Five Tools Available Free to Translator Freelancers

Machine translation has been a great boost for the translation industry, but few believe that it is as good as a human translator. Machine translations have not yet taken over as the main way of facilitating a translation. Virtually all human translators use tools available through machine translation websites. Here are five examples of free tools that translation services can use to improve their work.

Google drive

Google Drive has turned out to be an extremely useful tool for freelancers who are translators, especially when they have to communicate with clients from the other side of the world. Sometimes it is necessary for two translators to work on one document translation, even if it is just for proofreading purposes. The added bonus is that the ‘track changes’ facility can be used so that the other person working on the document can see the changes. 

Dropbox

Dropbox is an internet tool that surpasses email because it can handle far larger files which are easy to load and access. It is particularly useful for closing up distances between people as whoever you give access privileges too these people can share any of the files you choose.

WordPress

WordPress is a website tool that is just suitable for freelance translation services that are great at what they do and want to share it with the world and attract more clients. A translator can compile a brochure featuring examples of work and write a blog too on developments in the translation industry. Contact details can be provided and a place for comments as well. This is a great way for a freelance document translation provider to get firmly established in the translation world.

Skype

This is the all-in-one tool that connects the world. A translator can talk directly with a client; send attachments and text messages at no cost at all if Skype addresses have been shared. Skype uses what is called VOIP technology to link up individuals and translators globally as long as the two parties are connected to the Internet. 

Pixabay

A freelance translator who has his or her own website may wish to add images to brighten up the content. Pixabay is just the answer and it does not cost anything but has a stock of more than 490,000 photos and art illustrations available for freelance translators to access and use. 

The Talmud Now Available in Italian

The Talmud, an important Jewish work, has now been translated into Italian. The massive document translation project is the very first of its kind in 500 years of history of the Talmud.

The Talmud was originally published in Aramaic, a language that predates Hebrew and Arabic and is still spoken by small communities scattered across the Middle East. Aramaic was widely spoken in the parts of the world where Judaism began many centuries ago, but the oral laws of the Jewish religion were not published for a long time because of the persecution of the Jewish people and the subsequent diaspora.

The new translation has been the project of 20 individual researchers, together with 70 translators, in a state funded project in Italy. At the time of writing of this article, the completed volume of the Rosh Hashanah is due to be presented to Italy’s President Mattarella.

The translation services project cost the Italian Government 5 million euros with an Italian software package called Traduco being used to help complete the translation from the original Amharic into Italian and Hebrew.

The project’s chairman was a Rabbi called Riccardo Di Segni, who is the chief rabbi in Rome. Rabbi Di Segni led the team of historians, linguists, researchers and translators after the project, dubbed “Project Talmud,” was initiated five years ago in 2011.

The Traduco software has been specially designed to help translate ancient texts like the Talmud. It allows researchers and document translation experts wherever they are in the world to communicate and exchange valuable information as they tackle complex translation tasks. Rabbi Di Segni said that it was a very new way of working on the Talmud and envisioned that it could be very useful elsewhere on other translation projects.

The completed volume is to be published by an Italian publishing company called La Giuntina, which is a specialist publisher of Jewish literature.

The Talmud is the source of oral Jewish law, which is divided into two main sections: the Mishnah and the Gemara. The Mishnah is the law as it was originally written down from the oral version and the Gemara comprises the additions and commentary on the law by various rabbis down the centuries.

This may be the first time that the Talmud has been translated into Italian, but it can already be accessed online in Hebrew. Some Orthodox Jews will make it one of their daily tasks to read a page at least of the Talmud, a pursuit which is called Daf Yomi in Hebrew, translated into English as “a page a day.” The word “Talmud” actually means “to learn” or “to teach.”