| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Transcription hourly rate Thread poster: Jennifer Greene
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Nick Zhu 
China
Local time: 16:00
English to Chinese
+ ...
Just happen to see this post. A client is asking me to do a transcription from Chinese to English for a audio worth of 60 minutes. I do not how much I should charge for this type of job.
Anyone knows?
| | | | Chunyi Chen
United States
Local time: 01:00
English to Chinese
| Your project has two parts | Feb 7, 2012 |
Hi Nick,
Transcription only involves transcribing what is being said to the written form. What your client wants is actually transcription+translation.
If I were you, I would charge hourly rate for the number of hours I spent on transcribing the audio content in Chinese. Then I would bill the translation part based on my per word rate using either source or target word count agreed upon before I start the job.
While 60 minutes of audio recording may not s... See more Hi Nick,
Transcription only involves transcribing what is being said to the written form. What your client wants is actually transcription+translation.
If I were you, I would charge hourly rate for the number of hours I spent on transcribing the audio content in Chinese. Then I would bill the translation part based on my per word rate using either source or target word count agreed upon before I start the job.
While 60 minutes of audio recording may not sound like a lot, it could turn into many hours of work based on my limited experience with such type of project.
Good luck!
Chun-yi
Nick Zhu wrote:
Just happen to see this post. A client is asking me to do a transcription from Chinese to English for a audio worth of 60 minutes. I do not how much I should charge for this type of job.
Anyone knows? ▲ Collapse
| | | | Nick Zhu
China
Local time: 16:00
English to Chinese
+ ...
I didn't expect such prompt a reply.
Thank you for the advice, Chun-yi.
It helps.
| | | | Kenny Cargill
United States
Local time: 01:00
Russian to English
+ ...
| Avoiding being a jack of all trades | Feb 28, 2013 |
Transcript Diva wrote:
Picking up Damians point, thinking strategically, isn't it two specialized and quite different tasks;
1 Transcription - i.e. turning speech into text
2 Translation - i.e. turning text into another language
These two tasks are different specialized skills, and unlikely to reside in equal measures in the same person. A person is going to be better at one of these than the other.
If this is true doesn't it make sense to match the right skill set to the right job , and pay the person accordingly.
Isn't it a better idea to focus as much time as possible on doing what you are best skilled at - and get someone else to do the other things.
“Coming together is the beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”
― Henry Ford.
I have to agree with this statement completely. Though there is always a temptation to offer as many kinds of services as possible in order to satisfy the client's needs, in the long run it is a fool's errand. Whereas this might be possible for a company or an agency that employs or contracts with different people with different skill sets, it is impossible for a freelance translator. Translators should focus on translation, and even on developing a specialization within translation, and leave transcription to others.
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Germaine
Canada
Local time: 04:00
English to French
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| Not so different tasks | Mar 1, 2013 |
Kenny Cargill wrote: Transcript Diva wrote:
1 Transcription - i.e. turning speech into text
2 Translation - i.e. turning text into another language
These two tasks are different specialized skills, and unlikely to reside in equal measures in the same person... Isn't it a better idea to focus as much time as possible on doing what you are best skilled at - and get someone else to do the other things. I have to agree with this statement completely. Though there is always a temptation to offer as many kinds of services as possible in order to satisfy the client's needs, in the long run it is a fool's errand. Whereas this might be possible for a company or an agency that employs or contracts with different people with different skill sets, it is impossible for a freelance translator. Translators should focus on translation, and even on developing a specialization within translation, and leave transcription to others.
I don't agree. Sure word processing and transcription are different tasks compared to translating, but they have an impact one on the other. Being a good typist and having a good knowledge of word processing speeds up the translation process. For being a good typist, transcription is not a problem (and the more you type, the faster you do). Doing it from different sources develops your auditory acuity, another advantage if you engage in audio/video translation (or even interpreting). Furthermore, offering word processing and transcription services in your area of specialization as a translator is another way of "studying/learning" while being paid for it. Finally, strategically, not only does it allow you to deliver "turn key" projects (a client who tasted it just wants more!), but it's also an easy (and often more relaxed) way of filling the gap$ between translation jobs.
I charge CAD$37/hr. for wordprocessing and transcription; 65$-$70/hr. for translation related services (plus taxes and expenses), which is less than any company downtown would charge but compares to the market in Montreal. This means $111 (assuming a good quality recording) for the job Transcript Diva is doing for $77.40. And I would happily work for ahmadwadan.com at $47/hour (should I decide to go "global", which I strongly doubt), leaving him with a very nice profit!
Rates have to be defined according to the market you're in, but also considering the expertise you offer. When I look at translation rates of $0.04 to $0.09 (or even $0.10) and hourly rates of $12-$15 in France, I don't know if these really are "fair market value" for a "professional", but I sure remember that as a buyer of translation, I was paying freelancers $0.15/word in 1991 and that a "brand new" translator I met last summer was planning to ask the same today! So what about experienced legal, technical, medical and other specialized translators or even about those carrying masters and Ph.D.?
