| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5] > | How many words can you translate a day Thread poster: dmoamin
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njbeckett 
Germany
Local time: 14:53
German to English
| words per day | Aug 7, 2010 |
Well in Germany we usually talk about lines, but I always thought 10,000 words a day about average for a good day for German into English. Today I have done 10,537 words, but they have taken me almost 12 hours.
| | | | Desdemone (X)
Local time: 09:53
French to English
njbeckett wrote:
Well in Germany we usually talk about lines, but I always thought 10,000 words a day about average for a good day for German into English. Today I have done 10,537 words, but they have taken me almost 12 hours.
Your profile says you translate 650 words an hour. So really, ONLY 7800 words in a 12 hour day.
[Edited at 2010-08-08 00:02 GMT]
| | | | | My extraordinary legal translation case | Aug 8, 2010 |
Last year I did an extremely urgent job for a New York translation agency. The language pair was JP>EN on legal matters. The documents contain many numbers and word repetitions in MS Excel format. Due to the urgency I was pressed hard to do a large output but the quality was left as is [certain kind of legal documents want translation lawfully to fulfill the requirements and few people ever check for exactness of translation.] I did the job with SDLX and used its auto-propagate/auto-translate to... See more Last year I did an extremely urgent job for a New York translation agency. The language pair was JP>EN on legal matters. The documents contain many numbers and word repetitions in MS Excel format. Due to the urgency I was pressed hard to do a large output but the quality was left as is [certain kind of legal documents want translation lawfully to fulfill the requirements and few people ever check for exactness of translation.] I did the job with SDLX and used its auto-propagate/auto-translate to work very quickly. I remember I prefer not to work in that style again: tiresome, boring, finger pain, eye pain, fatigue, worry about quality etc.
Yes, I was paid well but never cry for such the work again.
I did a large volume and got paid well but with much discount for word repetitions, numbers formatting issues etc.
Best regards,
Soonthon L. ▲ Collapse
| | | | njbeckett
Germany
Local time: 14:53
German to English
Paula I have got much faster since then - and don't think in terms of words anyway. Besides, I have not updated my profile.
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| 10,000 words on an average day | Aug 17, 2010 |
at €0.09 - €0.12 per word? .... so here apparently is one translator earning €250,000 per year. Looks like I've been setting my sights too low
| | | | | Misleading the younger ones | Aug 18, 2010 |
njbeckett wrote:
Well in Germany we usually talk about lines, but I always thought 10,000 words a day about average for a good day for German into English. Today I have done 10,537 words, but they have taken me almost 12 hours.
I think this statement could be misleading for the younger translators and could lead them to accept much lower rates than sustainable.
From what I have seen in 15 years in English into Spanish translation, the average is a lot lower and falls more into the range of 4-6 thousand words a day for a) experienced, b) fast-typing translators who c) know the matter at hand well. If any of these three factors does not exist, the figure quickly drops under 3 thousand words a day.
| | | | Nicole Schnell
United States
Local time: 05:53
English to German
+ ...
In memoriam | I couldn't agree more, Tomás | Aug 18, 2010 |
Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote: njbeckett wrote:
Well in Germany we usually talk about lines, but I always thought 10,000 words a day about average for a good day for German into English. Today I have done 10,537 words, but they have taken me almost 12 hours. I think this statement could be misleading for the younger translators and could lead them to accept much lower rates than sustainable. From what I have seen in 15 years in English into Spanish translation, the average is a lot lower and falls more into the range of 4-6 thousand words a day for a) experienced, b) fast-typing translators who c) know the matter at hand well. If any of these three factors does not exist, the figure quickly drops under 3 thousand words a day.
An agency client of mine calculates 2500 words / day for translation and 6000 word / day for editing.
Sounds low? It is not because most of us have more than one client and we have to reserve time for correspondence, invoicing and administration. Or other ongoing jobs that come in between. Personally I can't think of a single day that I was able to dedicate to one single job alone.
