Getting started at Unbabel: a definitive guide

Hey there! Welcome to the Unbabel knowledge base.

Getting started as an editor with us is simple, and the steps are quick to complete. This guide is here to help you with all of the basics so that you know exactly what to do, and when.

Signing up

There are some restrictions on who can work with Unbabel. To find out more, see here.

The first step to becoming an editor with us is to go to the sign-up page at www.unbabel.com/translators.

First, select your languages from the drop-down menu. If you can’t see your languages there, it’s because we either don’t support them or they’re not currently open for registration. You can read more about what this means here.

We operate with what we call language pairs. We do this because translation works in one direction, and while it’s perfectly possible that you can work with translations the other way round, you will need to prove it as a separate skill. For example - if you have the ability to edit translations from English to French, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you can translate French to English.

Select the language pair(s) you’d like to work with and follow the steps through. You’ll reach a section where you have to consent to various account settings (see below) – please select all of them to continue.

You’ll need to add your email address at this stage. Please make sure you use an email address that is associated with your PayPal account - read more here.

You’ll then need to activate your account and choose a password. You can update your profile settings easily – see how to do that here.

Verification and training tasks

You’ll have to complete two sets of tasks before becoming an editor. This doesn’t take long, but you’ll want to prepare for them to make sure you have the best chance of passing. Check out our Language Guidelines before starting.

Verification Tasks

These are the tasks that you’ll do when you first sign up. These are designed to clear up two things for us – that you have an understanding of the languages you’ve signed up for, and that you’re not a robot or using any artificial translation tools.

Don’t worry too much about polishing these tasks – just correct the errors and move on. These tasks are graded automatically on a pass/fail metric, and once you’ve passed you won’t ever have to do them again for that language pair. By the way, you’ll get three attempts at these tasks and if you don’t pass the language pair will lock.

Training Tasks

The training tasks are the core of the sign-up process. They are texts specifically selected and designed to evaluate your competence as an editor. 

You’ll need to complete ten training tasks before the system sends them to evaluation to determine whether you’ll get access to paid tasks. It’s really important to take the time to get these tasks right: find out how here.

Getting paid

One thing that we believe in at Unbabel is that editors deserve to be paid quickly, frequently and the full amount that they’ve earned.

Setting up payments is simple – find out how easy it is by reading this article.

Your Unbabel journey

Even when you’ve set up your account and you’re already getting paid for tasks, it doesn’t stop there. Our community is made up of editors who are talented and hard-working, but we also expect our editors to keep on learning. That means checking the Language Guidelines regularly, and taking time to understand your evaluation results when they arrive.