Calculations based on Trados analyses unfair?
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| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] | | User | Thread poster: Igor Indruch Calculations based on Trados analyses unfair? |
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Jerzy Czopik 
Germany
 Member (2003)
Polish to German
+ ...
MODERATOR | | This is still a big difference | Jul 16 |
PRen wrote:
Jerzy Czopik wrote:
Your end customer, no agency, having no clue about Trados or other CAT tools, has a tender for you to translate. In due course you also translate all this administratory stuff needed to place an offer to this tender (ie balance sheet, excerpt from commercial register and so on). All documents are actual in the date of this tender. Three months later you get another tender to translate, with all the same administratory stuff with slight changes. The commercial register has one position more, some other documents have only a different date, some different numbers within. The volume in total is both times several thousand words. But the second time you don't neeed to translate more than 50% of the stuff, but just replace dates and so on. Will you charge your customer in full for the second job? And if yes, will you do this with each tender? Quite certainly you will not keep this customer for a long time.
Jerzy |
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Well, to look at it another way, let's say I come up with a top notch wrench and start producing them in the thousands, millions, whatever, and set the price at $10. Should I charge $10 for the first wrench and then discount every wrench after that because it's exactly the same as the first wrench? Nope. True, some manufacturers give bulk discounts, for large orders of the same wrench, maybe orders over 100, 200, etc. If I have a top quality wrench, one the customers really want, I won't have to discount too deeply. And no one will have to go back and examine all the wrenches to make sure they're exactly the same. You get my drift. |
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OK, if I would produce wrenches, my calculation would have been a very different one.
You calculate then your engineering cost over the complete (estimated) series of products. Would car manufacturer think the way you tried to present, they would never sell a single car, as the price for the first one is exorbitant and the last one could be sold just for the material costs. This makes a big difference to our business - we do not produce series.
And coming back to my example, I find it morally not OK to charge the customer in full for just changing dates or doing 10% of the job.
| My gripe with Trados is the way it was, and still is, presented - a way to save the client (read, agency) money, not save the translator time. Really, it's a tool that agencies use to beat translators over the head. |
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I do not have this feeling at all. I use Trados both for agencies jobs and direct clients.
An example: you translate a contract from A to B, which will then be revised in B and returned to you to be translated back to A. Using Trados you can GUARANTEE the wording of not changed parts will be EXACTLY the same as it was before and all changed parts will be at least very similar.
| Good direct clients don't care what you use to get the job done - they just want it done, and generally quite quickly. And good direct clients are willing to pay you what you want to make this happen. |
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Indeed I see it the same way. So the customers do pay what we charge, of course. But even here some limits must be taken into account. Even direct customers are not blind and pay any sum you wish. So giving them some kind of bonus for returning similar jobs will help you keep them satisfied and paying the amounts you wish. At least in my experience.
| That's been my experience. I don't use Trados, because I don't want to babysit software, and from what I've seen on this and other fora, it causes no end of problems. I can work just as fast relying on my memory of what I've done for my clients in the past, and using a very simple search tool (X1) to call up previous translations so that I can see the whole document, context and all. |
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Well, again, this is your choice. But when you base your decisions on what you read in Internet fora, your life is really very limited. Or do you really think all cases reported here and elswhere are representative? Will you write anything about your PC/software, when it works properly? Quite certainly not. In most cases people go to fora and complain.
I have a lot of experience with two fora devoted to BMW cars. Would I base my decision on byuing such a car or not on what I read in forum, I would most probably buy a Dacia Logan. But I drive BMW since 1990 and cannot report even 1% of the problems other users report in those fora. The situation with Trados is similar. And on top, about 60% all reported cases are caused by lack of traing or knowledge by the user. This is not my own opinion, but what I've got from SDL Trados support.
 
| | | | Tomás Cano Binder
Spain
 Member (2005)
English to Spanish
+ ...
| | Trados, we could not live without it | Jul 17 |
PRen wrote:
I don't use Trados, because I don't want to babysit software, and from what I've seen on this and other fora, it causes no end of problems.
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I think translators have dug a very deep hole for themselves by buying into the Trados line, and I wonder if they'll ever be able to climb out.
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I sincerely recommend to go to some Trados dealer to have a thorough demonstration of the tool. After that, if you still don't like it and can't see the benefits, it might be just because the tool is not for you: you don't do big, repetitive, similar jobs for the same customer year after year.
Seeing car ads on TV I sometimes think "What a stupid ad! What a waste of my time watching this nonsense!". I then realise that I would never buy that car, as it does not cover my expectations for a car or my needs. Maybe Trados does not match the needs of your jobs and your approach about your work.
The matter is not whether Trados is good or bad technically or businesswise, but whether it matches your needs or not.
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