Suggestions on How to Become Established as a Freelance Translator

Basic Technical Equipment for your Home Office

• One or more telephone lines – ISDN or broadband connections mean free phone lines while you surf and offer considerably faster speeds
• Fax/answering machine
• PC or Mac, as fast as you can afford. As a translator you don’t tend to need an enormous hard drive. Look out for plenty of RAM though, so you can research on the Internet and run various applications concurrently. If your budget allows it, do invest in a bigger than the standard 14’’ screen, it will make your work easier.
• Software: Microsoft Office is used by most agencies; translation memory tools like Trados are now often a requirement if you are working on larger projects. They are also used by some translators as a day-to-day translation aid.
• Internet access, email address (ask others for advice as Internet service providers (ISPs) vary considerably in price and service level)
• Printer

These are basic requirements for the home office of a translator. Naturally, the list of useful items can be greatly expanded, e.g. by a wider variety of software, a scanner, a satellite dish for receiving TV channels in your mother tongue and, this goes without saying, a selection of dictionaries. But, in my opinion, the above list represents the bare essentials for an efficient home office.

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