How to treat your translator
In our last article we shed light on some of the pitfalls of the translation industry and why we feel it is our duty to operate under a radically different model, sharing the lessons we learn along the way. These lessons could be of benefit to workers in any industry really, but it’s important to us to educate our clients and the public about the particularities of translation and what lies behind the scenes in the professional life of a translator. To that end, here are 5 tips for how to treat your translator. This goes for all translators out there (especially the freelancers – we see you!), but some of these tips relate directly to Guerrilla Translation’s unique model, so if you’re a past, current or future client of ours and you’ve stumbled upon this article, you’re in the right place!
1. UNDERSTAND OUR WORK
One of the best things about our work is getting to know our clients. We cater to activists, revolutionaries and game-changers, so we end up collaborating with some pretty amazing individuals. That said, it does occasionally happen that unrealistic deadlines or expectations are placed on us. Sometimes we even receive offers that grossly undervalue our work, and in these instances, it’s clear that people just don’t have a good understanding of the heavy lifting that goes into translation work. And how would they unless it was explained to them? So for the sake of transparency, here’s a little tour of our work process:
First off, Guerrilla Translators never use computer assisted translation (CAT) tools. We take the craft and art of translation very seriously and prefer an old school approach with personal attention to detail, style and accuracy. This means that we’re not just plugging your text into translation software and then skimming it to make sure it came out all right (something that many translation agencies do actually do – see our last article). We also work in pairs to ensure that every translated text gets edited and proofread by two professionals, yielding the most accurate, most natural sounding end product. We consider ourselves accomplished writers in our own right, and our aim is always to produce a translation that doesn’t sound translated at all. It may take a bit longer, but the results are worth it.
Secondly, translation is really only half of the job. Translating the work of radical thinkers and creatives means that we often deal with jargon and very specialised topics that require a lot of research. In order to convey your brilliance in another language, we need to make sure we have a solid grasp of the topic at hand, a deep understanding of the text itself and the appropriate terminology in the target language. Please keep this in mind and if you have any previously translated texts, glossaries or other resources that will help give us the complete picture, send them on over. We’d be thrilled to translate your article on queer communist metaphysics in the Age of Aquarius, but since none of us are metaphysicists, we’d ask for some degree of guidance and cooperation.
Translation services are generally charged on a per-word basis, but translating a word is not always just an instantaneous action. A surprising amount of time, thought and discussion can go into finding just the right word, depending on the context at hand. My editor and I once had a dedicated Telegram thread just for the word dispositivo. We probably spent as much time discussing different ways to translate that one term as we did on the rest of the text. Translation is not as simple as it seems, and difficulties arise where you least expect them.
Finally, when it comes to setting rates for our work, this is not something we do casually. We’ve spent long hours discussing and calculating to try to find the right balance between honouring our work and knowledge and offering appropriate prices to the client. In short, we’re trying our hardest to be fair to everyone involved. Nevertheless, we are all too often presented with ‘offers’ to pay us a nominal amount (or even nothing at all!) for a translation job, which frankly leaves us a bit baffled. You wouldn’t consult an electrician and say, ‘I’ll give you €50 to rewire my house, OK? It’s not much, but it’s something.’ Guerrilla Translation provides a source of livelihood to its workers and has a pricing scheme designed to keep us in business. When we can, we’ll be happy to offer you discounts or negotiate, but please don’t start the conversation by showing us how little we’re worth to you. 
2. UNDERSTAND OUR CARE WORK
Another crucial aspect of how we run Guerrilla Translation is the role of care work in our collective. We consider care work to be all the invisible, behind-the-scenes work that goes into nurturing and cultivating the health of our collective and its members. This can revolve around paid translation projects (admin work, project managing, communicating with clients), but more often it takes the form of very important work that draws in no monetary value (lending emotional support to colleagues, maintaining a social media presence, balancing the books). Feminist economics recognises that care work is generally taken on by women, and despite often going unnoticed or unvalued, it is done because it simply has to be done. Our model aims to value, track and compensate this type of work, making sure that a significant portion of the collective’s revenue goes towards paying for the very care work that made that revenue possible in the first place.
