Bid Sensei
Many of you on this site who study Japanese would eventually like to do a job that utilizes your newly forged ability. One common choice is to become a Japanese translator. As I talked about in detail here on my translator series on Jalup, it’s a long and hard path, but one that can be quite rewarding.
A popular route to take these days is the freelance route. While it gives you ultimate freedom in when, where, and how you develop your translator career, it is also a minefield. One of the hardest things to get used to is how to bid on projects, in a way that doesn’t underscore your value, keeps you competitive, and is sustainable over the long term.
I wanted to help a few American/Japanese friends who had just recently started doing freelance work on websites like Upwork and Freelancer. They were interested in doing:
J>E translations
E<J translations
Japanese transcriptions
Japanese voice overs
Different Combinations of the above
They told me they were wasting so much time just trying to make a bid. They often wouldn’t get projects, and then even if they did, they would regret that their bid didn’t accurately account for all the work that was required.
I originally made an app to help them, with no intent beyond that. But then I thought this could help a lot more people in similar situations. So I uploaded it to the App Store. And Bid Sensei was born…
Bid Sensei
Being a freelance Japanese translator or Japanese voice-over artist isn’t easy. What do you charge for your service? How long will it take you to complete? What’s your rate per word, per character, or per minute? What should you tell the client?
Bid Sensei does all the heavy lifting for you. Put in the type of service, the length of time or amount of text, the difficulty level, and any freelance website fees. You’ll get an instant range of fair prices, to make sure your bid will compensate you properly for your hard work.
Get for FREE now on the App Store
Founder of Jalup. iOS Software Engineer. Former attorney, translator, and interpreter. Still watching 月曜から夜ふかし weekly since 2013.
I would love to try that out if you make an Android version.
I’ll just have to improve my Android programming skills a bit :)
Wow Adam, the premise of this app sounds amazing! (I have Android too so I can’t try it), but it sounds like a great tool for freelancers. I remember in my brief stint in freelance work this was the worst part of looking for a job, and I love that you included a Japanese version, classic Adam.