Co-founders Anikó Pető-Mordovski and Kelsey Frick at ELIA Together 2026 in Riga. Photo courtesy of #TeamTranslator.

Imagine a freelance translator at work, and what comes to mind? For many of us, it's probably a person sitting at a desk or a table, typing away on a computer or consulting a book. Maybe they're in a cafe, concentrating against the hustle and bustle of the patrons around them. Or maybe they're in the quiet of their own home, slippers on their feet and a cup of something hot and comforting within reach.

In either case, we're probably picturing translation as a solitary activity, a translator working not with others but on their own. And it's true that the freelance translator life can get lonely. When you work in-house for a company, you have the advantage of colleagues, a team of people who share your experiences and circumstances. But when you're freelance, you have to look elsewhere to find your team.

Since 2022, one of the places where a freelance translator can go to find connection and support is #TeamTranslator, a Slack-based community of more than 2,100 freelancers in the translation industry. Designed to be a positive space, the community offers membership for free; joining means agreeing to community guidelines that, among other things, ask members to “approach frustrations with awareness and solutions.”

As a freelance translator myself, I joined #TeamTranslator a few years ago and have benefited enormously from the exchange that happens there. Many of Lingua's volunteer contributors also work as freelance translators, so I reached out to co-founders Anikó Pető-Mordovski and Kelsey Frick to learn more about the community.

Lingua: As professional linguists, what drew you to translation originally? What keeps you in translation today?

Anikó: I loved the creativity of translation – and this is partly what keeps me in the field today, too!

Kelsey: I thought that translation was quite a practical application of my foreign language skills, so I picked it for my university degree. Little did I know I’d find it so incredibly fascinating. I love nerding out on languages, which is what keeps me in it today!

Lingua: When you first entered the industry, was community something on your mind? As you experienced it, what was the landscape of professional networks and opportunities for connection like then? Did you expect that you'd one day become community builders?

Anikó: When I started working full time in the industry, I was employed at a boutique agency, so it felt a bit like living in our own bubble, in our own mini community. I only started exploring different networks and communities once I became a freelancer, mainly to feel part of a community again, get to know new people and to learn from others. It wasn’t really the plan to start a community of my own – Kelsey and I started building #TeamTranslator because we felt there was a gap in the community market, so to speak.

Kelsey: My story is a lot like Anikó’s. I started out working at a boutique agency that didn’t really encourage community-building, but once I went freelance I really dove right into it. LinkedIn was where I first started to find both online and in-person networks and meet-ups. I was living in London at the time so there was really no shortage of opportunities. But I definitely didn’t set out to become a community builder at first. With Anikó, it all happened super organically.

A screenshot from the #TeamTranslator website: “A positive, inclusive group for the global community of freelancers in the translation industry to support each other.”

Lingua: Tell me the story of how #TeamTranslator came to be. Were you drawn together specifically to launch a community or had you known each other for a long time? What was the need you were seeing that a community answered? Why Slack?

Anikó: We met volunteering for another organisation, and when the idea for a supportive community for freelancers came to us, we had already known each other and worked together for about two years. We talked a lot about the state of the industry, and why so many freelancers are so frustrated with their situation. We’ve found that there are a lot of spaces online where there is room to vent but felt that they weren’t encouraging to find solutions for problems together or truly celebrating our wins. Where anyone can ask questions without judgement.

Kelsey: I think Anikó and I could really feel the frustration out there amongst the freelance translation community. There were so many Facebook groups where translators gathered to air out bad clients or express their annoyance at people offering low rates. We wanted to kind of turn that on its head and ask, “How can we turn this into a positive experience?” We went through several iterations of just what we could do before we eventually landed on #TeamTranslator as a Slack group with additional resources. Slack is probably the most common professional messaging tool, and we wanted to make it as frictionless as possible for people to sign up and get involved. If they had to learn a whole new tool, I don’t think it would’ve taken off as easily as it did.

Lingua: Describe a day-in-the-life of managing the #TeamTranslator community. Who is the team behind it? Is everyone volunteer? What's the balance between purposefully nurturing the community and allowing things to organically happen?

Anikó: It really varies day-by-day, there is no typical day or week at #TeamTranslator! Our HQ, as we call it, is just me and Kelsey. We have a weekly meeting to discuss our plans and ideas for the community, and then we each spend a few hours every week to tick some to-dos off the list. We’re usually texting or sending voice notes to each other nearly every day.

We also keep an eye on the Slack conversations and step in if needed. In such a large community as #TeamTranslator, we couldn’t do this without help. We have an amazing five-person moderation team that’s become invaluable.

All seven of us are working as volunteers, dedicating our own free time to the community.

Although there is room for organic development, we are quite purposeful in a way when it comes to improving on how the community works. What I mean is that we don’t have a five-year plan or some grand goals set but we do try to keep everything together and organised. Before introducing something new or making a change, we always ask ourselves: is this supporting #TeamTranslator’s mission? Is it in line with the ethos of our community?

When we launched #TeamTranslator in 2022, we set up some thematic channels to help steer the conversations. We also have semi-regular, informal discussions we call #TTTeas that always centre around topics that are important and hopefully interesting to freelance translators. We hold online co-working sessions twice a week, and recently launched our expert-led webinars.

Overall, we always encourage feedback from our members – we’ve just very recently added a new channel, #skill-swap, to our list based on a member suggestion. If we have a new idea, we don’t just abandon it because it’s not part of the “original plan”.

So maybe purposefully organic is the best way to put this!

