So today I'm going to go through some of my emails that that I get from freelancers. So what happens is, as I mentioned before, a couple times, I'm a freelancer, but I also hire freelancers. I basically have an agency now and hire a lot of freelancers. So I've been wanting to do this for a while I've been wanting to go through the emails that I get from prospective freelancers, these are basically cold emails from freelance translators, who would like to be hired or would like to do business with my agency. And I imagine all agencies get these and imagine you, as a freelancer are probably sending something similar out. And so I kind of want to go through these and, and, you know, show some good points and bad points.

Basically, I'm going to go through and kind of point out all the bad points. So you're going to hear a mean version of me here. But I think it'll be very useful to you guys. I wasn't sure how to do it because my editing skills aren't too good and I didn't want to show people's names. In the end. I just decided to do screenshots of their emails.

I feel That's, you know, the next best thing. So yeah, here we go. Let's start off with the first email. So once again, these are emails that I really I receive unsolicited in my email inbox, from prospective translators. So these are the emails that if you're emailing translation companies, you know, and trying to get hired, if you're emailing, you know, 1020 companies a day or whatever it is, these are the types of email you're sending out, basically. So let me go through this quickly.

Let's first of all, the thing that stands out is this is a hole centered, I have no idea why it's centered, but that should not be the case. And obviously something like this doesn't leave a good impression. It basically makes me think that you know, they don't pay much attention to to composition and layout, you know, probably not much attention to detail. And so yeah, you know, and things things like this are very obvious and you know, you shouldn't be doing them. But let me go through a bit more in detail after this. Well, first of all here French freelance translator I would say that's good but usually you want the language pair.

So French to English I'm going to assume because it's written in English, but you know I'm assuming here I don't know for sure. And so I feel it's always best if you write French to English freelance trip, the important thing is the language combination of French to English, English to French, whatever it is. Then here, let's go into the email. Dear Sirs and Madams. It should be sir or madam. Fine.

I am. I mean, my name is redacted. I was born in France 1965 in 1965. I've been working as a freelance translator since I think that we're fine. I have got a lot of certificates from different universities and countries master's degree in International Relations, blah, blah, blah. So right off the bat, the English is in bad It doesn't sound like someone whose native tongue is English.

So I'm going to assume they translate from English into French. I'm a good computer user, I can deal with Microsoft Word blah, blah, blah, my linguistic service offered. This just sounds odd and plus, he I don't know if this is supposed to be a sad face or dot dot and then everything in parentheses it seems weird i mean but fine also anyway, it should be services offered or my always translate from English, English to France, it should be English to French and vice versa is misspelled for the next fields of specialization should be for the following fields. So right away this person obviously I'm not going to hire them to translate into English. Now look, a lot of these mistakes there aren't big they might not have been caught by someone whose native language is in English but always assume that whoever you're emailing their native language is whatever language you're emailing usually English and so look, it should be in perfect English.

If you're if you're more comfortable doing say English to French translations, even though she says she does both. If you usually only do English to French, that's fine, but have someone look over it, you know, at least it shows that you do pay attention detail, and people don't want to see odd mistakes, and they definitely don't want to see this odd layout here, then the rates are pretty high here, you know, nine, I mean, 10 euro cents per word. You know, these are all on the high end for everything. So I would expect more from someone you know, who's charging so much. Now, many times when people charges, it kind of doesn't matter. Because, you know, I can go back and say, oh, I'll only pay you, I don't know, seven cents per word or something.

And many times, they'll say, yes. At least I've had that because whenever usually whenever I hire someone, or go through a test, I tell him right away what my rates are, and then you know, we see if it's okay, but I've had it many times when I was sending these emails out, that I would give a rate and then they'd have me, you know, go through all the steps and even go through a test and then tell me Oh, by the way, our rate is like, five cents a word and I'd be like, Oh, great, you know, you're waiting until now to Delhi. Anyway, so you know, those are basically the issues that I have with this I honestly, this doesn't give me too good of a feeling just because the rates are pretty high. But there are a lot of careless mistakes here that I feel are easily fixable.

And so there we go, let's go to the second one. And I'll and I'll get through these a bit more quickly now. So first of all the subject I have the required skills and ability to work in challenging work environment to fit into this position. I don't know what this is. Just put your language combination. This is really weird.

