 So this video is for Catherine Z, who asks, quick question. I was born in Russia, but I grew up in Greece, so now I'm fluent in both Greek and Russian, have a C2 level of English, and a beginner's level in Japanese. So how can I start translating without having to focus primarily on one or two languages? My entire life so far was a constant translation of word people and cultures. I would like to use my knowledge and talent in order to financially support my family. But I always end up feeling lost somehow. This is a pretty good question in that many of you have grown up with more than two languages. And so you might not know exactly which languages to concentrate on. Well, maybe you're like her, grew up with Greek and Russian, but also English and Japanese. And the issue here is that Greek to Russian and Russian to Greek translations aren't the most popular combination, but pretty much anything with English will be more popular than that. But she also has Japanese, but it's, you know, kind of rusty. But maybe if she studied that more, that could be something that's growing in the future or something along those lines. So how do you decide which language to choose? Now if you only have Italian and English, like that's pretty much all I'm comfortable with, then it's pretty easy. Then you have to decide, should I do from Italian to English or English to Italian? And there you see which one is more of your native tongue. And that should be your target language. But when you have other languages in the mix, it could get a bit more complicated. First of all, one thing doesn't change. Whatever language you're most comfortable with, whatever language you're most comfortable speaking, writing in especially, that should be your target language. So if you're most comfortable with Greek, then that should be your target language. Your source language, the language that it comes from, that's a bit more interchangeable. If you feel most comfortable, say, I'm guessing here, but let's say it's Greek. Then you could translate from Russian into Greek, but also from English into Greek. And there again, which one do you choose? Well there is sort of a trade off. Chances are there's a lot more demand for English into Greek. And so if you just sign up as an English into Greek translator, then you can probably get a lot more business. But while there's not much demand for Russian into Greek translations, you could charge a lot more for that because there are a lot fewer translators offering that. So I would guess, now I have no idea, but I would guess that the standard rates you get for English to Greek translations will be lower than Russian to Greek translations. It is a trade off and it's hard to figure out. So how do you deal with it? My advice here would be to sign up again for one of the main websites. Once again, they're pros, translators, CAFE and Upwork and others depending on your language combination because they're different for every country and every region and every language. But to sign up for these and at the beginning just list all these languages. In this case, I would skip Japanese just because it's not at that level yet, but I would list English, Russian, Greek. If Greek is the language you're most comfortable in, once again, I'm just guessing, then I would put language combinations from English into Greek and Russian into Greek. Then just post those on the website and after a while you'll start getting a feel of A, what there's more demand for and also B, yeah, what you feel more comfortable with and what shows more growth. So once again, there might be a lot of demand for English into Greek, but since you're one of the few people who does Russian into Greek, I'm just guessing you're one of the few people. So if there is a company that needs these Russian into Greek translations, there's more chance they'll hire you on a long term basis. So that's why at the beginning I'd rather leave all options open and list yourself as a translator in those languages and then kind of see what picks up and take it from there. I hope this helps you and I hope it helps any other translator who's trying to decide which language to choose. I've talked in other videos about which language to choose if you speak two languages, like which one should be your target language or a source language. And I've also talked about trying to narrow down the number of languages you offer because many times you'll see people who say they speak seven different languages and list them all there as someone who's hiring translators. That sets off a red flag because you're like, okay, you're not fluent in seven different languages. So how do I know which one to hire you for? That's why I definitely think eventually you should concentrate on a certain language combination. But when you start off, you don't know what it'll be. You can guess, but you really don't know. You don't know what companies are out there and what they're looking for. So at the beginning leave the possibilities open, but keep in mind that eventually you do want to narrow it down so you can become more specialized in that area and you can become an expert in that language combination for whatever field you're dealing with. So I hope this helps you out there. Please, if you find this useful, feel free to leave a thumbs up, a like or share it with someone else you think might find it useful. And if you subscribe, you'll get more videos like this right directly to you that deal with freelance translation, freelancing in general, and that hopefully you can find useful in the future. So I'll talk to you next time. Thanks. Bye.