 Hi, this is Robert Gephardt and today I wanted to talk to you about some translation tips. I don't offer translation tips very often. I try to offer things that I feel are not being offered anywhere else. All languages are different and especially language combinations can be unique. If you're translating from X language to Y language, it's going to be very different than someone else who's translating from Z language to B language. These translation tips are ones that I feel are relevant, no matter which language combination you're working in, no matter what your language, your target language, or your source language are. First of all, let's start off. You have a source language and a target language. The source language is a language you're translating from. The target language is a language that you're translating into. Now, when you're translating between two languages, this generally means that you are either fluent in both or if you've lived in both countries or you studied, say, in an immersion class. And usually the target language is the one you feel most comfortable in. The target language is the language that you have to present to the client, so it needs to sound perfect. So usually that's the one that's your native tongue. So that's the preliminary, that's the first point to keep in mind anytime you're working on any translation. Point number two, keep bookmarks of useful links or resources that you find. Chances are that while you're performing translations or in the process of researching certain terms, you'll come across useful websites. You should always bookmark these because you never know when you're going to need them in the future. I've also done a video. I've in fact, I've done two videos on useful links and resources, which I guess I'll link here and here. So feel free to check those out and they should have some links that you can use during your translation process. Point number three, you should become familiar with track changes on Microsoft Word. I'm assuming you're going to use Microsoft Word at some point meant most clients, I would say, want the document sent to them in Microsoft Word, no matter if they send you a PDF, if they send you a hard copy or what it may be, they want the result in Microsoft Word. So anyway, you're going to be using it. Become familiar with track changes. This is found under the tools section, usually depending on your version, I guess. Now this is especially useful for editing, for proofreading, for comparing translations back and forth. Also get comfortable with leaving comments. You might not be sure of something, you might want to leave a comment for your client. Get used to that as well. To leave a comment, you click on insert and then new comment and then it'll leave a comment wherever your cursor is at that point. Point number four, I think we're at. You'll notice that some expressions like job titles can be interchangeable. For example, like secretary can be administrative assistant or president and CEO can be interchangeable depending on the company on the organization. There's several ways to go about this. First of all, you can ask the client for past translations or past documents so you get an idea for how they've translated these job titles or expressions in the past. Another way is to access the links that I mentioned in the previous point and see how other people have translated these. That way, even if the client has an issue with how you translate it, you can say, look, these official websites or companies have used this way of translating it in the past, so it should be okay. Either way, when expressions are interchangeable, make sure that you're using the right expression rather than just guessing. And the fifth point, I think it's a fifth point and the final point to remember your acronyms. I see this way too often. Whenever there's an acronym and you see LDIP or UVSC, it just gets translated as LDIP or UVSC in the other language. But you want to make sure about this. Very often, it won't be the same acronym in another language. The most common example I would say is the UN. The UN in English is the UN, which stands for United Nations. If you're translating this into French or Italian or many other languages, it'll be NU, okay? The same goes for EU, the European Union and many other languages. It's UE. So the acronyms can change. You want to research this and make sure about it. So the first time you come across these, check them all and then I would add them into your personal glossary wherever you keep a glossary, which brings me on to the next point. Point number six, or bonus point, which is always keep a glossary. I made another video on keeping a glossary, which I will link to here. So I won't go into detail too much, but just to say that you should be keeping a glossary for any terms or expressions or phrases or words that you had to look up, just so you don't have to look them up in the future. And that's about it. These are just things to keep in mind during your translation process that have to do with translating itself. I hope you found these useful. Feel free to subscribe and you'll get more translation tips and tricks and tidbits. Please click the like button. If you did find this useful and feel free to also share this with your friends, other friends who are freelancers, freelance translators, et cetera. And I'll see you next time in the next video.