This Is Why My Translations Will Always Be Better than Google’s
No, I don’t let Google Translate do all of my work.
Ten months ago, I quit my job to become a freelance writer. But writing is a tough business to make money in and I soon needed another income stream to keep my head above water.
I’ve never been good at anything but languages (and Irish dance, but there’s even less money there), so I started doing freelance translation work. When I tell people what I do, they always ask the same question:
So you just let Google Translate do the work for you?
I wish! But guess what: It doesn’t work like that. Most of the projects I get are journalistic articles that are going to be published in an actual newspaper.
My work includes much more than just transferring the naked meaning of each word into another language. Journalism isn’t only about the content. Like any good piece of writing, it’s also about readability, structure, and style.
If the reader wants a basic literal translation, they can put the text into Google Translate themselves — they don’t need me to do that.
They need me to deliver the text in their own language and in its full complexity.
