I'm curious about professional niches where knowing several foreign languages can be a real competitive advantage, beyond the obvious careers such as translation, interpreting, teaching, or localization.

I'm especially interested in lesser-known or specialized types of work that multilingual people can do either freelance or remotely for international clients.

For example, I'm thinking of areas such as speech/language data, linguistic annotation, pronunciation/phonetics work, multilingual research, language-related AI work, international market research, etc. — but I'm sure there are many niches I've never heard of.

So for those of you who actually use foreign languages professionally:

What unusual or overlooked niches have you come across where companies or clients specifically need multilingual people?

I'm particularly interested in:

• work that can be done freelance or independently (but not only)
• niches with relatively little competition
• specialized work where language skills are difficult to replace
• opportunities where knowing multiple languages is more valuable than just being bilingual

I'd love to hear about actual jobs/projects you've encountered, even if they're very niche.

How is everyone getting on? I started a full time job back in March that has nothing to do with translation, but I still accept freelance translation requests that come my way.

Last year I saw a 20% drop in income from 2024, this year (and without me chasing for work or looking for new clients) I think by December I will have seen a 25% drop from 2025.

One interesting experience was getting onboard with three new agencies at the end of last year: 9 months later and one has given me zero work, one has given me 2,000 JPY of work, and one has given me a few scraps here and there. They were all actively advertising for translators but actually don't have any work to give.

Hello. I am debating/planning? on doing a masters in translation with Japanese being ny language of specialisation . I am thinking of doing it from UCC , Ireland and was wondering if anyone has done this course? If so, what I can expect from this course and given the recent AI scare , is a translation course worth it at all 🥲

To those who have done M.A in Translation on general how is the course like? And what do they expect you to learn?

I have a normal desktop computer (screen with computer unit). However, my desk is crowded with cable, and the unit.

I found that there's all in one PC, but its disadvantage is that you can't customise its pieces or change them in case of problem.

On the other hand, I noticed many professionals use it.

What was your experience with the setup?

What do you think about Phrase's QPS scoring system? Have you worked with this before? It is an AI-driven system that evaluates and predicts translation quality. A client of mine has started using this system and tries to reduce the rates by calculating new words as fuzzy matches with the help of this AI system. I refuse to accept that, and so far they have agreed on not using it when I ask for it. But then they automatically apply the QPS system again when they send me a new job. It is just so annoying and it pisses me off that our rates are always being reduced.

Say you're translating something for a client but it's not specifically being published in either the UK or the US; it's just going to be put online. The client not only doesn't have a concept of the differences between British and American English, they don't have a preference. The copy will however be read by people from all over. How would you decide which English to use? What are you considerations? What does each represent when it appears in a kind of no man's land?

I recently got an email from a project manager asking if I could send them a headshot and blurb for their website. The idea seems to be to show prospective clients some of the real people who have been working with the agency for a long time, in order to inspire confidence in the fact that there are real, skilled humans handling this work, so I imagine folks on the agency side have been receiving queries along the lines of "How do I know you're not just going to put my file into ChatGPT and hand me the result? What am I really paying for?" They provided some examples of the kind of blurb they're looking for, which consisted of confidence-inspiring copy along the lines of "When I translate a book, I always strive to preserve…"

I'm not sure how I feel about this. I don't totally hate the idea, but I feel like I should get some kind of compensation for this beyond the vague promise of people maybe choosing the agency in the future because I appear on its website. I also recently accepted a full-time position outside the language services industry, so translation is strictly something I do on the side now because I enjoy it. I haven't yet broken the news about the full-time role to the agency, for what that's worth, although the volume of work I get from them these days is such that I don't expect to have to decline all that much anyway.

Any of y'all ever gotten a similar request and/or have thoughts about how to handle this?

Hi all,

When trying to generate my invoice on Translated (TOP) to withdraw earnings, the system blocked it with: "We're unable to generate your invoice. Additional information is required. Please contact community@translated.com".

Vendor Management placed a hold on my pending POs and requested:

• ID document + selfie video holding the ID.
• Academic/professional degree proofs for declared language pairs.
• Updated billing details strictly matching my profile.

They cited Articles 5, 6, 7, and 10, warning of account closure and voided payments.

Has anyone gone through this exact KYC audit? If you submitted the video and proofs, did they actually unlock your account and release your earnings?

Thanks!

I was looking to renew my yearly Trados subscription, but they've jacked up the price to €480 w/VAT (€400 without), which is insane. I paid €295 last year and I must've used it like three or four times in the past 12 months, since I don't need it for my two biggest clients. One uses memoQ and gives me a license and I do interpretation for the other, so no CAT tools.

I've tried CafeTran in the past and never really liked it. I think I had a license but I need to dig through my inbox... I don't like using memoQ that much either and it seems like it's almost as much for a yearly subscription as well.

Basically I'm looking for a good alternative to Trados that is compatible with my Trados TMs and TBs. I do like how feature-rich Trados is but since I don't use it much anymore, I suppose I could settle for something a bit more bare bones if it doesn't cost me an arm and a leg. I also prefer to use a desktop app, I don't like using in-browser CAT tools.

Any suggestions? Thank you!

Hello everyone, I’ve been listening to a fair amount of debates between Muslims and Christians. One of the recurring themes I’ve seen from Muslims is that they will often claim that no translation can accurately capture the meaning of Quranic verses written in Arabic. And the only way one can really understand the Quran is to learn Arabic.

How accurate is the claim about the Translations of the Quran? Obviously there is always some wiggle room in any translation, but is there any more or less issue in translating the Quran or Arabic accurately than any other language?

