EMERGING TRANSLATOR MENTORSHIP

Versión en Español: en preparación

Requirements:

This mentorship is open for translators with:
1. - No experience in translation.
2. - Hold a degree in a field different to languages or translation.
3. - Proof of competence of their second language (English or Spanish) at level C1 at least, either by:
- Tests for English (ESOL, TOEFL, Michigan MELAB or Cambridge Michigan ECPE) or Spanish (DELE, CELU) as a second language.
- Or having completed over 4 years of University studies in that language.

Proof of 2 and 3, and a regular CV must be delivered, before acceptance as a mentee.

OPTIONS:

1) Reviewing translations (only English into LA Spanish or “neutral” Spanish):

These translations can be your own practice translation or the translation for one of your clients.

My mentoring will include pinpointing mistakes (See Bilingual Revision) and some stylistic issues, only those that can be significantly improved. Additionally to what I usually do in a reviewing job - give suggestions - I will support each observation with arguments, explanations and/or examples. If the topic is outside of my fields of expertise or specialty I will only proofread target language issues.
Despite the work involved, more than a bilingual revision, the cost of this kind of Mentoring will be the same as the cost of a regular review.
I will deliver my signed confidentiality agreement, for your interest, and if you have signed an NDA with your client, you must inform him regarding my involvement and get his approval. You can find my NDA here. Due to confidentiality reasons I don’t sign NDAs where the client pokes his nose into my computer or office.

Cost: 0.03 Euros/USD/GBP/word.

Job Reviewing:
Assessed case-by-case. With high volume jobs and extensive mistakes, it is not possible to add comments giving support to each suggestion. Time restrictions won’t allow it, nor costs.


Payment means: I do not use PayPal. Some acceptable means are:
Skrill account, Payoneer account, Xoom, Western Union, Moneygram, Chilean Bank account transfer, in person. You can also send me a cross-border Bank transfer but the cost might be excessive.

Frequency:
Practice Translations:
Minimum: 600 wds
Maximum per session/email: 1 hour of work.
Maximum per week: 3 times a week
(These are recommended figures for mentoring and allows both mentor and mentee fulfil other obligations).

2) Questions & Answers

Languages: Only for speakers of English or Spanish as working languages.

If you want advice in solving translation problems in my fields of expertise, and related to specific technical issues, I will answer your questions. For example: What parts of a scientific or academic reference should you translate? What should you do with a quote? Should I use the formal or informal “you” in Spanish? What do I do with an ambiguous sentence? There is no way of saying that in my language, what do I do? How do I translate humour? Must I invent a joke? What about sarcasm and double meanings? How should I manage acronyms? How do I decide how much to charge? How do I protect myself from scams and non-payments?
There might be different opinions among translators, but as someone who has been in translation for about 45 years (part time and full time), who has worked in science, in research, has published academic and scientific papers, and has been a freelance most of his life, my opinions are authoritative, and I’ll support my responses with sound arguments and/or references.
My other areas of expertise are: Science, philosophy of science, research, Fisheries, aquaculture, agriculture, zoology and related fields; Business, economy, human resources management; Civil Engineering, construction, home gas, industrial engineering. I also have advanced knowledge in web development, HTML, CSS, Photography. Additionally I have working knowledge with Photoshop, OCR, Subtitling, and some SEO and web positioning.
Thanks to all the above background, I have been able to build expertise in terminology research, term search and term validation, but if you want help with term search you should take my course/mentoring in “self-sufficient term search”, because excellence in this area requires the full course.
I won’t answer questions related to the automation of CAT tools, shortcuts, machine translation, post-editing, etc., because I don’t use shortcuts, and that is because I do not believe efficiency and excellence in translation can be achieved through shortcuts. In my opinion bundled assessments produce mistakes. I also don’t answer questions about how I find clients, or which is the best way to find clients.

Procedure:
You send me your questions in writing by email, and I answer in the same way. We can discuss your doubts or further details by Skype or by email. As this is a business relationship, emails for questions and answers must be scheduled.
The other option for mentorship is availability to solve translation problems on the run (Skype & email). Just like you would do posting a request in a forum, but in this case you have someone hired to help you. Your prepaid balance will be charged only if I can give you a solution. This is what I call surprise requests, and they are charged as urgencies.
If either mentor or mentee get engaged in a job or other event around the time agreed to meet, that meeting will require re-scheduling by mutual agreement. As jobs are a priority above mentoring, even last minute re-scheduling will be acceptable. Mentoring can be re-scheduled, jobs can’t. Surprise requests, if not time-demanding can be responded even while engaged in a job.

Cost: 22 Euros/25 USD/19 GBP/ CLP$ 10.000 per hour
Urgency: 26 Euros/30 USD/23 GBP/ CLP$ 15.000 per hour

Frequency:
Maximum per session/email: 1 hour of work.
Maximum per week: 3 times a week
(These are recommended figures for mentoring and allows both mentor and mentee fulfil other obligations).


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Registration

You must go to my website’s “Contact page” and fill in the contact form with the following information:
First name:
Last name:
Email address:
Country (Time Zone):
Relationship with Translation: Translator/Terminologist/Reviewer/Other (Detail what other is)
Preferred Payment means: Skrill, Xoom, Payoneer, Western Union, etc.
Program: A1 or A2 or both

Once I receive this information I will send you an email asking you to deliver the requirements: proof of a degree, proof of language competence, and a CV.
In less than a week I shall inform you if I will accept you as mentee or not.

If I accept you, I will send you my payment details (depending on which payment method you prefer). I will also deliver my signed NDA (if you want me to review work translations – I assume you have already reviewed this NDA in the link above, so you agree). At this point we should agree to the volume of work or sessions you will need and when mentoring shall start and end.

Then you must pay the amount required according to the amount of words you want reviewed or the amount of hours you want Q&As for. The minimum is 1 hour of work or 600 words for review, which might be useful if you first want to assess if the relationship is constructive.
When using Skrill or in-Chile transfers, the cost is zero or negligible for a small amount. With other methods sending costs can be prorated more conveniently if you agree to a larger set of hours of mentorship, before payment.
Once you have paid, and delivered proof of payment (Skrill informs me, my Bank doesn’t, and I’m not sure about the others), I will send you an email confirming the details of our agreement and payment.
From then on, and according to our agreed schedule, you can send me an email with the text you want reviewed or your questions. I will answer ASAP, according to our schedule.