What this means for the client is that we offer tiered pricing that allows financially able clients to contribute to our feminist model and help us give value and recognition to care. We offer a standard price and a solidarity price for all jobs, the solidarity price allocating a larger percentage of our per-word rate towards paying out accrued hours of care work. Internally, this means that on pay day, payments are made not only to collective members who have done paid translation work, but also to anyone on the team who has contributed to the health and success of the collective backstage. This prevents situations of care work burnout which are so common in activist circles and are rarely noticed until it’s too late.
3. TRUST IN OUR EXPERTISE
You might think that this tip isn’t really necessary to mention, but you’d be surprised. In seeking out our services, we recognise that the client is coming to consult with us as language experts. We are highly trained, continuously further our own education, have years of experience and take our work very seriously. Please trust in this.
Please don’t make changes to our completed work without consulting us first. If you have any doubts, we are more than happy to discuss them with you before, during and after completion to find a solution that satisfies everyone. I cannot tell you how frustrating it is, though, to put weeks of work into a project only to find out later that it was published riddled with newly added errors under a different, poorly translated title. This not only reflects negatively on the client but is also incredibly disrespectful to the translator.
Additionally, please have respect for our native languages. English and Spanish are very international languages, and it’s wonderful that so many people around the world have attained such a high competence in them, but that will never replace the instinct and ear of a native speaker. It’s absolutely fine to raise doubts or questions, but if you ‘correct’ our translation without telling us, you will more than likely be causing problems and inconsistencies rather than solving them. A classic example: So-called ‘EU English’ may be accepted within the European Commission and other EU institutions, but it sounds completely ridiculous and even confusing to native speakers and simply won’t fly outside of that context.
4. CREDIT OUR WORK
Again, this may seem obvious, but please credit our work! As illustrated above, we are doing a lot more than just plugging text into Google translate (perish the thought!). Technical as it may sometimes seem, translation is really an art form to us, and as such, it is only proper to credit an artist with their work. We’re happy to provide suggestions as to how to do this in a way that fits seamlessly into your material (e.g. a clickable GT logo at the bottom of your translated website, a translator’s credit on the title page of your book, etc). Our work is our best advertisement, so in crediting us, you are helping us continue our mission.
5. SHOW SOLIDARITY
Last but not least, we know that most of our clients share our values and ideals. We’re all fighting the good fight and working towards a more equitable, kinder world. In Guerrilla Translation, we use Lovework (pro bono translations that we self-curate to spread important ideas across linguistic boundaries) as an act of solidarity with organisations, authors and movements who are trying to make meaningful changes against the odds. You can help us continue this work by approaching any collaboration with us in the spirit of solidarity.
When you put a request in for a translation, are you sitting in an office with a fixed salary? Do you enjoy a consistent paycheck and job security? Does your organisation claim a particular political position or stance on solidarity? Now would be the perfect time to show your values. As detailed in our article on the woes of the translation industry, freelance translators generally operate under very unfavourable working conditions and extreme precarity. Having banded together in this collective, we have broken free from some of these constraints, but we still face industry-wide precarity in the face of corporate translation agencies and the capitalist manipulation of technology to put human workers out of jobs. Please keep this in mind before asking us to lower our rates or requesting a free translation. We are trying to make the best of a hostile industry (and frankly, we’re killing it!), but what enables us to thrive the most is the human, care-driven love and solidarity that our clients show us. We’re proud to be pioneering new forms of working as a non-hierarchical distributed cooperative, and you’re invited to join the experiment by understanding our methods, supporting our care work with solidarity rates and paving the way for more like-minded folks to lead their professional lives in dignity and solidarity, working towards a better, post-capitalist future. 
Produced by Guerrilla Translation under a Peer Production License.
– Article written by Timothy McKeon
– Edited by Alex Minshall
– Lead image by A A on Unsplash
– Other images courtesy of Pixabay