Launch your freelance career and unlock your potential!
There is more to being a successful freelance translator than just being an excellent linguist.
Our online SUFT course will provide you with the additional skills and knowledge you will need to succeed in the competitive world of freelance translation.
Feedback and mentoring
Central to the success of the course is the personalised feedback and mentoring that you receive from the tutors and the peer-to-peer learning you gain from the other students.
Learn from leading practitioners
You will have direct access to ten successful practising translators. Each tutor will cover a different topic in two separate sessions. They will:
Introduce and explain the topic and answer any questions
Set an assignment which they will review individually
Provide one-to-one feedback on your assignment during the discussion session
Offer advice and mentoring in the online forum
Meet the tutors
Hayley Smith MITI
Jayne Fox MITI
Joanna Waller FITI
Fiona Gray MITI
Karen Tkaczyk FITI
Kari Koonin FITI
Alanah Reynor AITI
Susie Jackson AITI
Sarah Bowyer MITI
Anja Jones – ITI Corporate member
Hayley Smith MITI
Hayley is a freelance translator and charity communications consultant living in Lisbon, Portugal. She translates from French and Spanish (and sometimes Portuguese) into English and specialises in healthcare and international development texts. She is a Qualified Member of the ITI and sits on the Board of directors.
Jayne Fox MITI
Jayne Fox is a German-English translator and editor with a focus on sci-tech, health care and corporate communications. Originally from the UK, she has worked in Germany and Switzerland and is now based in Wellington, New Zealand. She has been providing German-English translation to European direct clients since 1996. Jayne holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Newcastle University and is a qualified member of the ITI, Bundesverband der Dolmetscher und Übersetzer (BDÜ), NZSTI (New Zealand) and the European Medical Writers Association (EMWA).
As a translator, she draws on her wide-ranging background in training and development, management and technical writing.
Joanna Waller FITI
Joanna Waller has been a freelance translator for well over 30 years. She is an ITI Fellow and chartered linguist, working from French, Spanish and Italian into English. Specialising in technical subjects (engineering, telecoms, IT) to earn a living, but with another life as a volunteer in international organisations committed to helping people in need, she has also worked for free translating and teaching, and thus acquired another area of expertise in development, aid, civil society and human rights, leading to paid work for a number of clients in these fields.
Fiona Gray MITI
Fiona Gray MITI founded her freelance translation company, Grayscale Translations Limited, in 2016, having gained extensive experience within the industry as an in-house translator, proofreader and project manager. She works from German into English, specialising in marketing and business texts and excelling in the translation of relatively small pieces that require a dash of creativity and close attention to style. Fiona is a passionate member of ITI, having recently taken on the role of Coordinator for the ITI East Anglia Regional Group and regularly contributing to the ITI Bulletin. She promotes languages and translation at school and university events whenever possible and spoke about her own business model and productivity levels at the Elia Together conference in Athens in 2018. Fiona has managed to build a corporate and personal brand that is memorable and consistent across all of her marketing measures.
Karen Tkaczyk FITI
Karen is from Manchester, UK and has a Diploma in French and a PhD in Organic Chemistry (University of Cambridge, UK). She worked in the pharmaceutical industry in Europe, then after relocating in 1999, in pharmaceuticals and cosmetics in the US. She set up her translation practice in 2005 and it took off quickly. Karen credits specialising, responsiveness and networking as the secrets to her success.
Kari Koonin FITI
After graduating in German and Russian, Kari Koonin FITI started her translation career translating in-house at Voest-Alpine in Austria for five years. After moving out of translation for several years, during which time she lived and worked in the Netherlands and South Africa (with Siemens), she turned freelance after the birth of her daughter and now has over 30 years’ experience as a freelance translator from Dutch, German and Afrikaans to English. Kari’s specialist field is horticulture, agriculture and food. Alongside her translation work she is Chair of the ITI Professional Development Committee and gives frequent talks, workshops and webinars on a range of translation-related subjects, including at the ITI and OU SWATI events, the London Language Show and various universities. She has also taught German to English translation on the University of Westminster MA in Translation Studies. Kari lives in London and when she is not translating, she is an active member of her local community garden and works on her allotment and is currently studying for a Royal Horticultural Society qualification in the Principles of Horticulture as part of her subject-related CPD.
