a teaching because it means that you should tell EVERYONE what you do; people may not have work for you in that moment, but they may in the future. Don’t lose hope! If networking events scare you like they do to me, just talk to people when you meet someone new at friends’ parties or other events; this can help you anyway because they might have friends who need your services.

9. Business and marketing courses. I know that being a translator usually means getting better at your actual job, but honestly, I wish someone had told me sooner to do some business and marketing courses. Business courses helped me understand how a business works from all points of view and to take into consideration a lot of things, including, and most importantly, how to make money. On the other hand, marketing courses helped me understand how to market my services and “find” clients. I honestly don’t know how I thought I could start offering translation services without knowing how I would actually get clients. This is important, and we always forget to think about this part.

10. Translation may not be your only source of income. It may take some time before you start making a living income out of translation, and this means that you need to get creative. There are so many other services related to foreign languages that you may offer and often they don’t require other qualifications: private teaching, conversation lessons in your mother tongue, tutoring, revision and editing services, content writing, copywriting, creating glossaries, transcription, cultural adaptation, and so on…You can choose one or more depending on your skills and what you like the most. In the end, you may find you like offering different services.

I hope you found this article useful. If you are a translator starting out, I didn’t write it to discourage you but just to make you aware of 10 things I wish I could tell my younger self and to keep you grounded. Unfortunately, it may take some time before your translator’s career takes off…or you might be one of the lucky ones to get lots of jobs from the beginning. Who knows!

My name is Katiuska and I am a certified translator, consultant and blogger. I work with Italian, English and Spanish, and specialise in legal and certified and official translations. I am a Member of the CIOL and the ITI, a Chartered Linguist and I am registered with the Italian Consulate in London and Manchester as a certified translator. I hold a BA in Foreign Languages, a Master of Arts in Translating Popular Culture and Audiovisual Translation and a Diploma in legal and medical translation. I have over five years of experience as a legal assistant to a Notary Public and plenty of knowledge and expertise about translations for use abroad. You can follow me on Facebook and Instagram.