| Páginas no tópico: < [1 2 3] > | Poll: In which rate range would you include your average per word translation rate? (in €) Tópico cartaz: ProZ.com Staff
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Paul Adie wrote:
I'm happy to see translators actually discussing rates, not saying things like "I'd charge double that", "oh, I charge more than that" or "I think that's far too low". I think we need to lose our embarrassment of talking about specific rates. Hi Paul,
If you are soooooo keen on discussing rate and making them transparent, why aren't they on you profile? There are tons of people here who have their rates displayed on their profiles (including me), so I don't think they're "embarrassed" at all.
Second, do the professional associations of your country, or those you belong to, not publish surveys on rates? The French translators' association does that, the survey is open to everybody (members and non-members) and so are the results.
| | | | Paul Adie (X) 
Alemanha
espanhol para inglês
+ ...
| You are right! | May 4, 2011 |
Sophie Dzhygir wrote: Paul Adie wrote:
I'm happy to see translators actually discussing rates, not saying things like "I'd charge double that", "oh, I charge more than that" or "I think that's far too low". I think we need to lose our embarrassment of talking about specific rates. Hi Paul, If you are soooooo keen on discussing rate and making them transparent, why aren't they on you profile? There are tons of people here who have their rates displayed on their profiles (including me), so I don't think they're "embarrassed" at all. Second, do the professional associations of your country, or those you belong to, not publish surveys on rates? The French translators' association does that, the survey is open to everybody (members and non-members) and so are the results.
You are quite right to bring that point up Sophie. I'll have to add this information to my profile, and give it a good clean out!
Happy translating,
Paul.
Edit: Rates now included in profile.
[Edited at 2011-05-04 13:01 GMT]
| | | | | Couldn't agree more with B D Finch: | May 4, 2011 |
Sadly there are translators whose output is little better than machine translation, many of whom work into a target language that they might claim is their mother tongue, but that clearly isn't. There are also those who imagine that they can pick a specialist area of which they have zero experience and working knowledge and muddle their way through. The above should consider themselves lucky to get even the lowest rates in the poll.
On the other hand, there are highly skilled and competent translators who deliver accurate translations, which could have been written by a professional in that field. They deserve to be in the top category.
| | | | Interlangue (X)
Angola
Local time: 04:57
inglês para francês
+ ...
Caroline Riera-Darsalia wrote: Tim Drayton wrote:
I work in a pair with an expansion of about 55% from source to target word count, so the question is meaningless unless this point is specified. I guess, the expansion in TR > FR may sometimes be higher than for TR > EN, I understand you very well, Tim! Unfortunately, some people don't consider this fact at all when they charge pro source word. Some project managers don't know that Turkish is an agglunative language (!!!), some probably know but do as if they don't know  Anyway, good agencies finally accept fare rates... I don't have so many direct customers but usually I had good experiences: they understand better, probably because the direct dialogue we have with them is a bit different. I'm rewriting my website since we are creating a cooperative translation office with 3 other colleagues. 2 of them work on Turkish > French of French > Turkish, our common profile: http://www.proz.com/profile/1398853. In the new version, we will give more information about the characteristics of our language pairs and we decided for example to mention clearly why the rates we apply for TR > FR and FR > TR are a bit different... In my opinion, as translators working in such pairs, we should communicate much more about this kind of specificities!!!
Prices per word seem perfectly unfair. IMHO, the ideal count is the one of the EC (page = 1500 source characters, no spaces). If you use target lines/pages, some colleagues tend to "forget" to be concise, if you enclose spaces, some source/target texts are unnecessarily full of them.
As I get quite a few image pdf files, target line is my usual count.
For private individuals who come with their paper document, I make an estimate (lump sum) and stick to it - tough luck for me if the estimate was on the low side, sorry for the customer if it is the other way around... Let's say that in that case, it pays for counting and figuring out before knowing whether I will get the job or not.
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Thayenga
Alemanha
Local time: 04:57
Membro (2009)
inglês para alemão
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Oliver Lawrence wrote:
Sadly there are translators whose output is little better than machine translation, many of whom work into a target language that they might claim is their mother tongue, but that clearly isn't. There are also those who imagine that they can pick a specialist area of which they have zero experience and working knowledge and muddle their way through. The above should consider themselves lucky to get even the lowest rates in the poll.
On the other hand, there are highly skilled and competent translators who deliver accurate translations, which could have been written by a professional in that field. They deserve to be in the top category.
| | | | David Wright
Áustria
Local time: 04:57
alemão para inglês
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Mary Worby wrote: David Wright wrote:
I only charge per line, and god (delete and enter appropriate deity or absence thereof i f appropriate) knows what it is in words Just out of curiosity, where are your clients, David? I work for agencies all over Europe and haven't been asked for a line rate in years! Personally, my average rate falls between two options, so I answered the more optimistic one. I'm slightly dismayed by the results of the poll thus far, though. There are a lot of people out there working for very low rates ... but I guess we knew that.