Alanah Reynor AITI
Alanah is a creative translator and writer. She translates from Dutch, French and Spanish into English, and benefits from a deep understanding of the Belgian market. In addition to her specialisations in marketing and business communications, she enjoys working on texts related to healthcare (especially women’s health), tourism and the environment. To complement her translation work, Alanah also writes content for her clients and contributes articles to a business magazine local to her home in Belgium. Alanah has found LinkedIn to be a key tool for her business, as a place to build and nurture relationships with both clients and colleagues. She also helps to plan events as part of the ITI French Network’s events team.
Susie is a Spanish-to-English translator and copy editor specialising in academic texts for the social sciences. She started her business in 2015 after working as a university administrator for several years following graduation from her BA in Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Nottingham.
In addition to translation and copy editing, she mentors freelancers on pricing and business finances to help them figure out how much they should be charging and how to raise their rates with clients so that they can earn a decent living doing what they love. She is a regular speaker on this subject at online events and runs her own mentoring programmes for groups and individuals.
Connect with Susie on Instagram (@the.organizedfreelancer) or read about her free resources to help with pricing and finances on her website.
Sarah Bowyer is a legal and sports translator working from French and Spanish into English under the name Crossbow Translations. Following a degree in Modern Languages from Cambridge University, she practised as a solicitor at large, international law firms for almost ten years before changing career. She is passionate about promoting collaboration and connections within the translation profession and is the Business Mentoring Coordinator of the ITI French Network and Membership Secretary of the North West Translators' Network. Her work was recently recognised with the ITI Best Newcomer (Freelancing) Award in 2020.
Anja Jones – ITI Corporate member
Anja Jones is the Managing Director of AJT, a UK-based boutique translation agency specialising in localisation services for the European market. Anja started out her translation career as a freelance translator in 2010. Since then, the company has grown significantly and today employs nineteen in-house and remote staff as well as over 150 freelance translators. Anja's focus is on encouraging young language talent into the translation industry in a safe and fair way, and on sustainably growing a translation business that pays fair rates to its translators while delivering exceptional quality and added value to its customers. AJT is a Corporate member of ITI, and in May 2019 the company received ITI's Corporate member award in recognition of its innovative Graduate Junior Translator Scheme.
Webinars and live discussions
Pre-recorded webinars are followed by live online Q&A discussions and practical activities. With over 25 hours of tutor time and one hour of individual feedback on your CV and business plan, plus additional reading time, you will be able to record over 30 hours of formal and self-directed CPD.
All live online discussion sessions are recorded, so if you can’t make one you will be emailed a link to the recording after each session, which you can listen to at your convenience.
The course comprises ten individual units, each covering a topic that is central to success as a freelance translator.
Cultivate your online presence: engaging and connecting on social media
Alanah Reynor
17 Nov 2022
10:00-11:00 GMT
24 Nov 2022
10:00-11:30 GMT
Managing the money side of business
Susie Jackson
29 Nov 2022
15:00-16:00 GMT
6 Dec 2022
15:00-16:30 GMT
Getting paid on time
Sarah Bowyer
1 Dec 2022
10:00-11:00 GMT
8 Dec 2022
10:00-11:30 GMT
Working with LSPs
Anja Jones
13 Dec 2022
10:00-11:30 GMT
Best in class
Trados Studio 2021 and memoQ are the leading software used by translation professionals. Designed to accelerate translation while maintaining high levels of quality, one licence will be awarded to the two students that the SUFT course tutors agree have been the ‘best in class’.
Recent winners on the last SUFT course were Christine Mannings and Hannah Howe. Read about their careers, thoughts on the course and being crowned ‘best in class’ in their profiles below.
How do I book?
The next SUFT course begins on 4 October 2022.
The cost is £399 for ITI members and £499 for non members.