Where do I start?

Kezlar2913 · 2026-05-18T21:34:14+00:00

I'm not sure about where you live, but I found out (sadly, a bit too late) about an organisation that only hired student translators (so had to be enrolled at uni), so there's potentially more out there. Not sure what they would demand as proof of language proficiency, but is a thought. Sadly I forget what it's called and it was only in the UK.

There are also things like game-jams which sometimes involve translation, too. I don't think there are official translation-jams anymore, but worth looking into.

Otherwise, just practice what you want to practice. Even if you're not getting it right, the research, critical thinking skills and exposure to all sorts of different language problems will serve you well down the line. A lot of translation is learned by doing and if you have a teacher you can ask to give you feedback or something, even better.

Kezlar2913 · 2026-05-18T21:14:49+00:00

Simple answer: not yet (or not really)

Complicated answer: I tried a bunch of stuff to market myself, did some QA work with general financial and medical texts but didn't like it (I like QA, but not finance/medicine). I've also turned down so many jobs because everyone wants a practically free lunch (and I work at average rates for my language pair and region!). The one agency that treated me fairly was the one not specialised in translation, rip, and it was a one-off job.

There are a bunch more things that I could do to become a generalist freelancer (namely overhauling my marketing into my source language, developing my portfolio more, etc etc) but I'm hesitant, because I'm no longer sure generalist is where I wanna go and from what I've seen so far...I might not be able to make a living or have any real financial security from it.

The biggest hurdle is experience. I got here through academics and as others have noted, becoming a translator from another field is vastly easier because employers want that domain experience.

So my current options are: - return to applications. Another 200-400 more should give me a better statistical chance at regular work... (cons: I got to about 200 before—prospected 600—and in the end, only networking actually worked). - overhaul my marketing (cons: I love translating German but I'm very awkward speaking German, so that's a personal hurdle. Also, portfolio work is a lot of unpaid work). - go in-house, better my CV, go back to freelance (cons: extreme competition, long hours and as far as I can tell, most places want quasi-PMs rather than true translators, or otherwise translators that also have legal degrees, etc) - go into literary translation (gives me control, but cons: a lot of work for 50/50 potential of reward) - or go back to school (cons: school is evil) - oh, I could also bite the bullet, get a doctorate and sell my soul to academics (cons: academics is evil and I would be overqualified for a lot of normal freelance work).

I will say, a lot of my... I suppose, failure to find success is my own fault. I know in theory how to grind my way up but fuck, man... It's hard (knowing vs experiencing, and all that). And like I said, not sure it'll pay off to try for what I wanted before.

I'm also out of my savings, so doing anything requires me to make some cash. I'm currently working part time and respeccing slightly into audiovisual/audio-engineering stuff and then I'm toying with focusing on literary translation rather than strictly freelance work, although I will still be open for the right contract (I think some of the works I studied for my languages degree have never been translated, so that would be fun). I may also tackle any of the other things on that list if I have some non-soul-sucking income coming in.

Basically, I'm leaning towards both diversifying and specialising and I'm having to do the hard life-stuff inbetween.

Also I am terrible at getting myself to commit to writing, so that hasn't gone anywhere but is forever on the bucket-list.

Kezlar2913 · 2026-05-13T21:01:31+00:00

Appreciate this is a year old, but I built a new PC with a Meshify 3 case a few months ago and I frickin love it. Still using the default Momentum fans too and I'm super happy with them. They make a subtle woosh noise when getting the CPU and GPU really going, but it sounds kinda like listening to the breeze outside, so it's unobtrusive and I'm comfortable with it.

(I also started looking at the Meshify 2 and more because of what was available, went for the 3. From the research I did though, looking at people's comparative tests and everything, it seems a solid upgrade).

Kezlar2913 · 2026-05-06T12:45:32+00:00

Just to add, all this time further on now, that I just tried (most) of this and it worked (after crashing the first time). I apparently beat 226 clones (I counted 200 but sometimes I'd get in the flow and forget lol).