Germany, Austria, France - very few - and Switzerland. I refuse to quote in words, mainly because whenever I have been asked to do so thay have wanted a source text basis, which is very misleading for German.
| | | | ChrisGT
Canadá
Local time: 22:57
Membro (2008)
inglês para francês
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| Totally agree also! | May 4, 2011 |
B D Finch wrote:
Sadly there are translators whose output is little better than machine translation, many of whom work into a target language that they might claim is their mother tongue, but that clearly isn't. There are also those who imagine that they can pick a specialist area of which they have zero experience and working knowledge and muddle their way through without even investing in a single specialist dictionary or trying to study the field they have chosen to parachute into. The above should consider themselves lucky to get even the lowest rates in the poll.
On the other hand, there are highly skilled and competent translators with working experience of specialist areas, who read widely in their area, attend and work hard at learning from conferences and training events and who deliver accurate translations, which could have been written by a professional in that field. They deserve to be in the top category.
BDF
[Edited at 2011-05-04 10:04 GMT]
My rates are very high compared to what I see here, even for competent professional translators.
I do translate mostly documents related to the medical, health and well-being industries so they tend to be more technical, but my average rate is 28 cents/word for direct clients. I've always refused to work for an agency in view of the low rates they offer... I've got lots of experience and a degree in translation so I consider that I am worth more than what they offer, and I've always been very adamant about that from the very start.
I started off charging much less many years ago, but then I read that clients who want good quality translations (and it's like that in every field) will be willing to pay more and will seek out a translator that charges more, so... I took the BIG LEAP! ... and started charging more... and it worked!! It was scary doing that, but I kept thinking about what that successful translator had said and I just did it!
So I DO encourage people to try it with their new clients, because translators with experience and a degree in translation should definitely be paid more from what I see here.
ps - For those who will go check my profile and wonder why my rates are not posted, it's because I am not looking for contracts on proz.com.
| | | | Jeff Whittaker
Estados Unidos
Local time: 22:57
espanhol para inglês
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| Very very sad poll results indeed | May 4, 2011 |
What do young translators think about their future and their ability to earn a living in the future when translation rates have not increased in 20 years?
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Mary Worby
Reino Unido
Local time: 03:57
alemão para inglês
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David Wright wrote: Mary Worby wrote: David Wright wrote:
I only charge per line, and god (delete and enter appropriate deity or absence thereof i f appropriate) knows what it is in words Just out of curiosity, where are your clients, David? I work for agencies all over Europe and haven't been asked for a line rate in years! Germany, Austria, France - very few - and Switzerland. I refuse to quote in words, mainly because whenever I have been asked to do so thay have wanted a source text basis, which is very misleading for German.
Indeed so. I'm sure I've had German source words which have taken up entire lines! I do have some customer who are happy to accept a target word rate, but most, as you say, insist on a source word count. Presumably it's easier for them to budget that way.
I worked out a spreadsheet of per word to per line rates, based on a couple of hundred thousand words of translation. So I can quote per line, but didn't actually know any agencies out there still used them!
| | | | Lisa McCreadie (X)
Estados Unidos
Local time: 19:57
espanhol para inglês
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| To be concise... | May 4, 2011 |
Jeff Whittaker wrote:
What do young translators think about their future and their ability to earn a living in the future when translation rates have not increased in 20 years?
I think this is a very stressful job for not much money but I'd rather do this and sit in my pyjamas, enjoying all the other benefits of being independent, than sit in an office doing something I hate for someone I hate!
It is scary though.
| | | | | Source vs Target | May 4, 2011 |
I prefer a source word count, as it allows both the agency/client and translator to see the price for the job upfront. If it's target, no-one really knows the amount payable until after the fact.
After years of working for ridiculous 0.04 EUR-type rates, I now charge agencies at least 0.10 EUR per source word. This does increase depending on the complexity/specialisation level of the text, but sometimes still works out to less than the minimum hourly wage *sigh*.
[Edited at ... See more I prefer a source word count, as it allows both the agency/client and translator to see the price for the job upfront. If it's target, no-one really knows the amount payable until after the fact.
After years of working for ridiculous 0.04 EUR-type rates, I now charge agencies at least 0.10 EUR per source word. This does increase depending on the complexity/specialisation level of the text, but sometimes still works out to less than the minimum hourly wage *sigh*.
[Edited at 2011-05-04 17:09 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | £25 per 1000 words Legal | May 4, 2011 |
Jeff Whittaker wrote:
What do young translators think about their future and their ability to earn a living in the future when translation rates have not increased in 20 years?
