Andrei Shmatkov’s Blog

I am often approached by potential clients who offer me “bulk projects” at lower rates. Though I am always willing to provide discounts for larger translation jobs (with the word count of 10000 words and more), I cannot just “work more and get less”. Anyway, I try to quote every project individually, so we usually find common ground with my clients.

First of all, CATs have nothing to do with pets
This abbreviation stands for Computer Aided Translation tools. The majority of professional translators use these tools when working on the translations. CATs help to analyze the scope of work, provide consistency throughout different files and projects and save time (as there is no need to translate texts that have been translated before). Important note: working with CATs and translation memories has nothing to do with machine or automatic translations – all the work is still done by humans. However, all the results of this work are saved for future use.
As you see, these tools make the life of translators much easier. Well, not only for them – by saving time and efforts translators can provide good discounts to their clients, so it is beneficial for both parties involved

So far I do not experience any recession or even slowdown in my translation business (English-Russian and English-Belarusian pairs). The only thing which seems to indicate the symptoms of the global crisis is that most of the clients take longer to make a decision and give a go-ahead for their translation projects. Still I hope things would get even better further this year.

Blog is a good marketing tool that can bring new customers. What is more important it can provide a feedback from visitors and customers. In my blog I will try to answer questions that are of interest for customers who are looking for reliable partners in Russian translations and software localization. More details about blogging in translation business please read in the article of my friend and colleague Ekaterina Tarasova: Blogging as a Professional Translator and Interpreter.

Many customers ask me: is it a must to translate texts into Belarusian (Byelorussian, Belorussian – different spellings are used) when targeting goods and services to the market of Belarus. Well, to be honest, in most cases Russian translation would be enough because about 95% of local population speak Russian in their everyday life. So I think that Russian would be better for translating manuals, instructions, etc. However if a customer wants his/her product or service to stand out, then I would recommend to translate marketing/promotion materials to Belarusian.