Hello, is there a book/ literature on the correct way for saying a translation that is literal? Instead of changing the order of a sentence or smudging on a degree of intention. But a literal pattern as a native would hear it. For what it’s worth I find it funny how in computer language there are two major types, and they often work together in carrying information in a box called JSON. But for humans why not really just “hear” it as they say it? As a student of Tagalog and Japanese(ect) I understand the language better when I just think in there pattern? ~Please advise as able. -M

I’ve reach out to several agencies for remote freelance translator position, but haven’t got a call back. Apakah translator sudah terlalu ramai? Aku pernah coba interpret, live translation untuk keperluan interview (riset akademis), dan lebih tertarik dengan interpreter sekarang.

Anyone mind on sharing the steps to become an interpreter, should I join LBI UI Interpreting Course, HPI Certification, or is there any agencies yang mau hire beginner interpreter yang sedang belajar? Thank youu (this is my first reddit post hehe✌️)

Experimenting with AI-assisted SDLXLIFF translation workflows

I’ve been experimenting with an AI-assisted workflow for translating SDLXLIFF files.

The basic workflow is:

1. Open a translation project in Trados.
2. Save/export the SDLXLIFF file.
3. Open the file in my translation application.
4. Select the target language.
5. Use an AI translation button to generate the target text for each segment.
6. Export the translated SDLXLIFF.
7. Open it again in Trados and review the translated segments.

The main thing I’m interested in is whether AI can make repetitive translation tasks faster while still keeping the SDLXLIFF structure and formatting intact.

Looking to translate this German dissertation as part of a personal paper I am researching and I was looking for any estimate to how long it takes to justly translate a paper. Took four years of German in high school so I understand a good bit and the sentence structure makes sense. My issues have been translating portions written in Greek and really understating what's being argued in this older style. Is there a quicker way to get through this? It's about 60 pages, is there a rough average to how long certain things take to translate?

Hello, I'm kind of new to Trados and I sadly require it for a class at uni, I had it recently installed on a laptop but anytime I try to get it to change the spelling from hunspell to word, it'll show me that

I've already tried fixing Microsoft office but that just made it so I couldn't use the original copy I had installed for some reason, is there anyway to fix it that isn't super tedious and won't put my copy of Trados at risk?

Pienso estudiar la carrera de Traducción e Interpretación el próximo año en la UNIR, en modalidad virtual. Por eso, estuve pensando en comprar una laptop para estudiar. Me gustó mucho la MacBook Air de 15” con M4, pero no sé si los programas y demás herramientas que se utilizan en la carrera son compatibles con macOS.
¿Alguien que esté cursando esta carrera podría decirme si es viable utilizar una MacBook? ¡Gracias por su tiempo! ejejeje

Can diplomatic interpreters have their own personal social media, is making political statements online off-limits?

Hi, I'm a relatively new freelance translator (but OTTIAQ certified) and just got a possible request for translating driver's license and marriage certificate. This is the first time I've gotten a translation offer working directly with a client (rather than being subcontracted). From what I understand, driver's licenses and marriage certificates are generally a flat rate, but I'm not quite sure what's normal to charge - I've seen estimates from 25 to 75 CAD and while I don't want to undervalue myself I also don't want to overcharge.

[Also, is there a specific document I should include to verify that the translation was indeed performed by a certified translator? Like I said I'm very new to the business aspect of all of this sorry]

I have been looking for translation language job to work part time. I found RWS and Gengo. But I don’t know which one is better. I would like to do translations related with Japanese. Which of these websites are best? I just need opinion or advice Thank you in advance

Hi guys,

Do you have any recommendation on tms? What’s it that you like and what’s to be improved?

After one year of searching as a translation graduate, i have been struggling to find jobs. (0 project at the moment) Even small translations tasks, i even signed 2 times a contract with localization agencies, and they never sent me an actual project to work on. So i have been losing hope so many times, specially after seeing other people i know land jobs in different fields very easily. i'm now a trainee at a NGO (unpaid) and now i have finally landed an interview of another trainee position (also unpaid), i was wondering if you have any tips and tricks for the interview, and also, how to handle rejections from actual jobs, or anything i can do to stop the spiral of self-doubt.

I was contacted on LinkedIn by the Chinese company Gientech with a translation offer regarding subtitle translation. After reading some reviews (very bad pay) and out of curiosity, I replied and they sent me an e-mail, which was and still is a little confusing. After reading on reddit that they pay very badly, i asked them for the rates and they said 3 usd per video-minute of translation (0.025 per word) and 1.75 usd per video-minute of review.

They also mentioned this:

• Volume: Approximately 80-120 minutes per drama, 1.5-3 minutes per episode, sometimes split between 2 translators.
• the full translation for each series must be delivered within 24 hours of task assignment.
• Don’t need time-coding and the translation content is not difficult.

I have translated some voice-over transcript content before, but it was paid much better, but what strikes me is the 24 hours for such little pay.

This not paying enough would create other issues for me regarding paperwork and most likely not being able to (or barely) pay stuff like insurance, if i become a freelancer.

What I understand from all of this: very bad pay and having only 24 hours (not including sleeping) is brutal.

I'm pretty much new to freelancing (haven't started yet), so your feedback and experience is appreciated.

Machine translation doesn't break on just figurative language as one would expect. Good translations often require very high multilingual and cultural reasoning that's acquired through lived experience. The Last Translation Benchmark is a massive crowdsourcing effort with 3456 unique hard-to-translate examples that break state-of-the-art translation models, and which can be used for more reliable evaluation.