To renew your SENSE membership for 2025, click ‘📚 Renew now’ in the footer.
 

  • Keep up to date

    A newsletter from SENSE drops into members’ e-mailboxes once a month. Each newsletter brims with news about the society, training opportunities from sister societies, and notices of various kinds. There are also handy links to upcoming SENSE events and links to the latest blog posts. And if you haven’t been on social media for a while, the newsletter provides an insight into that as well.

    About three times month, SENSE sends out notices about upcoming events, society business, and important news from the industry. Members can also access past occasional mails via the website.

    SENSE members who use Facebook and LinkedIn can join SENSE’s members-only Facebook and LinkedIn pages. Around 100 members are on the Facebook group and around 150 members are on the LinkedIn group. SENSE also has a public presence on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, where our social media manager very regularly posts news about SENSE events, events from sister societies, and various other interesting posts related to our industry. These pages are accessible to the public.

  • Get-togethers

    SENSE regularly hosts meetings for members based on region or special interest. These meetings can be in person or online. There are several SIGs (special interest groups), such as one for educators, for medical translators and editors, for academic editors, for starters, etc.

    The society hosts workshops about 3-6 times a year that are open to both members and the public. Some of these are in person, while others are in the form of webinars. Some workshops are interactive, while others feature a guest speaker.

    An established tradition in SENSE is our annual summer social and our annual winter dinner. At these two events, members may bring their partners or a guest. The summer social is usually some kind of touristy outing. The winter dinner may be a formal sit-down or an informal buffet dinner.

  • Reaching out

    Potential clients can use the SENSE freelance register to find suitable freelance translators, editors, interpreters, copywriters, etc. etc. from among SENSE members. The register is right there on SENSE’s public website. Any member of SENSE may join the freelance register for no extra charge.

    SENSE members are encouraged to make contact with other members. That is what being in a society is all about. All SENSE members can search for or browse the list of current SENSE members. As a member, you can edit your own profile page via our website and ensure that only the information that you wish to reveal, are visible to other members.

    The society has had a monthly newsletter pretty much since the beginning in 1992. Most of these newsletters have been preserved and can be viewed by members via the website. This is a very interesting way of getting to know the society and its members, or to get new ideas from past events and activities.

Convenant Vertaalsector Nederland

What freelance translators expect of agencies, and vice versa.

Read more

Guidelines for proofreading students

For copy-editors who work with students, or students who work with copy-editors.

Download

Find a freelancer

SENSE freelancers offer copywriting, editing, indexing, interpreting, language teaching, journalism, proofreading, training, transcription, translating, and subtitling.

View freelancers

SENSE Blog

Read the SENSE Blog with articles by our blog staff, SENSE members and guest authors.

Read on

Setting up shop: newcomer perspectives on the translation industry (panel discussion)

From 04 June 2020 16:30 CEST until 04 June 2020 17:50 CEST
Hits: 3047

Setting up shop: newcomer perspectives on the translation industry

Panel discussion (part of the SENSE Online conference 3-5 June)

The translation industry is changing, meaning that aspiring freelancers and recent graduates need new skill sets and different strategies to set up shop properly. If you’ve ever wondered how recent newcomers to the profession deal with game-changing developments such as PEMT, globalisation, Brexit, GDPR, cloud tools, and the ever-downward pressure on rates, don’t miss out on this panel discussion.
The panellists will discuss a broad range of topics, including acquisition, marketing for freelance translators, diversification, standing out from the crowd, and much more. In addition, we will compare today’s market with the professional starting point, back then, of the more seasoned translators and editors in the room. Has it really become more difficult to start a successful business nowadays? Or have the technological advances made everything so much easier? Finally, we’ll discuss how SENSE members can help their newest colleagues and what new recruits have to offer in return.

Click here to register for the full online conference.

About the presenters

Jasper Pauwels

Jasper Pauwels is a full-time freelance translator, translating from English and French into Dutch for many translation agencies across Europe. His translation and proofreading services cover a wide range of topics, with a strong focus on legal and marketing translations. He is also a sworn translator under Dutch law. Before starting out as a freelancer in 2017, he completed two degrees in translation at two different countries. The solid foundation formed during his Bachelor of Translation degree from Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, Maastricht, was complemented and enriched by his Master’s in Translation from the University of Antwerp.

 

Branco van der Werf

Thirty years old and a Dutch native, Branco van der Werf has been working as a freelancer since before he graduated. He specialises in transcreation and the translation of marketing materials, educational texts, and B2B copy. In addition, he is currently studying towards attaining his teaching degree for English.

 

 

Louise Wetzels

Now 28 years old and the face behind Tiga Translations since 2020, Louise Wetzels received her translation diploma from Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, Maastricht, in 2014. She has almost 4.5 years’ experience working in-house at a translation agency, both as a project manager and as an English to Dutch translator/reviewer. Her fields of experience are marketing, tourism and customer-oriented texts.

 

 

 

 

Lloyd Bingham

Lloyd Bingham translates from Dutch, German, French and Spanish into English and is based in Cardiff, Wales. An in-house translator for three years before going freelance six years ago, he is a member of ITI and a tutor on ITI’s Setting Up as a Freelance Translator course. Lloyd has given talks on leveraging social media to build your translation business.

 

 

 

Nigel Saych

Nigel Saych is the founder and owner of a creative translation company based in Nuenen, near Eindhoven. No longer responsible for the daily administration, he is still very much involved as an active translator. Before his career change to become a translator, Nigel worked in international education. It is this fascination for learning, especially that involving languages, that maintains his interest in professional development for linguists, whatever their age.