Lingua: Paint a picture of the dynamics of the #TeamTranslator community. Have you seen any unexpected friendships or professional partnerships emerge through the community? How do you encourage collaboration instead of competition, encourage give instead of only take?

Kelsey: We’ve honestly been really lucky, and I think that’s in large part due to the work we did pre-launch to make it super clear what the goal of the group was. The community really bought into the idea that this is a positive and supportive space. Of course, like Anikó said, we do have the step in and moderate sometimes, but I think the fact that we have over 2,100 members means that we’d created the kind of group that people desperately wanted within the industry.

And there’s been so many wild and wonderful connections happening because of the community. We regularly see members posting photos of them meeting up in real life when someone’s visiting a new city. I’ve even had someone I’d never met before stay in my flat for a few days before they went off hiking in the Scottish Highlands!

We also have other groups forming, like someone who’s currently putting together a creative writing group specifically for translators. Accountability groups have sprung up here and there. People recommending and tagging each other for jobs. I genuinely think that everyone just wants to help where they can and is happy to see others succeed.

And, of course, we have entire channels dedicated to the highs and lows of freelancing. #winners-circle for when something awesome has happened and you want some colleagues to celebrate with, and #let-it-out for those times you just need a little support. It’s amazing because we often see people who’d originally posted on #let-it-out come back with a #winners-circle update thanks to the advice they were given.

Lingua: You put in a lot of effort shepherding the #TeamTranslator community, giving it your time and energy. What do you get back, personally and professionally? What has been your favorite moment or experience in the life of this community?

Anikó: On a personal level, it’s absolutely a wonderful feeling that we can provide a platform for our fellow freelancers to talk about the things that matter in a productive way, that we can contribute a little to making the industry a bit better. And also, #TeamTranslator is a great creative outlet. I love coming up with new initiatives, refining rough ideas together, brainstorming with Kelsey.

On a professional level, it’s great to read everyone’s suggestions and tips! Even if I don’t participate in many of the conversations that happen on Slack, I do read them and learn a lot.

My favourite moment? I couldn’t tell you when exactly it happened, but I remember the feeling when we first learnt that a #TeamTranslator member recommended the community to a colleague at a conference we weren’t even attending! Somehow it was so surreal that people were talking about #TeamTranslator when we weren't in the room – like our little baby of a community grew up and started living its own life!

Kelsey: #TeamTranslator is for sure a passion project. I don’t think that Anikó or I would be half as willing to give the time and energy we do to it if we didn’t believe that it was doing good in the industry. I also think that, on some level, Anikó and I weren’t ready to stop working together. When you find someone you click with like that, especially as a freelancer, you hold on to them.

I also won’t lie and say that being the co-founder of a community like this doesn’t have its perks! It’s really, really nice when people take the time to thank us for #TT, and I think that it’s garnered a lot of goodwill from the industry as a whole. We’re also regularly invited to give our thoughts in cool spaces like this and people want to hear what we have to say. By virtue of founding #TT, we’ve become authorities in the industry, and we definitely don’t take that for granted.

In terms of my favourite moment, it’s probably a tie. It’s either those wild first three days after we launched where over 250 people joined, or when #TeamTranslator won Women-Led Community of the Year at the Digital Women Awards. Both were such “pinch me” moments, like, “Wow, we’re really doing this, huh?”

Lingua: It's quite a tumultuous time to be a translator, given the disruptions that AI has brought to the industry. From the vantage point of the #TeamTranslator community, how are you seeing these disruptions play out? What role is the community playing in helping freelance translators to weather the storm?

Anikó: The surprising thing is that we don’t actually get THAT many conversations specifically about AI. But perhaps not surprisingly, when AI is mentioned, it’s usually brought up in a negative way. As I see it, professional translators are not necessarily frustrated by AI as a new tool but how much it’s oversold to clients while more often than not it underdelivers. In many cases translators feel it’s forced on them without any gain in quality or productivity.

Of course, a community like #TeamTranslator cannot solve these kinds of issues on its own, however, it can provide a great place to share worrying thoughts to lighten the stress, to feel some comradery that we are not alone with these issues, and just as importantly, to exchange ideas on how to set boundaries when it comes to AI use.

Lingua: These days, AI as a topic tends to suck up all the air in a room, but there are plenty of other issues that freelance translators grapple with. Again, from the vantage point of the #TeamTranslator community, what big things are on the mind of members these days besides AI?

Kelsey: I think the cost-of-living crisis has hit everyone, so our members are even more wary about where they spend their money. We see a lot of discussions on what the best tools are, the best conferences, the best CPD, etc. Using #TeamTranslator as it was designed – a shared pool of knowledge – is a fantastic resource for a lot of people.

And because of the cost of living and AI, lots of people are trying to focus on “future-proofing” their careers. I don’t know how much I like that word, personally, but I do think that as freelancers we always need to be learning. We like to be a space where people can do that.

Other than that, I’d say we’re looking at your standard freelancer worries: how to navigate difficult clients, where’s the best place to find job opportunities, using our time and energy effectively when we’re marketing, etc. There’s nothing necessarily revolutionary happening in #TeamTranslator, and I think that’s exactly what’s great about it. It’s just a bunch of people offering advice and support through those very real freelance experiences.

Lingua: What do you expect the future holds for the #TeamTranslator community? Any big plans?

Anikó: We’re always full of ideas, all I can say is “watch this space”!

Kelsey: Agreed. Even if we told you the big plans, they’ll probably look a lot different six months from now!