Welcome to my blog! I am the owner of JK Spanish and Portuguese Translation Services. As you might guess from the name, I offer translation services in Spanish, Portuguese and English. I hope this page becomes a place for other translators to learn about the business through the things that work for me. I want to share tips and tricks with you and learn yours as well. To break things up, we’ll share some translation humor and play with words.

Image by: Magdalena Roeseler via flickr

I’m really glad to have you here!

Since I want this to be a place where we share, I’ll go first. It seems only fair. So, how did I get here? What is my daily translation life like? How is my translation business moving me closer to an authentic life where I spend plenty of time with my family? It’s all about flexibility, patience, and commitment. Lots of reading and studying have helped too! I find that setting up a routine based on deadlines has brought me to a place where I can plan my day, get everything done and still have time for fun things like reading and playing with my son. Being actively involved in his life has motivated me to be my own boss. It’s not a choice, it’s a necessity!

Specialized Translation Services For The Food (Nutritional) Supplement Industry

At a relatively young age I knew I loved the culture of words. However, I didn’t know that love would lead me to South America and a translation business. It’s been quite an adventure! I’ve come to believe in following your instincts and letting life take you where it points- just keep your hands on the wheel.

As I gained clients and cultivated my business, I realized I was specializing… and enjoying it! Today, my focus leans toward business translation services such as advertising, marketing and e-commerce particularly in the food & beverage and food (nutritional) supplement industries. I enjoy that work because it’s an engaging but rewarding challenge.

Image by Jillian Kostora da Silva 2017

The majority of translations that currently I handle are product listings, product descriptions and manufacturer/ingredient labels. My specialization started happening naturally and then I nudged it along. Yours might be doing the same and I encourage you to keep a global view of your work so you can respond positively to trends like this.

I also work with many different clients translating everything from web pages and business communication to immigration paperwork and legal documents. I enjoy that type of work because I genuinely like to help people, especially when it comes to communicating. That ties into my personal story.

Language has always been a part of my life in many ways and it feels only natural that it’s now my career.

My Journey Deep Into Language

For over fifteen years I’ve been working hard building a solid reputation as a translator. I knew from a very young age that I wanted to work with languages. Growing up in Upstate New York, but hailing from a small city in Lancaster County, PA where Pennsylvania Dutch (an Americanized dialect of German) was spoken more often than English, I gained a unique insight to the use of language.

Both my maternal and paternal grandparents were multilingual. Combined, they spoke a total of six languages: Russian, Slovak, Hungarian, Polish, PA Dutch and English! Unfortunately, I never learned much more than a few words, but when I met a Spanish-speaking Dominican-American family at the age of fifteen, it opened up a whole new world to me.

I was deeply inspired to learn not only the Spanish language but their culture as well. Hearing non-English words spoken at the dinner table was nothing out of the ordinary for me, and while not a native Spanish-speaker, I believe my brain was prepped for learning languages from day one.

Graduating with a degree in Spanish and History from Manhattanville College, I continued to work with languages for various companies. I travelled to South America and resided in Colombia for three months studying Dreamweaver & Flash web design and enjoying the amazing sights and sounds of this enthralling country.

After returning to the states and moving to New Orleans to work, I met my husband, Marcos. We moved to Ipatinga, Minas Gerais, Brazil, where we married and were blessed with a son. I continue to live in Brazil but travel to the US just about every year.

To learn more about my credentials, see my About Me page.

Building A Business That Offers Translation Services

The bottom line is, to work as a freelance translator, you have to find clients! A lot of my content will focus on that.

I have a beginning steps to becoming a freelance translator post in the works that will help you learn where to find some initial clients and how to ‘trade up’ for jobs with more consistent work and better rates.

I also want to talk to you about specializing and how that has really helped me stand out. It has also helped me eliminate work that I really just don’t find interesting. We all have to do some of that to keep the cash flowing, but minimizing it is good for your spirit, trust me.

I am really hoping you’ll give me lots of feedback as readers so I know what interests you the most and how to create content that’s valuable to you. If you have a question, someone else out there probably has the same one! Don’t hesitate to reach out to me either on social media or by email.

Contact Jillian and Join the Translated That Community

You can email me anytime at jillian.dasilva@translatedthat.com. These emails come to me personally and I will respond to you as soon as possible.
Get actively involved in the content you see here by following me on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/translatedthat/

or Twitter: @translatedthat

or even LinkedIn: /translatedthat

If you enjoy the articles you read here, please share them with a friend and think of me if you need Spanish/Portuguese/English translation services.

Finally, leave me a comment to say hi so we can start getting to know each other!

Until next time-

Jillian

With translation, the world understands.

http://www.translatedthat.com