10 life-saving tools for translators recommended by our community

Despite what many translation professors might have told you during your university years, translating is not (always) all about dusty dictionaries and old books.

Nowadays, freelance translators must be tech-savvy professionals who are not afraid of technology and the possibilities it may offer.

That is why we asked our community to share with us their favorite tools and we put together a list of 10 life-saving tools for translators.

After all, freelancing can be hard sometimes. If one tool can make your life easier, why shouldn’t you use it?

Table of contents

1. Grammarly
2.  Toggl
3. Asana
4. Sketch Engine 
5. Google Calendar
6. MemSource
7.  SDL Trados Studio
8. Read Aloud
9. Notion
10. Surprise! 

1. Grammarly 

Grammarly, a cloud-based writing assistant, was hands down the most voted tool by our community, and rightfully so.

In fact, Grammarly provides many great features for free, such as reviewing spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes, while the Premium and Business versions focus on style, tone, formality, and clarity.

Another plus point is its flexibility since Grammarly can be downloaded for use with desktop applications, as a browser extension, and as a smartphone keyboard.

2. Toggl

Time is money, said the American intellectual Benjamin Franklin in 1748. Many things have changed since then, but Franklin’s advice is still very useful – especially for freelancers.

Toggl, a time tracking software, is the best way to understand how much time you work and how much you earn from each project so that you can realize the value of your effort. Plus, it’s very user-friendly and its weekly reports are true gold mines for productivity nerds.

3. Asana

Collaboration is key, even in a competitive business like the translation industry. That is why Asana, a work management platform, has become many translators’ new best friend.

In fact, this project management tool is one of the best ways to help teams organize, track, and manage their work. Highly recommended!

4. Sketch Engine

Do you ever need a parallel text so bad you would just sacrifice anything to find it?

Before you convince yourself to say goodbye to your loved ones forever, give Sketch Engine a try!

In fact, Sketch Engine contains 600 ready-to-use corpora in more than 90 languages, each having a size of up to 60 billion words to provide a truly representative sample of language. 

Among those you will find many aligned parallel corpora produced by other real translators that you can use as a source of translation suggestions. 

5. Google Calendar

“Over the years, Google Calendar has become my best friend”, says Andrés Cortés, a fellow translator, and we absolutely agree with him. In fact, just a few weeks ago we wrote an entire article in Italian about Google’s best features.

 If you understand Italian, head over here for more useful advice.

6. Memsource

“And what would I be without my dear CAT Tools!”, adds Andrés. In fact, many members of our community mentioned Memsource, an AI-powered translation management system, as one of their favorite tools.

It combines all the traditional CAT tool features - machine translation, termbases, terminology management, and more - with artificial intelligence to simplify translators’ lives. 

Since it is very easy to use, we highly recommend it for projects where an intuitive user interface is key to productivity.

7. SDL Trados Studio

SDL Trados Studio is by far the most popular CAT Tool among translators. In fact, according to a 2004 survey by the World Bank, Trados Studio held an estimated 75% global market share, while another survey conducted by ProZ.com in 2013 indicated that 73% of ProZ translators have Trados.

Don’t get left behind: have a look at our Introduction to SDL Trados Studio now!

8. Read Aloud 

“The read aloud feature in Microsoft Word (also in Microsoft online "accessibility" tab, for those who don't own MSW) is the best tool for proofreading long texts”, says French Translator Sarah Chanteau.

“It really helps to spot mistakes and weird-sounding sentences that the eye automatically corrects”, she adds.

9. Notion 

Notion is a project management and note-taking software that can be used by single professionals or companies. It helps to track deadlines, define objectives, and monitor assignments to boost your efficiency and productivity. If your to-do list never ends, maybe you should give it a try!

10. Surprise!

“I love Memsource AND my coffee maker!”, writes professional translator and localization specialist Dimitra Lioliou, and we couldn’t agree more with her!

Roberta Cavaglià