And plus, it's not in fluent English. And so it just sounds odd. Because right away before I even open this, I don't know what your language combination is. So you know, I don't and that's the main thing you want to convey. Because if I'm looking for someone who can do French English, then you know I'll open it right away anyway. Dear Sir, dear sir or madam anyway?

No, that's fine, though. This application is reference to the require posted the requirement posted in employment for the position of Turkish freelance translator I'd never posted anything So like I mentioned these are all cold emails. So it's weird to post it like that. I assume he's using some template he made from when there was a posting and he just keeps that or he or she I'm not sure. But anyway, it just sounds awkward. I have their quiet skills and ability well I have sound knowledge and understanding of the ideas and concepts between different languages and have ability to interpret them in appropriate manner.

So this is broken English but it seems like very kind of complicated sentences I'm not sure why it's doing that he should just try to keep it simple and not having sounds so broken. Having said that, my main issue here is I have someone who is first of all change this here English to Turkish or whatever it is your language combination. And and also I don't know what Fred riches but Oh, sorry. I think that's this my Alright, that was this is mark on my screen. This is French So, apart from Turkish, I have expertise in English and French. So there's probably more information on the on the resume.

But here, I'm not going to click on any downloads until I know for sure that you're legitimate and I'm interested in you, just because you never know what's gonna download and, you know, I don't want to risk anything. So, you know, you should list here what exactly you do. And too many people just put this Turkish English and French that doesn't mean anything. Turkish to English, English to Turkish, Turkish to French, French to Turkish English to French for like, which language combinations are we talking about? right away? I don't think English is your native tongue.

And so I'm gonna assume it's English to Turkish, but I'm assuming all this and I don't know. So here, change this. Have someone read through this have an English native speaker do it. And and, yeah, I mean, deciding your language combination because you can't say that you You can do it into English and then not be fluent in English let's take the next one freelance translator Japanese English Okay, that's better and you have this this means in both directions which always gets me iffy but that just might be my issue I prefer when you have just one direction or at least you specify that you're better in one direction Dear Sir Madam My name is so and so and I've been working as a freelance translator for the last six years for the last six years but fine I'm very reliable and accurate I'm very confident can deliver high quality translation there's an issue with the formatting here but you know, that might mean I don't know this doesn't bother me as much.

Also because it's short and sweet. I a native in Japanese language combination is English, Japanese Japanese English. So here he specifies he or she I'm not sure specifies native in Japanese. So actually, this is in bad. Please don't hesitate to contact me. If you have any questions.

I'll be looking forward to working with you. This frankly isn't too bad. I would still have someone read over it and a native English speaker. But otherwise I would, you know, I will go forward and you know, you don't specify any race, which is fine because as a language service provider, I'm going to have my own rates. And you know, the important thing is this, and, and your field of expertise, then, if I'm interested, then I'm going to click on here and I'll expect to see more information about your background or references I can contact and stuff like that. But otherwise, it's fine.

Just for this. Yeah, like I said, Sometimes I'm iffy about clicking on the attachment. So if you want to put your history or references in the body of the email, that won't hurt at all, but But otherwise, yeah, there you go. So let's go to the next one. Here English to German, freelance translator, English, German, and here simplified Mandarin. I have no idea what this means.

So right away Okay, any glaring mistake, by the way in the title usually means I'm going to delete the email. I get too many of these emails to, you know, notice a glaring mistake in the title and then continue with it. So quite frankly, that's a huge No, no, you don't want that just like you don't you know, if you're applying for any job, you don't want spelling mistakes in your resume. I feel like I'm pretty relaxed with a lot of the stuff in the body of the email, but come on, this shouldn't be here. Because look, I don't you know, here obviously, there's a spacing issue because it's not the same as there. And then there's too much space here.

And from terror from Germany territory with considerable expertise in different areas of translation fields, this is obviously broken English. So there are quite a few issues I'm you know, I like a couple of them slide assuming that this will be German to English, but I don't know what this simplified Mandarin thing is doing here. And so that's definitely a mistake. Notice, by the way, all these emails, none of them are directly to me. They always say to undisclosed recipients or just nothing, which means are sending these emails to, you know, 1020 different providers at the same time? That's fine.

