What type of business's would require translations?

Question

my girlfriend has started up a translation agency and we are sending out letters,business cards etc to get it going.

we have thought of most of the usual suspects such as law firms,oil companies and we tried the local police but they had just chosen another company before we sent them the price list.

the business doesnt use verbal translators but documents that need translating

any ideas would be welcomed

thanks for your time

Answer 1

I work as a Japanese to English translator in the computer and semiconductor industry. A lot depends on your language pairs (the language you translate from to the language you translate too). For example, I do Japanese to English, and my specialty is computers, electronics, and semiconductors. Most of my customers are Japanese companies that market their products in the US. I translate manuals, engineering documents, and sometimes patents or marketing materials, although I hate marketing stuff because it is very hard to make advertising fluff from one language sound anything but stupid in another language.

Try getting your work from other agencies. They will farm it out to you, especially if you or your wife are the actual translators.

I recommend you develop a specialty, like technology, law, or medicine. That is where a lot of the work is, and also the most money-making work. There are message boards where people post jobs and others bid on them. One is Proz.com. Here is the link:http://www.proz.com/. Another is Translationzone: http://www.translationzone.com/en/.

Translationzone is connected with Trados, a company that makes translation memory software. This is software that remembers everything you translate along with the translation, and feeds you that information whenever something comes up that was similar to what you translated before. It saves a lot of time and helps you be consistent in your translation. Many translation agencies and companies require you to use it.

Many times an agency or company will ask you to do a trial translation of about a page or so to see the quality of your work. You should always be willing to do this, but not much more than a page.

Be careful about payments. Many agencies and some companies are notorious for late payments. You can always ask about a company on Proz.com for example.

Check to see if there are online groups of translators in your language pairs. There is one in mine called Honyaku, that was the source of many of my original clients.

There is a lot more I could say, but I don't want to write forever. Good luck!