Hello

[Odin]

Hey people.

My name is Peter and I am from Denmark. I have come to this forum to learn some new skills and find new tools. I already have a little experience with IM from working on 5 sites. None of them are very successful but that is probably because the keywords are quite bad.

Currently my goal is to make some money with writing/translating. I speak and write 3 languages (Danish, German and English) and speak some Norwegian and Swedish (I know too little about the grammar, though). Once I have enough money I plan to launch one or two new sites for some passive income.

[moshthepitt]

Hello Odin

Welcome to EP! I am fairly new myself but I want to tell you that in my short time here I have learnt more than in the past 1 - 2 years. You're in the right place! I'm looking forward to reading your contributions and I hope you will share how things go trying to earn that initial bit of money.

[TheodoreK]

Hello Odin, welcome to EP!

The German-English combo is very lucrative for translations, as far as I know. You might be able to land incredible jobs with this one! You just have to look for translation jobs in more places than just DP and it might pay to contact big websites directly and offer your English-to-German translation skills for their German localization. Most big sites pay through the nose to get their contents translated to other languages and direct translation offers can be very profitable for you and save the big website lots of money.

[Odin]

Hello Odin

Welcome to EP! I am fairly new myself but I want to tell you that in my short time here I have learnt more than in the past 1 - 2 years. You're in the right place! I'm looking forward to reading your contributions and I hope you will share how things go trying to earn that initial bit of money.

Thank you. I really just need to find a good site earn money on. I have tried Fiverr but I barely got any jobs there and most of the serious business people probably do not want to waste money on the low quality "writers" on the site. I have also looked on other sites but then the problem is that most of them seem to require that I am an US citizen due to some legal stuff..

Hello Odin, welcome to EP!

The German-English combo is very lucrative for translations, as far as I know. You might be able to land incredible jobs with this one! You just have to look for translation jobs in more places than just DP and it might pay to contact big websites directly and offer your English-to-German translation skills for their German localization. Most big sites pay through the nose to get their contents translated to other languages and direct translation offers can be very profitable for you and save the big website lots of money.

That sounds very nice! I was also thinking that I could help some IM people expand into the German market. The market is quite untouched for a language with 100 million native speakers.

[Davidj]

Hello Odin, welcome to EP!

The German-English combo is very lucrative for translations, as far as I know. You might be able to land incredible jobs with this one! You just have to look for translation jobs in more places than just DP and it might pay to contact big websites directly and offer your English-to-German translation skills for their German localization. Most big sites pay through the nose to get their contents translated to other languages and direct translation offers can be very profitable for you and save the big website lots of money.

Not trying to put a damper on this, but my wife used to run a translation company, and they rarely* used anyone unless they were translating into their native language (*the exceptions were people who were truly multi-lingual - off the top of my head, an Icelandic woman with a Danish mother who did English to Danish, and a man who'd been brought up in France by English/Spanish parents who did both English to Spanish and English to French). Though I must admit, with the possible exception of Icelanders, Danes seem to be the best English speakers outside the English speaking world. In fact, a lot seem to speak English better than a fair few English people.

[Kay]

Not trying to put a damper on this, but my wife used to run a translation company, and they rarely used anyone unless they were translating into their native language...

My Dave does translations from German to English and although he's fluent and qualified (the British Foreign Office even seconded him to the German Embassy in New Delhi for a while in an exchange programme) he is adamant that he only does German to English and not the other way around, because you have to translate into your native tongue.

I agree about the Danes and their ability with the English language. I shared a house with some Danes for a while and even the ones with the 'lower-ranking' jobs could all speak and write very good English - better than a lot of native speakers.

Oops, I nearly forgot to say, "Hello and welcome, Peter!"

[JimWaller]

Hi and Welcome Peter! I hope you are able to find the information you seek here. (I'm sure you will.)

I'll chime in on the Danes' ability to speak English. I lived and worked in France for a year at a well known theme park. I worked with a Dane named Neils who spoke the most perfect, posh English I've even heard. To say he spoke better, more proper English than the mother tongue English speakers is an understatement.

We had an American manager (Debbi), she and I had great fun teaching Neils American street slang. It was hysterical to hear him say something like, "Yo! Yo! Yo! Debbi, Whatup my homechick?" in his ultra posh accent and it was great that he was in on the joke. We all had a lot of fun!

Peter, perhaps you can use your skill in German to find unexploited keywords and provide useful information and solutions to problems. Don't focus so much on the money, focus more on providing good, useful information and building relationships. The money will follow. Don't be afraid to ask questions here, there are a lot of helpful people on EP. Good luck, and welcome once again.

Jim