I have no problem with that, you know, if I understand you can't you know that you have to send it to everyone, especially if it's not for a specific job I'm offering. And that's fine. But you know, that just means that you're sending this to 10 to 20 people with broken English and with that simplified commander and up there, so, you know, make sure you correct that. So here we have another one. This one yeah, English Norwegian polish. Now, this is kind of weird because you have a bunch of odd combinations.

And if you go here, I'm excellent in the following pairs, English, Norwegian, English, Polish and sometimes Polish Norwegian. Both of these both arrows that I don't like, I'm going now I remember the person's name and it sounded Norwegian. I think it ended with seven or something. And so I'm going to assume the person's Norwegian, in which case English to Norwegian will be their main combination. Also, the English will sound a bit broken. So I'll assume polish, you know, it English to Norwegian is the best and I'll leave the Polish out and but I'm assuming all of this I have to kind of deduce it I shouldn't have to you should be specifying this I understand you want to include as many language combinations as you can and that's fine but then at least put them in order you know and and you can put my main language combination is Norwegian to English I also work in blah blah blah and then list them down here and and then that's it you know and if you if you want to charge a higher rate for your main one then for your other ones or something then you can you can do that as well.

And you know, see what works best for you. But I just for someone who has experienced a language server for provider who has experience dealing with with other you know, with a lot of translators, it's it just sets off a red flag when you always see these, you know, so many language combinations both every which way it just seems odd. Anyway, I've many notable skills that Must be mentioned such as. So, you know, English is fine, it is a bit broken, but yeah, it's fine. But still, that kind of makes me iffy about all the language combinations. But you know from Norwegian to English, I might think about it even though I had to do some myself, as long as I take the time to go through it, which, you know, you could never guarantee that's the case because like I said, you get a lot of these all the time.

I don't know how many of these emails I'm going to go through, by the way, but I just wanted to, you know, do some and see how it went. So we're, let's see top quality translation into Turkish. Leave out top quality, you know, and it's obviously not top quality. If you don't even know how to do spacing here. I don't know what these underscores are. And so yeah, don't don't do that.

Dear sir. Obviously, the spacing here is off. Don't say top quality when it's obviously not. So translation into Turkish. So I'm gonna assume this person is fluent in Turkish Although he or she only mentions it up there fields of expertise are all these ones, which again seems like quite a few but fine, you know. And here again, actually, what I would do is put them in or in the main order of business in law and say Telecom, telecommunications are your main ones, put those in the top three, and then just say other areas of specialization, other areas of expertise, you know, something like that.

And that's, that's absolutely fine, but at least it's kind of ranked. By today, I can translate more than 2500 words. That's incorrect English, I assume you mean you can translate that many per day? I use trados. adobe frame maker and I guess that's the sentence okay. Raise negotiable I'm available for work full time, blah, blah, blah.

Anyway, broken English again, have someone read over it, get rid of this, because that sounds weird. And it's definitely not top quality with the with the odd mistakes, and just be more clear about what you're offering. You know, that's that's all you need with his email. Just to be clear, I offer this and this language combination These are my specialties boom you can include more information you know, but otherwise you know just included in your resume. Norwegian we have quite a few Norwegians for some reason I feel like lately I've been getting quite a few Norwegian freelance freelance emails I'm not sure why anyway Norwegian into English so this Norwegian into English I like that because this is specified in English but this also means I'm going to expect perfect English Dear Sir Madam great. My name is Bobo and I'm very interested in taking part in your projects.

As a Norwegian linguist. I believe I have the qualifications, experience and enthusiasm that you were looking for. Boom, that sounds perfect. That sounds to me like perfect English. And so I like it. My fields of expertise include blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I'm, by the way, I'm saying blah, blah, blah. I obviously read through these when I'm interested in something because you know, if I'm looking for someone who's good at finance, I'll see here accounting and auditing Okay, that's good business commerce. You know, I don't see finance per se but I see something that ties a Along with it. So depending on what I'm looking for exactly, this could be of interest anyway, so all of this is important. Moreover, I'm a hard working person with a strong professional. Okay, right away, they're you.

