It has been eight months since I decided to become a freelance translator and resigned from my previous job as a supervisor in a company. Many experiences I have gotten in the last eight months. I have translated documents, videos, manuals, governmental regulations, etc. From my experience as a freelance translator, there are many difficulties in translating the aforesaid. I think the difficulties can be divided into two factors, technical and non technical. Like any other job that I have ever done before, it is easier to overcome technical difficulties. On the contrary, it is harder to overcome non technical difficulties.
Non technical difficulties occurring during a translation task are usually from the weather. Since I live in Bandung, a city located in the highest area of West Java, the weather, especially when it rains, prevents me from finishing a translation task. As lightning accompanies the rain, it surely endangers any electronic equipment in my house. It is hard to imagine if we are forced to operate a computer when it rains. Two years ago my house was struck by lightning and two televisions were damaged. Since then I have never operated any electronic equipment when it rains.
In addition, there is another non technical difficulty that annoys me the most. Nowadays, electricity from the Indonesian Power Company (PLN) is not always available. Last week, for an instance, there were 7 days of power outage occurring around 01:00 pm to 08:00 am, it surely annoyed me very much and prevented me from finishng my translation tasks. I hope these difficulties will be over in the immediate future. Because the income of a freelance translator depends on how many words that one can translate in a month, the uninterrupted power supply of a computer is a must.
Why do some freelance translators fail? | Thoughts On Translation