| Pages in topic: [1 2 3] > | IS 0.02 for translating acceptable? Thread poster: Dirk Wouters
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Dirk Wouters 
Belgium
Local time: 19:09
Member (2005)
English to Dutch
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I have a client that is also a freelance translator, she came to me with a project of around 80,000 words from dutch into english (I am native Dutch) at a rate of 0,02. Who of you would take this job? She said she will do the proofreading and gets a total of 0,05. Is this 40% translator, 60%outsourcer a fair deal yes or no?
[Subject edited by staff or moderator 2004-12-03 17:18]
| | | | Atenea Acevedo (X)
Local time: 11:09
English to Spanish
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| Nooooooooooooooooo | Nov 30, 2004 |
No way!
Atenea
| | | | | I hope you're joking | Nov 30, 2004 |
If you're not, then tell her to translate the whole thing herself. That way she gets to keep the WHOLE nickel per word.
Even 0.05/word is outrageously low, especially for a language pair like yours.
My two cents (no pun intended),
Catherine
| | | | Ralf Lemster
Germany
Local time: 19:09
English to German
+ ...
| Hard to see how this could be feasible | Nov 30, 2004 |
Hi Dirk,
Welcome to the forums.
Please don't get me wrong, but the issue of pricing has been discussed numerous times. May I suggest you have a look at past discussions on this issue?
That said, I guess you can answer the question yourself, simply by looking at your fixed costs, your average output per hour and your target income per hour worked.
Frankly, the business rationale of taking a job at 5 cents and then trying to outsource the translation pa... See more Hi Dirk,
Welcome to the forums.
Please don't get me wrong, but the issue of pricing has been discussed numerous times. May I suggest you have a look at past discussions on this issue?
That said, I guess you can answer the question yourself, simply by looking at your fixed costs, your average output per hour and your target income per hour worked.
Frankly, the business rationale of taking a job at 5 cents and then trying to outsource the translation part is lost on me...
Best regards,
Ralf ▲ Collapse
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Dirk Wouters
Belgium
Local time: 19:09
Member (2005)
English to Dutch
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thank you Ralf for your reply and I agree.
The point of my post is to make my point with her, because I am trying to convince her to give me 0,03 (which I know is still ridiculously low, but I am hoping on more translations and I live in Spain so prices here are very low especially for young translator like me) and I would like to redirect her to this page so she can see for herself that my opinion is not that ridiculous.
thanks
Hi Dirk,
Welcome to the forums.
... See more Thank you Ralf for your reply and I agree.
The point of my post is to make my point with her, because I am trying to convince her to give me 0,03 (which I know is still ridiculously low, but I am hoping on more translations and I live in Spain so prices here are very low especially for young translator like me) and I would like to redirect her to this page so she can see for herself that my opinion is not that ridiculous.
thanks
Hi Dirk,
Welcome to the forums.
Please don't get me wrong, but the issue of pricing has been discussed numerous times. May I suggest you have a look at past discussions on this issue?
That said, I guess you can answer the question yourself, simply by looking at your fixed costs, your average output per hour and your target income per hour worked.
Frankly, the business rationale of taking a job at 5 cents and then trying to outsource the translation part is lost on me...
Best regards,
Ralf
[/quote] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Very low rate even for Spain | Nov 30, 2004 |
Welkom Dirk!
I translate in the same language combinations as you do and even for Spain these are extremely low rates. The standard for the language pair Dutch to English and English to Dutch in Spain is around 0.06 EUR. I know several translators in Spain that charge these rates or even higher.
There is even a job posted earlier today by an agency based in Spain that was offering 0.05 per word (same language combination... See more Welkom Dirk!
I translate in the same language combinations as you do and even for Spain these are extremely low rates. The standard for the language pair Dutch to English and English to Dutch in Spain is around 0.06 EUR. I know several translators in Spain that charge these rates or even higher.
There is even a job posted earlier today by an agency based in Spain that was offering 0.05 per word (same language combination): http://www.proz.com/job/67060
Just giving you more ammunition!
Kind regards,
Marijke ▲ Collapse
| | | | arterm
Serbia
Local time: 19:09
English to Russian
Dear Colleagues,
It seems strange in terms of business to count other's money.
I would suggest Dirk to simply count his own benefits about this project rather than counting what his client earns. Just decide if 50 USD/EUR per day is acceptable.
If you have enough of work you can easily deny this offer.
If you have nothing else to do, why not to work and gain 1600 USD. take repetetive words into consideration, maybe there are 50000 repetitive words?
What I wan... See more Dear Colleagues,
It seems strange in terms of business to count other's money.
I would suggest Dirk to simply count his own benefits about this project rather than counting what his client earns. Just decide if 50 USD/EUR per day is acceptable.
If you have enough of work you can easily deny this offer.
If you have nothing else to do, why not to work and gain 1600 USD. take repetetive words into consideration, maybe there are 50000 repetitive words?