I assume you meant professional, something. But now I assume you don't have that professional something because you didn't include that email, an email that went out to quite a few people, apparently. So, you know, look over that, again, read over yourself, if you're not fluent, have someone else read over it, but this person apparently is fluent in English and just neglected to, you know, read through their own email, or the ability to prioritize tasks but also have a very good eye for detail. Apparently you don't because of that, see, and that's why you put too many odd details like this and you know, I can call you out on them. So, anyway, blah, blah, blah, here it goes. He hit return one too many times, I guess.

I don't know. Blah, blah, blah. So anyway, I wouldn't fine except for those odd things, which means to me that this person does not have much attention to detail. And, and I'm kind of iffy about that too, because I like someone to be kind of, you know paranoid about detail, especially with finance, translations and stuff like that, because you have a lot of a lot riding on it and a lot of numbers. Here's the next one. Again, Norwegian freelance translation offered German, Norwegian English doesn't specify which direction once again, Hello, I'm a freelance translator.

I'm interested in long term contractual contractual operations. So not native English, okay. I'm a native German. Okay, fine. Full Time professional translator languages German, English, Norwegian. So, here again, specify English into German Norwegian into German, you know, because I'm not going to want to hire you for English into Norwegian.

And so you should specify which direction it goes into. translation, proofreading average daily output, that's fine. Now your average of the output a lot of people add that in a lot. People ask for it. So that's fine added if you want, obviously, and, you know, it always seems weird to me, because that obviously depends. You know, if you're working just on what what I'm assigning you, then that's fine.

But if you know two people assign you something at the same time, then your daily output is going to be less, you know, this doesn't mean that you can't work. Like maybe I have something that's only like 50 words, but it's a certificate that I need translated and you get paid well, but, you know, someone else has something that's 200 words. You know, you can still do many smaller jobs, but then your average output is less. So I don't know, it really depends. Also, you know, daily output, if it can depend if you're trying to type in an Excel sheet or in a Word document or trying to you know, do a balance sheet or something like that anyway. But yeah, this gives people an idea, so feel free to include it.

I know a lot of people want that, depending on the nature of the work. Yeah, so that's good. Depending on the nature to work, obviously. I can no almost any final type is st Otranto. Some available anytime you need, just contact me, I'll be glad to meet your request. Okay, so, um, that's fine, but I would specify the languages.

And I would also spell specify your specialization because I don't see that here. You know, finance, legal, whatever it might be, and have a native, you notice a certain theme here, have someone read through them, it needs to be in perfect English, if you're sending in English for sending something in Chinese or Norwegian or in Spanish that needs to be perfect in those languages. But this needs to be in perfect English. By the way, even if one of your languages isn't English, it still should be in perfect English, just, you know, just because just if you want to sound professional, find a way to sound professional and you are a translator. So I'm going to assume you know how to find a translator who can you know, go over your stuff and edit your English but you know, definitely if you include English there, you need to find a way to have it in perfect English.

So anyway, Hello, I'm ready to apply for the position. To freelance English to Japanese translator, once again you can you can leave out translating job opportunities I mean fine. English in Japanese you don't specify the direction which again I don't like here's an extra space but fine many qualifications and many studies so somewhat awkward English I'm going to assume that your expertise is from Japanese or English into Japanese. Nine years of experience. My high qualifications is skill languages computer software. Yeah, just to kind of awkward English here.

Oh, and here, one of my clients said about me experience good and reliable translator easy to communicate with fast and punctual one. Now if you want testimonials, that's fine. In fact, that's good. Ideally, with an S and with a testimonial, you can put the name of the person who said it or at least what company they're in or organization or something. But I understand many times people don't want that so that's fine. If you can't then at least say you just say here are what some of my clients said about me.

Here's the testimonial, something like that. They hit return, go to the next line and then have this as a quote and then under it you put either the name or put someone in so and so company or put someone in the financial industry you know a client in the financial industry clients working for a big bank, whatever it might be under it, just so it looks cleaner. Also, because one of my clients said about me experience good and reliable, easy to communicate with fast and punctual one already. This sounds like awkward English so I'm, and it kind of makes me feel iffy. Like, who's who's this one of my clients? I understand even if you put it and make it look nicer, you know, I could feel the same way but I'm a lot less likely to because it just feels more professional.

