A fun and easy way to break into the translator world — without any experience or education.

If you love art, creativity, or just learning in general I suggest downloading the DailyArt app. They post daily artwork from across the globe which will immerse you in culture, history, and art! It’s also an easy way to get beginner experience as a translator.

The Daily Art Magazine needed additional translators for their app and I decided to sign up! It was simple to do — one fillable form without official translator requirements. This was an excellent way to try my hand at translating, something I longed to experience! Their translator work is volunteer based but there is benefits. In exchange you get: translator references, free access to all their online art courses, and full access to their premium app.

Upon receiving an email that I was selected as one of the translators, it was time to get to work with the first two steps:

• Downloading Slack to be in communication with the whole team.
• Receiving a Google Docs page with a dashboard overview of all the articles pending translation.

Since they post daily, I thought I’d have to translate daily and frankly felt overwhelmed by the idea. However, their structure is well organized and they only send 7 articles at a time with up to 14 days to complete the work. Here is what that process looks like:

Translation Steps:

• First I read the whole article. Then I try my hand at translating every sentence into their Google Docs form next to that article.
• I can translate 80–90% of the content myself, but I do need help with the rest as many words are art-related terms I’m still unfamiliar with.
• Dictionaries — I use an online dictionary as the Google auto-translate option only offers one translation. In most languages, one word can have several different word translations depending on the situation, sentence structure, and its usage.
• After translating the text, I read it over to catch grammatical errors or recognize another word is more fitting for the story. Re-reading any translations after completion is helpful, as you’ll find any small errors and it will help fine tune the word flow.
• Once the text is finalized, I head on over to LexiLogos which has most global alphabet keyboards.
• Since I translate to a slavic language which has extra letters as opposed to the Latin alphabet, I use their Cyrillic keyboard. I add my text there and it’s immediately formatted over to the Cyrillic alphabet.
• I manually add in any extra Cyrillic letters that were missed during the formatting, and paste the final composition in the DailyArt’s workspace.
• The final step is adding in any hyperlinks the article may have. I click “Submit for Review” and move on to the next article!

Overall, the entire translating process for one article takes me about 1 hour, at times less with the practise. My background in Fashion Design helped me due to being already familiar with some painters and their works. Due to the work that goes into translating every piece, you end up expanding both your art knowldege and your translation vocabulary.

If you’re interested in gaining experience as a translator, the Daily Art creative team is looking for Serbian and Swedish language translators! Or if you’re an art lover, try their app or consider giving a few dollars for their app upgrade. I hope this article encourages you to either try your hand at translating or be inspired to learn more about art.