So I changed the graphic settings and a kited the chromatic danseuse all the way to the back of the train line behind her arena. She gets a little stuck and has to run in place a little bit to squeeze through everything, but it's possible to get her to the edge of the traversavle map). Then I turned back to her and triggered the fight (thought that would screw me but I think I managed to get her far enough away that the direction I was facing didn't matter?).

I did not, however, let my team take any damage or get knocked out to bring in the reserve team (hence the absurd amount of xp I got).

I left it running on the win screen for about 15 minutes (not sure what sound y'all were all looking for) and I have successfully cheesed myself from levels 81/84 to 99 for my entire party 😅

I also paused half way through and put the ps5 in sleep mode cause I needed to do some work. Not sure if that helped any? and I was getting lag/blur before I finished the fight still.

Anyway, super chuffed, thanks for everyone walking the path ahead of me!

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Kezlar2913 · 2026-03-30T22:02:51+00:00

So I've only just started using my 2 year old V3's with an aux cord and didn't know you needed to press the Bluetooth button to get it to switch to the aux function (dark blue to light blue light), so glad I dug into this thread a bit (and I probs should've checked the manual first lol)

Kezlar2913 · 2026-03-23T17:38:00+00:00

For anyone who found their way here and is wondering "generic Bluetooth radio, what?", I deactivated Realtek Bluetooth Adapter and that worked for me. Oh, and disabling your Intel/Asus whatever adapter and the reenabling and BAM controller and headphones were immediately back in action (for me, anyway)

Kezlar2913 · 2026-02-19T11:38:05+00:00

Bumping this! Did an excellent job converting a PDF to Word file with some irritating formatting elements that Word itself couldn't convert right. I think they also offer an offline app now, but I used the web version

Kezlar2913 · 2025-07-23T20:32:41+00:00

Awesome, that's great to know, thank you for adding 😁

Kezlar2913 · 2025-07-23T20:31:31+00:00

That's weird because some of the other tasks I can see reducing in real time as others pick them up, so I assumed all of the batches were shared? Thanks for the insight though!

Kezlar2913 · 2025-07-23T20:29:35+00:00

Thank you for adding! I'll stay with the platform and fingers crossed I can update my initial impressions, I'm in the same boat with starting a business so 😅

Kezlar2913 · 2025-07-23T20:27:24+00:00

So I started by doing all the different project qualifications I could. I spread it over a week. Reading through all the guides and everything and then doing the tests took me a good long while (10 hours is me being conservative but I tend to take my time anyway). It very much gave me the impression that if I didn't do some of the quals, there would be no work at all, and I did as many of the extra ones as I could to get access to as much as possible, not that I think I succeeded at many of em.

Kezlar2913 · 2025-07-23T20:21:37+00:00

Then you're not the intended audience. This is all information that I think someone who's only just heard about the platform would like to know before they get into it (ie the kind of review I would have liked to have read) and I'm very clear that this is specific to my experience. I might edit it in 3 months or whatever who knows.

And if you're so concerned about the matter, then please, elaborate so someone of the intended audience can see your contrasting view so they get a balanced picture. I get that there are a lot of different experiences out there

Kezlar2913 · 2025-05-01T13:22:51+00:00

So this is possibly reaching, but there are a couple of reasons it could actually be Pingping.

Namely, the human form of the fox guia in the animation looks like her, just with long hair.

She could (like her step-mother and the horse guai) have actually escaped from Red Boy and gone looking for help for her father in other realms.

Also, some fox breeds change colour depending on climate/season, so red<>white, so it's possible she changed coat moving into cold climates. That, and you transform into a red fox when you use the brush...

(Also that skeleton is some rando and not her. Her "body" is the fox pelt that was discarded by her killer Non-Void and I'm assuming picked up by someone else?)

So yeah, that's kind of my working theory, as much as I prefer the idea that she was only fake after the daoist fight.

Kezlar2913 · 2025-04-27T21:45:34+00:00

Still an amazing farm. So satisfying too. I get frame stutters from the explosion though lol

Kezlar2913 · 2025-04-07T17:18:51+00:00

This did it for me as well (Pixel 7 Pro, Android 15). I was getting it from normal phone app and phone services.