What I wanted to say is that this decision is very simple and should not be motivated by phraseology like "fair/not fair", just evaluate your benefits and risks and make an informed decision basing on your per hour rates
have a great day
Arterm Sedov
[Edited at 2004-11-30 19:37] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Marc P (X)
Local time: 19:09
German to English
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| IS 0,02 for translating acceptable? | Nov 30, 2004 |
Are you self-employed? Guess what: you get to decide.
Marc
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arterm
Serbia
Local time: 19:09
English to Russian
| Agree 100% with MarcPrior | Nov 30, 2004 |
MarcPrior wrote: Are you self-employed? Guess what: you get to decide. Marc
| | | | Dirk Wouters
Belgium
Local time: 19:09
Member (2005)
English to Dutch
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
I agree, I know I get to decide. I just wanted some back-up on my opinion that 0,02 is not acceptable. By the way, this rate would be for non-matches with trados only.
| | | | Andy Watkinson
Spain
Local time: 19:09
Member
Catalan to English
+ ...
| Unacceptable | Nov 30, 2004 |
Dirk Wouters wrote:
I agree, I know I get to decide. I just wanted some back-up on my opinion that 0,02 is not acceptable. By the way, this rate would be for non-matches with trados only.
| | | | ncfialho (X)
Local time: 18:09
German to Portuguese
+ ...
| Proofreading better paid than translation???? | Nov 30, 2004 |
Hi,
I would say as translation is the more difficult part of the job, agree with her that either she does the translation and you do the proofreading or she stays with 0,02 and you get the 0,03 for translating.
Thats fairer than the other way round.
Good luck,
Natália
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| there are 2 issues here imho | Nov 30, 2004 |
First of all, translation is by far the harder of the 2 jobs (this is from someone who works as an editor), and *should* be paid better than proof reading.
Secondly, 0.02 is very very little indeed. Of course, it is your decision but I strongly disagree with the notion of "if you have nothing better to do, take whatever you can". The problem with this approach is that there are 2 markets in translation; the commodity market and the luxury market. If you want to be working for 0.02 ... See more First of all, translation is by far the harder of the 2 jobs (this is from someone who works as an editor), and *should* be paid better than proof reading.
Secondly, 0.02 is very very little indeed. Of course, it is your decision but I strongly disagree with the notion of "if you have nothing better to do, take whatever you can". The problem with this approach is that there are 2 markets in translation; the commodity market and the luxury market. If you want to be working for 0.02 forever (someone who pays you 0.02 per word is not likely to offer you 0.10 for the next job) then you take anything you can get. If you want to eventually be paid what top pros are paid, then start _only a little_ below them.
I remember taking a couple of jobs for $0.04 and $0.05 per word when I was getting started, and I honestly regret it now...for many reasons.
Freelance translation is not easy so my advice would be: don't give up your other job (assuming you have one) and try to find clients who pay acceptable prices, slowly but surely building up a clientelle of serious people. Of course, if you spent your last penny on getting into freelancing, do take anything, because you'll die of starvation otherwise...but if you have another source of income, don't act as if you're desperate.
As an example, the average price for my language pairs on Proz is 0.10-0.11 per word, start at 0.07-0.08 and you will be able to gradually build up to that average as you gain in experience and reputation.
Given the volume, I don't think 0.05 is all that bad (if it's Euros at least), that's about $0.07-0.08 per word, which is OK, since that's a month's work.
To Artem: I don't see how we're counting other people's money - Dirk asked, we responded.
Just remember - start as you mean to go on.
[Edited at 2004-11-30 20:57] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Parrot
Spain
Local time: 19:09
Spanish to English
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| The best Spanish proofreading rate I've seen | Nov 30, 2004 |
was 33% (1/3) of translation rates. 25% is more common.
BTW, 0.05 isn't an acceptable translation rate for what the APETI considers a B (Germanic) language. (Their going rate in 1992 was 0.052, still in pesetas). And APETI don't exactly set their sights as high as the rest of the EU ...
[Edited at 2004-11-30 20:59]
| | | | Marc P (X)
Local time: 19:09
German to English
+ ...
| IS 0,02 for translating acceptable? | Nov 30, 2004 |
Dirk Wouters wrote:
I just wanted some back-up on my opinion that 0,02 is not acceptable.
Wrong approach. As soon as you say "a colleague of mine in the Rhineland says that 0.14 euro/(English) word is a reasonable agency rate", you invite your customer to point to other suppliers willing to work for 0.01. That's not the kind of negotiation you want.
You need to convince your customer that she can't afford to pay *as little as* 0.02/word. You also need to do some hard thinking yourself. Any business that consistently pays its suppliers less than an acceptable price runs, sooner or later, into quality problems (the process is known as "Lopezization"). You can't get consistently high-quality Dutch-to-English translations for 2 eurocents a word, as you know full well. If it were possible, I'd probably give up translating and set up an agency myself.
Marc
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