 Hi, this is Robert Gephardt again. First of all, please excuse the circles under my eyes. I haven't had much sleep lately. I've been pretty busy. Today I wanted to talk to you about transcription, what it means and what it entails because you'll, chances are you'll come across it. Transcription, a transcriptionist, a transcriber, transcript, transcription, translation, things like that. Transcription, what is it? All it means is that you transcribe usually in audio. It can be video into text. That's it. Now there are many different examples of transcription. Maybe there's an audio of a conference that needs to be transcribed. I've had wiretaps and just interviews that need to be transcribed for journals and newspapers. But the vast majority will usually be video or audio that needs subtitling. Let me start with just normal transcription. If it's just to document something that's in audio, then it's pretty straightforward. All you have to do is listen to what the person is saying, like you listen to what I'm saying, and you transcribe it into text. However, if you're doing it for subtitling, they'll usually mention that or they'll say they need time codes, timestamps, something like that. What a timestamp is is basically that shows what time it is, how many minutes have passed when I say this sentence and the next and the next. It can go by the second or even the tenth of a second. So you need to divide what's being said by each second or tenth of a second. What does this have to do with translation? There are two different things. Transcribing and translation. But very often clients will ask you to transcribe and translate. Here's where you need to be careful, however, because a transcription translation doesn't necessarily mean that you need to transcribe. So if someone asks you for a transcription translation of what I'm saying, they say I need a transcription translation of this video into French. Do you take what I'm saying and transcribe everything directly into French? Or do you transcribe it into English and then provide a French translation? Technically, a transcription translation means that you transcribe into English and you translate into French. However, the vast majority of the time, all they need is the French translation. But you need to be specific and you need to check with the client to make sure that's what they're looking for. Transcriptions can be quite interesting. I've had quite a few interesting ones, wiretaps especially, but actually even more than that were some of the interviews that I went through. You get to hear people in their natural habitat, hear the emotion behind it, and it can get quite interesting. You should definitely consider them if they come across your radar. But there are a couple of things you should keep in mind. If you're just starting out, then you can just use any audio format, iTunes, Windows Media, something like that. They do have different programs. They have software and hardware to help with transcription. I know they have the ones with a pedal. If you start doing transcription regularly, then definitely look into those. But at the beginning, you can definitely get it done just with what's already on your computer. I would also recommend using headphones because you hear a lot better. Most audio programs also let you play things more slowly at half speed or something like that, which can definitely help as well. If it's a pure transcription, then you should usually count that it'll take you three times as long as the audio. For every audio minute, it'll take you about three minutes of transcription. This will depend on the quality of the transcription because someone might be someone's mumbling like that, then it'll take a lot longer. If they're speaking quickly or slowly or this, that, and the other. If you need transcription with a timestamp, it can take a bit longer. Usually, however, they provide the timestamp. It's easier for them to, if they just give the timestamps and you just fill it out for each timestamp. However, that can take a little bit longer. Now, if you're doing a transcription plus a translation, then all that's wrong. It can take up to an hour for every audio minute. None of mine have ever taken that long, but when you first start out, definitely give it some time to get a feel. You're going to have to, you know, figure out how you go about it and what works best for you. If they're looking for a transcription plus a translation, so if everything I say needs to be transcribed into English and then translated into French, then probably what you want is, you know, a column with a timestamp if they have that, another column with the original text in English, and then a third column with the French, I guess for you guys, it will be the other way around. Usually they'll give you a template so you can work off of that. However, many times if they say, okay, I'm this guy speaking in English, but I only need the French, then see how it works easiest for you. I honestly prefer transcribing it first and then working as if it were a direct translation. This adds a little bit of time because you have to do the transcription. As I said, transcription can take three minutes for every audio minute. However, after that, it's a lot more smooth. Also, when I have to go back to the text and look at it, it's a lot easier to review my own work. Again, not everyone works this way. So see what works best for you. Start off with a small transcription at first or at least give yourself plenty of time just so you can get a feel of how to do it. And that's pretty much all I have on transcriptions. Again, I've had some experience. It's not my specialty. Most of what I've done has been interesting. At the end of the day, it was more lucrative for me to do translation probably because I find myself transcribing and then translating regardless. But I must say some of my more interesting jobs have been transcriptions. Once you do get a hang of it, can be a whole new specialty, a whole new niche for you as a translator that you can be a transcriptionist plus translator. So it's definitely a venue you might want to look into if it comes across your radar. I hope you found this useful. If you did, please click like and feel free to share with anyone who you think might find this useful as well. Don't forget to subscribe and there'll be new videos every week regularly talking about freelance translation, freelancing in general, translation and transcription. That's about it for now. So I'll talk to you next time.