I believe that the first step to improve each other market would be for the translator to "stick to its own" - and for the client to "buy home"! But then, economic laws are not so easy to break...
(Edited for a typo; there might be others...)
[Edited at 2013-03-01 06:05 GMT]
| | | | | Trancription rates | Jul 16, 2014 |
Hi there,
I am starting out as a freelance transcriber and want to verify an approximation for the rate I have been quoted. I used to work as a court transcriber here in Melbourne, Australia, so was then paid by the hour. The company I am looking at working for, as a freelancer, pays $30 per audio hour - and I am estimating that it may take me between four to five hours to type up one audio hour if the sound is clear. So that would roughly translate to just $6 an hour or maybe $7 an... See more Hi there,
I am starting out as a freelance transcriber and want to verify an approximation for the rate I have been quoted. I used to work as a court transcriber here in Melbourne, Australia, so was then paid by the hour. The company I am looking at working for, as a freelancer, pays $30 per audio hour - and I am estimating that it may take me between four to five hours to type up one audio hour if the sound is clear. So that would roughly translate to just $6 an hour or maybe $7 an hour - which is fairly low!
I also have another company I am considering working for, which is a court reporting firm, and they pay a little over 1 cent per word. So that sounds like it might be a lot more reasonable. I can type around 80 words per minute with fairly high accuracy, although of course it's not perfect.
If anyone has any ideas re these rates, especially the first one I mentioned, please share your opinions or ideas. Thank you! I should mention I am not a translator, it's all just in English, although there are always a multitude of accents.
[Edited at 2014-07-16 01:53 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Transcription services and high turnover | Jul 16, 2014 |
Transcript Diva wrote:
Picking up Damians point, thinking strategically, isn't it two specialized and quite different tasks;
1 Transcription - i.e. turning speech into text
2 Translation - i.e. turning text into another language
These two tasks are different specialized skills, and unlikely to reside in equal measures in the same person. A person is going to be better at one of these than the other.
If this is true doesn't it make sense to match the right skill set to the right job , and pay the person accordingly.
Isn't it a better idea to focus as much time as possible on doing what you are best skilled at - and get someone else to do the other things.
“Coming together is the beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”
― Henry Ford.
Transcription services have been dueling so much over rates that a lot of "professional" and "seasoned" transcriptionists have left the profession.
There is a very high turnover in the industry and a lot of these transcription services rely on naive stay at home moms who try it for a while.
Most transcriptionist forum members share that it often takes 4:1 or 5:1 (four or five minutes work per minute of audio) even with equipment and that is without including time to read the detailed instructions some services send with their projects, being special format, identification of speakers, etc.
| | | | Lidia Morejudo
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:00
English to Spanish
+ ...
| Not enough information on rates | Jul 25, 2014 |
Most of the issue is the lack of trust among professionals. When I was starting as a translator I found really hard to find information regarding how much to charge, I didn't want to sound too expensive, but, of course, I didn't want to charge so little that I wouldn´t be able to make a living, or steal work form other colleagues. However, when somebody on forums asks about how much to charge, there are a lot of posts beating around the bush of how difficult the work is and how many hours of wo... See more Most of the issue is the lack of trust among professionals. When I was starting as a translator I found really hard to find information regarding how much to charge, I didn't want to sound too expensive, but, of course, I didn't want to charge so little that I wouldn´t be able to make a living, or steal work form other colleagues. However, when somebody on forums asks about how much to charge, there are a lot of posts beating around the bush of how difficult the work is and how many hours of work you have to do but not real answer about how much people charge in the real world. Of course, this means that instead of presenting a united front translators look like a bunch of independent and individualistic secretive professionals. And of course, companies take advantage.
The same happens with transcription, I have been asked to quote for transcription, when I look for prices I find a lot of wishy-washy answers, but not real "answer". Even more, when I find some real person giving a real answer, then there is the inevitable follow up of some other "professional" slagging them off for charging too little, but actually doesn't say what he or she thinks should be the right rate… what to do? Obviously, I will do what I think suits the market, as nobody really tells me, and inevitably I suspect I will be taken advantage of… maybe not… but I will probably never find out as nobody speaks up!
I found a post with somebody quoting his prices as:
* Level I = $.50/audio minute* - applies to clear audio, no more than two speakers, easy to understand.
* Level II = $.75/audio minute – applies to clear audio, more than two speakers, or speakers with thicker accents.
* Level III = $1.00/audio minute – applies to audio with severe quality problems, focus groups, or a lot of people trying to talk over one another.
Is this fair? Is this not fair? Please, give constructive answers with the rates you think fair! ▲ Collapse
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