How NOT to email translation agencies when offering your service

This page gets many visits—both from potential clients looking for a translator and from fellow translators. It’s also visited by many people who know nothing about the translation profession and think they can make some money “doing translations.” Many of the latter write to me assuming I can offer them work.

Below is one of the emails I’ve received, together with my reply. My intention is not to mock the authors of these messages. It’s impossible to know everything, and I could be just as naive about other fields I don’t know.

Email received

Hi, how are you? I studied English for several years and I have a good level. I’m interested in working for you translating from English into Spanish. I’d like to know how much you pay per translation. Please contact me at my mobile number 098••••••. Regards. Please reply. Thanks.

Thank you for your message. Congratulations on your good level of English, but that alone is not enough to be a translator. You also need, among other things:

Excellent command of your native language: spelling, grammar, style.
IT skills; in practice you will also need specialised software.
Good communication skills.
Mastery of the subject area you will translate.

Besides that, you need to contact people who can actually offer you work—not me. If in the future you think you meet all these requirements, I recommend registering at www.proz.com, the largest translation marketplace on the internet. I found my first clients through that site.