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How much do freelance translators earn?
Thread poster: EmmitaMango
PRen (X)
PRen (X)
Canada
Local time: 09:31
French to English
+ ...
Yes, Apr 16, 2009

Lawyer-Linguist wrote:

Samuel Murray wrote:

ut conversely the higher you charge the more specialised your work is likely to be, which in turn may lead to fewer words per hour anyway.


... the more specialised your work is, the smaller the pool of qualified translators to do it. If anything, that leads to more words per hour for those who actually make the grade.

Depends of course on the actual specialisation -- I can only speak from personal experience, i.e. the demand for legal translation in my language pairs (especially Dutch). [/quote]

Very true - there's a lot of translation work going begging in my neck of the woods, in my language combination, because of a shortage of skilled / certified translators.
 
Silvia G. (X)
Silvia G. (X)
Switzerland
Local time: 14:31
German to Italian
+ ...
Not in Italy, but it's possible elsewhere Apr 16, 2009

milena ferrante wrote:

My honest advice. If you have a permanent job, just keep it.
These are hard times and I really doubt it would be possible to make what you expect (especially at the beginning).



Well, in Italy you don't make that money (which I guess is the money the OP makes now) with a permanent job either...!

milena ferrante wrote:
At least in Italy translators are paid on average 0.05-0.04 euro per word and even less (I'm not kidding) and the market is highly competitive and you need to pay taxes.


Do you mean for general translations or even for specialty fields?

milena ferrante wrote:
When I once sent a CV in Italy for Russian-Italian they replied telling me my rates were too high since they already had native Russians cooperating with them at 0.02 euro per word or even less....I was shocked.


Russians translating into Italian? Quality will not be worth more than 0.02 cents anyway...but if it's really what an agency wants to show their clients, they can go for it!

milena ferrante wrote:
Maybe Italians are on the wrong side of the planet...but that's what you get...at least here...


Just the wrong side of the Alps


To go back to the topic: I have a knowledge of the Swiss market, even if I just started, and I know experienced translators who can make 60k a year working full time. Rates are high in Switzerland, as are the salaries. I know salaries to be pretty high in the UK too, so rates should not be bad there either.
I think it's hard to make that money when you start, I would also give the advice of taking a part time job and then ease into the translation business.




[Edited at 2009-04-16 20:28 GMT]
 
Vincenzo Di Maso
Vincenzo Di Maso  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 13:31
Member (2009)
English to Italian
+ ...
that's not on average Jan 3, 2017

milena ferrante wrote:

My honest advice. If you have a permanent job, just keep it.

These are hard times and I really doubt it would be possible to make what you expect (especially at the beginning).

At least in Italy translators are paid on average 0.05-0.04 euro per word and even less (I'm not kidding) and the market is highly competitive and you need to pay taxes. Don't know about the UK market.

When I once sent a CV in Italy for Russian-Italian they replied telling me my rates were too high since they already had native Russians cooperating with them at 0.02 euro per word or even less....I was shocked.

Maybe Italians are on the wrong side of the planet...but that's what you get...at least here...

I beg your pardon but I disagree.
I work with Italian companies, and I actually don't find it hard to get at least 0.07 or 0.08 euros per word.
I agree that there are a lot of customers unwilling to pay that price per word but this occurs in all Countries. Probabily in the Italian market that's more. The problem in Italy is the tax system. Why the hell should a translators pay 60-70% of their income? What are the services? If politicians used that money for community that would be better, although that tax percentage is unsustainable. In many other Countries, conversely, tax pressure is much lower and translators are willing to fulfill their tax duties.
I have the same problem as you with Arabic. They have people from Arab countries working at 0.04 Euros per word. Then I have colleagues who lived several years in the UK, and translation companies are unwilling to accept them as they are not native... The issue is they don't care about ethics when they see profits can be great. Figure out: 0.04 to an Arab translator, 0.04 to a proofreader, end client paying 0.25... Huge profit even after taxes! That's terrible.
 
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How much do freelance translators earn?







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