Well, there should be standard reply when an agency calls you and asks you to 'edit' a 2000 word Legal document that they have run through their TM, and is 80%+ fuzzy (or makes no sense what-so-ever), and they are offering £25 per 1000 on their pre-set target words. These jobs are advertised on here. So what do you say?
[Edited at 2011-05-04 20:31 GMT]
[Edited at 2011-05-04 20:32 GMT]
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| Nice to see someone else has noticed this as well..... | May 4, 2011 |
B D Finch wrote:
I think that this is fairly meaningless unless the rates are correlated with other information:
* Language pair
* Specialist field
* Qualifications and experience
* Competence generally and in specialist field
Sadly there are translators whose output is little better than machine translation, many of whom work into a target language that they might claim is their mother tongue, but that clearly isn't. There are also those who imagine that they can pick a specialist area of which they have zero experience and working knowledge and muddle their way through without even investing in a single specialist dictionary or trying to study the field they have chosen to parachute into. The above should consider themselves lucky to get even the lowest rates in the poll.
On the other hand, there are highly skilled and competent translators with working experience of specialist areas, who read widely in their area, attend and work hard at learning from conferences and training events and who deliver accurate translations, which could have been written by a professional in that field. They deserve to be in the top category.
BDF
[Edited at 2011-05-04 10:04 GMT]
| | | | Daniel Gebauer
Espanha
Local time: 04:57
Membro
espanhol para alemão
+ ...
| Why do you do it? | May 4, 2011 |
I consider myself a "functional" translator, as opposed to a literature translator. Whenever I read these complaints, I ask myself: Why do they do the job? I must confess, I consider myself fairly paid because I always get what I ask for. If I don't get it, I will not do the job.
isabel murillo wrote:
I consider myself not a "technical" translator but a books translator: I mainly translate fiction and non fiction books from English to Spanish.
And although I work for the most reputed publishing houses in Spain, and although I have nearly 20 years of experience as a translator, and although I have translated around 200 titles, some of them from authors reputed worldwide... the fact is that the rates for the literary translation in Spain have nothing to do with a charge per word.
Current maximum maximum rates, for a translator with my background, are 12 euros / 1800 characters; however the standard rates I perceive are 11 euros /2100 characters. (With characters I mean characters+spaces in a Word file).
I don't dare to translate this to the standard word rate that applies to the technical translations... I am afraid I would die ipso facto!
For tell you the truth, I can't envision a way to solve this tremendeous gap. We are all translators, and everybody faces his/her own particular challenges. I assure you one thing: doing a quality translation of a book is not easy at all! To understand the feelings and nuances of the author, his style and his characters is tricky, at best.
well... just my five cents on a very busy day!
| | | | isabelmurill (X)
Local time: 04:57
inglês para espanhol
+ ...
| I translate because I love my work | May 4, 2011 |
Daniel,
You are a lucky man if you always get what you ask for! Happy you.
And I consider myself a lucky woman, because I love my work! Happy me.
Perhaps I am one of the last romantics in a world full of materialism and I don't work only for money, but for the pleasure of it!
My post was not intended as a complaint, but as an statement of a fact that exists and doesn't have any logical basis from my point of view.
Hope this answe... See more Daniel,
You are a lucky man if you always get what you ask for! Happy you.
And I consider myself a lucky woman, because I love my work! Happy me.
Perhaps I am one of the last romantics in a world full of materialism and I don't work only for money, but for the pleasure of it!
My post was not intended as a complaint, but as an statement of a fact that exists and doesn't have any logical basis from my point of view.
Hope this answers your question on why I (and I am sure, others like me) do my job.
Daniel Gebauer wrote: I consider myself a "functional" translator, as opposed to a literature translator. Whenever I read these complaints, I ask myself: Why do they do the job? I must confess, I consider myself fairly paid because I always get what I ask for. If I don't get it, I will not do the job. isabel murillo wrote:
I consider myself not a "technical" translator but a books translator: I mainly translate fiction and non fiction books from English to Spanish.
And although I work for the most reputed publishing houses in Spain, and although I have nearly 20 years of experience as a translator, and although I have translated around 200 titles, some of them from authors reputed worldwide... the fact is that the rates for the literary translation in Spain have nothing to do with a charge per word.
Current maximum maximum rates, for a translator with my background, are 12 euros / 1800 characters; however the standard rates I perceive are 11 euros /2100 characters. (With characters I mean characters+spaces in a Word file).
I don't dare to translate this to the standard word rate that applies to the technical translations... I am afraid I would die ipso facto!
For tell you the truth, I can't envision a way to solve this tremendeous gap. We are all translators, and everybody faces his/her own particular challenges. I assure you one thing: doing a quality translation of a book is not easy at all! To understand the feelings and nuances of the author, his style and his characters is tricky, at best.
well... just my five cents on a very busy day! ▲ Collapse
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