Do translators have nothing to catch on freelancing?

Question

Freelance

A Russian-English-Ukrainian translator friend is trying to freelance. I quote:
No clothes, freelancers and other exchanges do not work. I sit on them to no avail.
It is necessary to either change something specifically in the approach, or they simply do not work. There it is impossible to break through the crowd of Asians who work for half a banana.
What is she doing wrong?

Answer 1

What is she doing wrong?

She obviously doesn't want to work for half a banana.

Answer 2

The wife takes orders for the wakwake . She, however, has a rarer language pair. Bananas, however, are still not very many.

Answer 3

I heard that translators have their own sandbox - www.proz.com
Odesk/Upwork is not a very suitable place for translators, translations are only 2% of the total number of projects.

Answer 4

In general, the problem in freelancing is that the full "exhaust" does not come immediately.
Reviews, rating, connections, recommendations, etc.
Plus half of the earnings due to the ability to sell yourself, and the second half due to professional skills.
In freelancing, like in a university, you work for two years with a credit, the rest of the time the credit works for you.
As a translator, I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but I’m sure that the top ones don’t feel bad.

Answer 5

I myself am a programmer, but for a couple of months I have been consulting a familiar translator (En-Ru-De) on working at oDesk (now Upwork). The first order was very difficult to take, but after that, the customers themselves began to go to her. The main thing is not to score and try to take the first order.

Answer 6

It is logical to get a job in some agency in the state, the global translation market is not very large due to the fact that everyone seems to know English. Catching transfers into such languages ​​on the exchanges is not very promising globally. The Ukrainian market generally leaned back for ten years, it already pays even to me with a delay of a year.

Answer 7

As puma already wrote, the translation market is really very small, even if you work with rare language pairs. There are 2 ways: 1) get a job somewhere in a bureau / agency, look for where to apply yourself as a simultaneous interpreter and at the same time maintain a career focus; 2) for freelance, add more services - writing articles, SEO, blogging, content management, 1st level support, but then you can already forget about the profession of a translator and see where the curve leads.

Answer 8

partly true, rarely seen rates above $15 per hour