How to throw out papers

Well, at least one kind of papers: newspapers, magazines, brochures, leaflets. But mostly newspapers and magazines. The ones from yesterday and the ones from last week, last month, possibly last year.
- Oh, you don't understand the question? You mean you simply pick them up from wherever you last left them, and throw them into the appropriate rubbish bin / recycling container, whatever, and go about your business without giving it a second thought? Well, bully for you, as Teddy Brewster used to say in Arsenic and Old Lace. Amazing. I'm in awe. You need read no further.

Clara Rimon (L) & Nehama Weinberg (R) as Abby & Martha Brewster; Bob Chadis as Teddy
in The Little English Theater's production of Arsenic & Old Lace, ZOA House, Tel Aviv, 1968

But you guys who are still with me, you know what I'm talking about, don't you?...
Every once in a while, when she had an hour or two to spare, my mom used to sit at her desk with a heap of papers, a pair of scissors, a pile of used envelopes, a collection of pens, and a very serious, concentrated expression on her face. It was sorting time. She'd re-read every bit of paper before sentencing it to Life or Death. Death meant being crumpled and tossed into the wastepaper basket; Life meant she had to decide whom to pass it on to or where to file it. Recipes went into an envelope marked with the name of her cooking-fan friend; articles and photos of dancers went into her Ballet scrapbook; interesting articles went into different envelopes, according to which friend or cousin or second-cousin or third-cousin-once-removed might find them interesting. And she actually put them into envelopes, addressed, stamped and mailed them! Long before email, scanning, and other such wonders. Even before photocopying and faxing were easily available. Xerox machines may have been standard equipment in offices, but certainly not in people's homes, certainly not in Israel.

And now, I find myself tempted to continue in her footsteps. Albeit with the help of modern technology. But the first stumbling block is making the time to read, or at least leaf through, all these papers, weekend supplements, High Holiday supplements, monthlies and various magazines I either subscribed to in a moment of weakness or get in the mail, unsolicited.

At the moment, just for example: in addition to back copies of Haaretz, the Jerusalem Post and Israel Hayom (don't lynch me! I have my reasons!) piled up on the dinette chair and floor, we have

Ikea bin #1

Ikea bin #1, Ikea bin #2, the coffee-table, as well as various spots in my study (not shown here, but take my word for it.)
These contain issues of: ESRA magazine, The Good Life (aka Club 50) magazine; Ikea catalogs; National Geographic; The Marker magazine; Rishon Lezion's Cultural Center program for 2015-2016, and more.

It breaks my heart to throw out so much valuable, edifying, fascinating info... I asked my eldest for moral support. Her reply was swift and decisive: Out, out, out!

Okay, okay, I'll throw them out. Except for that excellent review of...
Oh, darn! There I go again.

What? You feel cheated? I gave you no pointers on how to throw out papers? Sorry. I do apologize for letting you down. But if you happen to think of a good tip or two, do send them my way. Thanks!

How to find well-paying clients

Any translator (practically...) can get work if he/she is willing to work for peanuts. Not that I've checked the current price of peanuts. For all I know, a bag of peanuts may be pricier.
But how do you land those oh-so-coveted customers who are willing to pay you top dollars for your work?

This question keeps coming up on the translator forums I belong to.
On the one hand, we translators and editors exhort each other to charge decent rates for our skills and hard work; on the other hand, a high rate scares away many a potential client.

So I've sat and looked through my Work folders, in search of a pattern.

Rewind to the bad old days:
I've been translating and editing, to this or that extent, most of my adult life. But let's concentrate on the past 9 years or so, ever since I became self-employed. Of those nine years, let's ignore the first 2-3 years, when I worked mainly for translation agencies. When you're just starting out and don't have connections, the only thing to do is sign up with several translation agencies. They don't pay top rates, of course; but some are better than others. Gradually, you gain confidence and build your reputation. Then -- if all goes well -- people start recommending you, passing on your name, referring potential clients to you. Many of those clients, however, are reluctant to pay top $. They have no idea what translation entails; they think it's like "typing in a different language"; or else they're just used to haggling, bargaining, trying to get a "good deal" out of service providers.
So, you want to know: Where are those high payers hiding??? Who are they?

You won't like the answer.

The high payers are those who get well-paid themselves. Professionals who know how much they themselves charge for their work, and who realize that you, too, are a professional who expects to be well paid.

A couple of cases in point:

1. A successful medical equipment company, let's call it In the Pink, needed a Hebrew-to-English translator and marketing writer. The specific product and service were sought-after, and not cheap. The accompanying brochure was very professionally created, both in terms of text and graphics, by a well-known Israeli firm that charges relatively high fees. I submitted a price quote based on NIS 100 per "unit" (=250 words in the target language), which was at the time a bit higher than the unofficial ITA-recommended rate. This was about twice as much as I was getting at the time from translation agencies. But the managers at In the Pink did not blink. They could easily afford it, and were used to paying professionals what they deserve.

