English to Vietnamese translation - how to start a freelance business

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English To Vietnamese Translation - How To Start A Freelance Business

Can you become a translator/interpreter offering English to Vietnamese translation services without any experience?

This is a question from a visitor of my website and my answer is below.

Send me your questions and you may be featured on my website next time.

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Question: Hi Joy! I read your guide often and it helps me. I have a question here and I hope you can help me.

I want to become a translator or interpreter but I don’t have any experience, how should I get started and what should I do?

Thanks for spending your time reading my question.

Best regards

Tran Lien from Vietnam

Answer: Dear Tran Lien, thank you for your question. First of all I want to say that every success begins with a decision. Everyone starts from somewhere. We all have fears about what ifs, especially when we start a business or a career. But you will never know the result if you don’t try.

Whether it’s in the translation business or any other business, there are always people who are doing great and others who are struggling. It’s not just luck, but rather how you find the best approach and take real actions.

All right, let's get back to your question. For the purpose of our discussion, we need to define "experience" in a bigger picture. Experience is something you have personal knowledge of. Having been there and done that certainly makes you more credible in the eyes of your clients or employers.

Please don’t just take Vietnamese to English and/or English to Vietnamese translation as your sole indicator of experience. There are many other aspects that can be taken into account depending on the specific job itself.

For example-

Do you have profound knowledge of English and Vietnamese languages?

Do you have any hobby other than translation?

What’s your previous job?

What did you learn at school?

Are you particularly interested in a certain subject and have read many books regarding that topic?

Are you into sports or arts?

Have you organized an event or are you good at talking to people?

If you said yes to any of the above questions, you’ve got some experience under your belt already.

Let me give you another example here: are you aware of the fact that more and more westerners are going to Vietnam looking for investment opportunities, for low cost manufacturers or simply to tour some beautiful places.

If you are well-connected with local businesses and if you are an outgoing person that loves talking to people, you can market yourself as a business translator/interpreter.

You can use your English to Vietnamese translation skills to help foreigners get around and find what they need or even connect them to local businesses and get paid for that.

Of course you have to be quite familiar with the languages to begin with, but in this case whether or not you have done Vietnamese to English or English to Vietnamese translation before is not an issue.

Your clients probably are more likely looking for some flexibility and a great connection with local communities from you than your translation experience alone.

The point I'm trying to make here is that you don't have to pack up years of experience before you feel confident to be a translator or interpreter. You just need to find a niche that fits you well but not many people are already doing. Then just go for it.

Another thing is to start building a strong network - let all your friends and family members know that you are offering Vietnamese to English and/or English to Vietnamese translation services and let them be your advocates.

Start building a good list now and keep adding names to that list.

If you have absolutely no idea how to get started, you may want to read find me a job to land your first few clients.

Many experienced translators and interpreters all started just like where you are now. You can build experience over time, but if you don't position yourself well, you will be struggling even with ten years of English to Vietnamese translation experience.

Pick a path that's not well-travelled and you'll be in hot demand.

Let me know how you're doing from time to time, and thanks for visiting my site.

all the best

sincerely,

Joy

translators-biz-secret.com

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