Setting up your own freelance translation business can be quite challenging, especially if you’ve studied translation at university and don’t have much real-world experience. These courses, designed specifically for translators, could help give you some ideas and a head start.
Please read ‘A Word of Caution about Using the Resource Pages’ before you start exploring the links.
Last updated February 2023
Alba Longa Translator’s School
The course focuses on translation skills, software and business basics. In Russian and English. It is provided by the Alba Longa Translation Company.
Certificate Course in Translation Management
An online course offered by Modlingua. It lasts 40 hours and is divided between online lectures and practical sessions. There are five modules: business development, online marketing, social media marketing, project management and entrepreneurship
Curso de introducción al mercado de la traducción
Free online course in five parts on Leon Hunter’s blog. This introduction to the translation market focuses on working in Spain and is only available in Spanish.
Run by the agency Creative Words, the ELAB knowledge hub provides free online courses to new translators to help them gain a foothold in the profession. Available in English and Italian.
Differentiation: Key to Success for Freelance Translators
Ecourse written by Ron McCoy, the director of Affinity Translation. The first lesson, Differentiate or Die, is free. Learn how to stand out from the crowd and land more projects and earn more as a result.
Run by Seth Godin on the Akimbo platform. The aim of the workshop is to help freelancers get better clients by improving certain aspects of their business.
How to be a Successful Freelance Translator
This is a course on Udemy created by Robert Gebhardt. Its aim is to teach students how to use translation to earn a living.
Live or recorded online training in Spanish on a variety of topics: how to set up a translation business, write a CV, get clients, and more. The team can also build a website for you using WordPress.
Language Services Marketing Academy
Marketing course for translators and interpreters. It’s subscription based with either a monthly or annual fee. The course is run by Meg Dziatkiewicz.
Public Speaking Building Blocks
Short four-part online course provided by Jonathan Downie comprising videos, audios and PDFs. Interpreters and translators can often be called upon to talk about their profession in public and the experience can often prove quite daunting. This course will help you deliver better and more interesting presentations.
Marketing Tips for Translators – Courses
Tess Whitty runs three courses: the marketing academy for beginning translators; marketing mastery for experienced translators; and inbound marketing for freelance translators and interpreters. The courses are all designed to help you gain more and better clients and earn higher rates.
Setting Up as a Freelance Translator
Online course run by the ITI over eight weeks designed specifically for graduates or new entrants into the profession. Eight different tutors (all practising translators) are on hand to give valuable advice. For an idea of what to expect from this SUFT course, please read this review.
This website, run by Jenae Spry, focuses on three key areas: getting work, getting organised and getting productive. For a monthly fee you get access to the full website of webinars, videos, downloads, a group coaching session on Fridays and more.
Besides a number of translation-related courses, Training for Translators, managed by Corinne McKay, also runs online courses focusing on the business side of translation.
Past courses have included: Beyond the Basics of Freelancing for established translators seeking to improve and expand their business (for an idea of what to expect from this course, please read Elizabeth Garrison’s review on this blog); Breaking into the Book Translation Market focusing on the business aspects of book translation for translators wishing to translate fiction and non-fiction books; Getting Started as a Freelance Translator run as a coaching-group format with 20 daily assignments; Marketing to Direct Clients focusing on developing a plan and tool kit for marketing to direct clients; Organization and Productivity; and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Translation Mastermind Academy
TM Academy offers courses on writing effective emails, website translation and the recordings of the last TM summit. Run by Andrew Morris and Tanya Quintieri.
A master’s degree in translation can help you feel more confident about your translation skills, but it may leave you confused about how to start your business and make it successful. Matthew Spofforth runs through the basics in this course comprising 15 easy-to-follow modules.
VMentoring, run by Virginia Katsimpiri, offers courses on growing your translation business and LinkedIn prospecting. She also provides one-to-one and group coaching on the business side of translation.
There are a number of free resources on Virginia’s VMentoring site on how to find jobs and clients, which you can find here.
Links are generally listed in alphabetical order in the sections and they are provided for information purposes only. Under no circumstances should they be understood as a personal recommendation.
The Links, Tips & Resources pages are constantly being improved, expanded and updated, so please come back another time. If you have any comments or recommendations, please contact me.
Images by: 1) Free-Photos; 2) Pete Linforth, both from Pixabay
Back to Links & Tips for Translators & Interpreters
Explore this blog by starting with the categories page
Tranix Translation & Editing Services 