Next, the company asked me to give them a quote for original copywriting in English based on an hourly rate. I was at a loss. I knew that I shouldn't ask for the low rate I'd been getting from Yankaleh, the local producer of cheap cosmetics, nor from the no-name pizza manufacturer. The In the Pink boss saw my distress, took pity on me and offered me $100 an hour, saying this is what he pays his other foreign-language writers. That translated to NIS 400 at the time. I was dumbfounded and barely had the presence of mind to nod a "Yes, that'll do," trying to stifle a happy chuckle.

2. A successful educational-software company, let's call it SmartKid, needed a translator for its scripts in math and chemistry. This is a highly specialized field, and since I had relevant experience, having worked for a similar company for nearly ten years, I had no compunction about asking for NIS 120 per unit. Once again, a company that is used to paying its software designers, developers, and educational content writers top bucks, will not rear up or balk when faced with translation charges. They will not risk ruining their product.

3. Other clients who did the right thing by me were, among others: well-established lawyers; senior profs at good universities; upmarket fashion boutiques; high-end skincare manufacturers who charge a small fortune for their products and can't afford to make fools of themselves; successful architects, engineers, designers and graphic artists who charge high fees for their services; public speakers who need to get their message across; and so on.

You get the picture.

Of course, we can't limit ourselves to working only for the well-off. But keep this in mind: If at least half of your clients pay you handsomely, you can afford to be considerate and charge less from people who truly can't afford large sums, but whom you would like to help nonetheless.

Last but not least, and worth repeating: Connections, connections, connections. Network. Mingle. Leave your desk and go meet other translators in person. Be nice to your colleagues. Offer to collaborate. Reciprocate. And cast your bread upon the waters.

*                 *                 *

To Russian, with love

Kak dilla, my friends?

The fact that I've lived in Israel all my life, have Russian-speaking friends, have been seeing and hearing it all around me, and still don't know any Russian, is beyond me. I love languages. I've read Russian literature in Hebrew and in English translations. I've been baffled by the language, attracted to it, and at times extremely annoyed by it.

In the late 1950s there was a [relatively] large wave of immigration from Poland and the USSR to Israel. Our elementary school, like the other schools in town, got a boost of Russian- and Polish-speaking kids. I became quite close with several of them. Chief among my Russian friends at the time was one Shoshana Kaufman, who later became a math teacher. The practical Shoshana both liked me and saw how we could help each other. I wrote brief compositions for her in Hebrew, checked and corrected her English homework; she started teaching me Russian. Though I don't recall getting much beyond the alphabet, both print and script. Her handwriting, using a fountain pen with a flexible nib, was beautiful.

Another way Shosh helped me immensely was with War and Peace. I was supposed to write a paper about Love in the novel, and there was no way I could read the entire novel and write the paper by the deadline. Shosh took my Hebrew volume and her Russian volume for comparison, and marked in my volume the chapters that had to do with love... And thus I skipped all the war descriptions and philosophical discussions, concentrating only on the romantic story-lines. Mind you, though I got a good mark, my teacher -- the unforgettable David Levithan -- did find my paper lacking. "What about the love of God? Love for one's country? Love between friends?" he wrote in his comment. But I was 17... To me, only romantic love mattered.

As I wrote here in the past, it can get very annoying when you're in your homeland and you don't understand a word of what it said around you. But that's not the main reason I've finally decided to learn Russian. First of all, it's a challenge, and my aging mind (tfu, tfu!) can use the exercise. Second, we're about to take a trip to Russia! More about that, I hope, when the time comes. (August)

So once again, I'm collaborating with a friend. This time it's Anna, the woman who usually occupies the exercise mat to my right on Monday and Thursday afternoons. We meet at our usual table in the nearby mall, an hour before class begins. Yes, it's a bit noisy, but it's air-conditioned and convenient for both of us. I'd been nagging Anna for a while now to let me help her practice her English. Like me, she has a daughter in Canada. But unlike me, she also has a granddaughter there, who no longer speaks Russian -- she's Canadian through and through. Anna was reluctant to take me up on my offer, until I came up with the suggestion that she teach me Russian in return. So we spend roughly half an hour on English and half an hour on Russian, then wipe the sweat off our brow and rush to exercise class to unwind from the effort. Yes, it's a big effort. Whatever text she reads or hears in English, Anna first translates in her head into Russian, then into Hebrew. And whatever word Anna teaches me in Russian, I make her repeat it half a dozen times before I even attempt to reproduce it. No matter how hard I try, I cannot reproduce the trilled R nor the glottal(?) L. I can barely hear the difference between a hard consonant and a soft one, let alone pronounce them properly.

So far, I'm nearly comfortable with the alphabet; I have a list of words that are [nearly] the same in English and in Russian; I'm collecting easy, useful phrases, and am enjoying some cute words, like "ootka" - утка -- meaning "duck", and despairing of ever being able to order ice cream -- мороженое --  in Russian.

До Свидания!