So here like I'm not saying that person invented it, but it still sounds. It just looks weird. You know, just put it like a real testimonial. It'd be a great honor to use my language there's a company that's fine. Okay. So we here, we only have left so why don't we just try to race through these so Russia and Belarus and Trent native translator here it doesn't specify, you know this into what I'm gonna assume as English because you know these are similar enough that I'm assuming it's not in between these two, but um yeah into English again doesn't specify which direction with more than seven years of experience in translating and proofreading there there are several advantages that your company will receive while cooperating with me now this English is actually pretty good It sounds like a tad awkward but it could be a native speaker in a sense they are as follows competitive racing good profit for you as a result, an experienced translator whose mother languages are both Russian there There we go.

Mother languages are both Russia and Belarus and, and and so right away. You know, she should have specified here you know, that specified at the beginning and put it even as a list or bullet points, you know, Russian or English into Russian and irreverent Russian are my native tongue. And then that's it. And anyway, she specifies it here. So I guess that's fine. And yeah, so otherwise it looks fine, I would try to make it a bit more clear.

Just because once again, so many people get so many of these emails that you really want to make it quick for them to notice. And luckily, this isn't Norwegian. So I haven't been getting a ton of these lately. So if I am looking for someone in this language combination, then I will read them more thoroughly. But you know, you could just make it easier to identify and just say English into Russian and, and but I also work in the other direction if you want and I can tell that you know, her English is great here and it's, it's not bad at all. And so, you know, I probably trust her for both.

I might want to have a quick edit of the English if she does it into English, but obviously English into Russian is her main combination here and that's I'd be seeking her out for here. Let's do Oh yeah, this one just quickly, right away again the title, top English Danish German translator. No you're not top anything if you can't figure out that in the title you shouldn't have that misspelled. So you know I'm like I said before I see that I'm not going to even read the email unfortunately. And so I'm sorry you know, try to make that correct. At least in the title please.

Last one, Korean to English quality is my number one priority now there's a space here which again in the title you don't want but I'm gonna choose to look you know overlook that for now. Dear Sir, the advertisement for translators in all languages interested me very much now. I never put up an advertisement. So again, this is odd. It must be some some you know, stock email this person has from before since I recognized the new great challenge in my career. We'll call five for Korean to English and English to Korean localization translation products.

As I've handled diverse projects and finance, business, finance, legal it and other high tech fields as representing the attach resume, this English is actually very good. So I'm kind of inclined to believe that probably English is the native tongue here. I don't remember what the name was or where they were based out of But anyway, as a freelance interpreter translator regularly translate various business legal technical documents for the IRS some good names again, name dropping is good. If you've worked with them. Of course, I might ask for references or something along those lines. So you need to be able to back them up, which I understand as a freelance translator can sometimes be hard, but you know, if you can definitely name drop, I've used trez cat tools for five years.

So this to me seems like someone who knows what they're doing. This is very See how it's spaced out. It's easy to read. It doesn't have to be written like an essay, but each sentence is quick To the point and shows me something new. That's your one cup of my CV, one copy of a sample translation, boom, I already have a sample of English to Korean. So now I'm going to assume if Korean is his main language, his English is extremely good.

And so or he or you know, he was smart. He's been doing what I've been saying and got an a native speaker to actually edit the whole thing. Regardless, this leaves a very good impression. I'm ready to carry out any test translation that you require. My motto is quality is number one priority. Quality is the number one priority, but fine, I can assure you to a very high quality translation and reliable service.

So yeah, to me, this looks good, but definitely correct that one. You want to do that? I mean, don't you don't? I don't know. I think taglines I'm not sure what they serve maybe for marketing or something. I'm not sure it changes much of anything.

When I'm looking for a Korean to English translator. I'm not going to be paying attention to this. I'm going to be paying attention to you You know, the business stuff. Um, anyway, but having said that this is good if I'm looking for for an English to Korean translator. This again is someone that I, you know I'm going to look into I'm going to look at the sample translation and then gonna make my decision based on that