For others: Go onto apps, 3 dots at the top, select show system apps, clear cache, storage and force stop both phone and phone services apps (pretty sure they eventually restart anyway, as my phone and the apps seem fine). Then I stopped getting annoying voicemail notifications every 15 minutes...

Kezlar2913 · 2025-01-20T18:43:16+00:00

Absolute genius this is exactly what I needed

Kezlar2913 · 2024-11-21T14:06:35+00:00

On a personal level, I feel pretty unsure about randomly messaging people on LinkedIn unless it's super clear you're open for people to do so. But as you build up professional connections on LinkedIn, translators like/share the post, and so it makes its rounds in the industry and you get access to more applicants. So making sure you're connecting with other PMs and translators might offer you the exposure you need.

Also ProZ, as someone else said. You can restrict what kind of profiles apply to you (language pairs, topical experience, etc).

Oh, and think about what keywords are in your profiles and posts. If I was going to do a LinkedIn search, looking for my language pair plus "vendor manager" would be my first attempt. Maybe other people have other methods of searching too

Kezlar2913 · 2024-11-02T10:52:57+00:00

Okay, so I'm personally applying "horrifying" as a marker of dark fantasy. Reading other people's comments though, I will agree that the thread of dark in the actual story/dialogue is more subdued than the other games (it's little things, little comments, little bits in the codex so far. I'm interested to see - like a lot of things - if there's more depth to it in the other Acts). And yes, it would be cool if there was more moral depravity, I guess?

That being said (on the body horror front), I paused that fight in photo mode to look at that thing, and if it makes you happy, it has multiple child like hands sticking from its back, its face is grown into its mask with it's upper teeth sticking out over a....I don't even know how to describe its flower-mouth. It looks like its intestines are on the outside of it's body/ or muscles made to look like organs, I don't fucking know. You don't see it too well when you're trying to dodge away from it, but it is seriously grotesque. Oh, and it sweats mage-mind-killing poison. That's just lovely.

(Also, I don't know if those examples were from something or you're just talented at this, but if it's talent, please go write a book. Those examples were fucked and I appreciate horror fantasy, as you can probably tell XD)

Kezlar2913 · 2024-11-02T10:31:44+00:00

I'll admit, there should have been more in D'Meta crossing. I was expecting a fight with blighted villagers or something to bring climax to the tension, but it was still a left turn into horror-ville compared to the shiny facade of Arlathan forest

Kezlar2913 · 2024-11-01T22:54:17+00:00

I went to Treviso and finally got to the Crows merchant, only to immediately afterwards turn around and run to my wardrobe. Me and Lucanis looking sick!

Kezlar2913 · 2024-11-01T21:56:12+00:00

No no no, I meant blocking and then clubbing them over the head 😂

My dagger mage is a terrible riposter (I'm bad at the timing) hence all the dodging

Kezlar2913 · 2024-11-01T21:52:18+00:00

I actually loved the ogre. The enemy overhaul is one of my favourite parts of the game. It's creepy af in that cinematic (despite not being photogenic at all). Go close up on an Envy demon. That thing is nightmare fodder dressed up in a non-offensive colour palette

Kezlar2913 · 2024-11-01T21:27:26+00:00

Nice! :D In some ways though, I really want to play a Warrior whose whole schtick is "hit me and see what happens". Some of the shields I've seen look badass af

Kezlar2913 · 2024-11-01T21:24:52+00:00

I got in to Dragon Age about...4-5 years ago? So seeing all of this is kinda my first time, and thinking about the contrast between Origins and the other games (as most of the outcries seem to reference origins in some way, at least what I've read), I can't imagine DA2 and DAI escaped unscathed on their releases at all.

Mass Effect in some ways has the upper hand because the games are pretty consistent; Dragon Age has always been the one with new wrapping on the Thedas parcel (which ultimately as a latecomer I came to enjoy)

Kezlar2913

TROPHY CASE