UNIVERSITY MOHAMED LAMINE DEBAGHINE– SETIF 2

Faculty of Arts and Languages

Department of English Language and Literature
Lecturer: O.MAICHE
Level: 3rd Year
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Translate the text below into Arabic:

Freelance Translator

A common and widespread assumption among those who are not familiar with this job
is that being a freelancer implies more freedom of movement than working as an employee.
In practice, you can work 'when' and 'if' you decide to.
First of all, many people still do not have a clear picture of what a freelance translator
is and does; when asked about my job, I simply say 'I am a translator', and most of the askers
reply: "what? And what does a translator do? and how can you work from home, alone,
with no employer? and so on. It is often discouraging to hear questions like that, as I have
to sing the same old song every time.
How difficult it is to start as a freelance translator depends either on your experience and
the existence/non-existence of help and support from outside you may trust in. But this is
another story. Let's assume you have already got your business started and focus on TIME,
which leads us to another crucial word: ORGANISATION.
Unless you pay the required attention to that magical word, I can tell you from my own
experience that being a freelancer will turn you into a captive! Working as a freelancer
does not mean, nor it should, that you should have no time-tables or any schedules to
follow. On the contrary, the more your freedom from any traditional employment, the
better you have to plan your workday and personal life. Otherwise, the first risk you run is
to be so completely absorbed by your job as to say goodbye to the rest of your life.
It is very common - and often justified - for a freelance translator at the beginning of
his/her career to think that the most important thing is 'working, working and still
working'. Right, we have chosen this kind of job because 'passion drives us', most of us do
not work well with fixed time-tables, depending on other people to do our job, going to the
office every morning and so on. BUT you have to set limits even to that freedom, so you
should start considering some kind of opening/closing hours for your home office. I know it
is difficult to shut down your PC at 6.00 p.m. if you have a job you are about to complete
(only 2 pages!), but you should follow the rule.