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:53
Member (2008)
Italian to English
I need to do about 3000 words a day, at my best rate, to earn the income I need. It's just about manageable. Sometimes I can do more than that, sometimes less. It depends on what the source text is like.
By "3000 words a day" I mean the whole process - preparing files, translating them, proofreading them, communicating with the outsourcer, + my overheads such as heating costs, computer, paper, printer ink, internet, filing, etc.
[Edited at 2010-08-18 10:01 GMT]
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Nicole Schnell
United States
Local time: 05:53
English to German
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In memoriam | You mean per day, right? | Aug 18, 2010 |
Tom in London wrote:
I need to do about 3000 words an hour, at my best rate, to earn the income I need. It's just about manageable. Sometimes I can do more than that, sometimes less. It depends on what the source text is like.
By "3000 words an hour" I mean the whole process - preparing files, translating them, proofreading them, communicating with the outsourcer, + my overheads such as heating costs, computer, paper, printer ink, internet, filing, etc.
[Edited at 2010-08-18 09:21 GMT]
Otherwise you might consider raising your rates.. 
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:53
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Nicole Schnell wrote: Otherwise you might consider raising your rates..
Yes, I am in fact considering that
Thanks for the correction.
[Edited at 2010-08-18 10:00 GMT]
| | | | njbeckett
Germany
Local time: 14:53
German to English
Do people still type with the excellent speech recognition programmes available? I say "Nervenleitgeschwindigkeit" to my computer and it writes "nerve conduction velocity"- and a few thousand other set expressions which are very specific. You don't need 70% concordance as you do with programmes like Trados. It's much more relaxing and saves your fingers (of which I use 2 if I do occasionally type a word).
| | | | | My special situation on PowerPoint files | Aug 19, 2010 |
I am not sure many translators face the problem with MS Power Point files or not. I translate the files with SDLX 2007 due to its tiny package and Word compatibility (to edit formats in Word). After cleaning Power Point files, source segments remain here and there below some target segments. I did not do Trados knowledgebase search for solution. I have to manually delete those source segments and readjust layouts e.g. using small fonts, line spacings, text box size, non-editable graphic, texts i... See more I am not sure many translators face the problem with MS Power Point files or not. I translate the files with SDLX 2007 due to its tiny package and Word compatibility (to edit formats in Word). After cleaning Power Point files, source segments remain here and there below some target segments. I did not do Trados knowledgebase search for solution. I have to manually delete those source segments and readjust layouts e.g. using small fonts, line spacings, text box size, non-editable graphic, texts in charts etc. for certain target languages. I find the translation productivity is relatively low if compared with HTML, XLS, DOC, XML and other file types. But my quote by number of words is the same.
Best regards,
Soonthon Lupkitaro ▲ Collapse
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| Still not good enough | Aug 19, 2010 |
njbeckett wrote:
Do people still type with the excellent speech recognition programmes available? I say "Nervenleitgeschwindigkeit" to my computer and it writes "nerve conduction velocity"- and a few thousand other set expressions which are very specific. You don't need 70% concordance as you do with programmes like Trados. It's much more relaxing and saves your fingers (of which I use 2 if I do occasionally type a word).
Having tried and trained speech recognition software for quite some time with real work, I must say that, unfortunately, it still bears a high risk of misunderstanding.
Where a person typing the translation can make a mistake that can be easily identified as such by the reviewer, speech recognition writes all words correctly, and detecting a mistake is harder since it requires a detailed comparison of the source and target segments, to a level that requires a mental retranslation. Reviewing in such deep way requires a knowledge not all reviewers have. Thus, I don't like the degree of uncertainty caused by this kind of recognition mistakes. Even if I would love to use speech recognition regularly, to me the technology is still not good enough.
| | | | Suzan Hamer
Netherlands
Local time: 14:53
English
+ ...
| I just can't help but bring this up. | Aug 19, 2010 |
[quote]Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:
Having tried and trained speech recognition software for quite some time with real work, I must say that, unfortunately, it still bears a high risk of misunderstanding.
Where a person typing the translation can make a mistake that can be easily identified as such by the reviewer, speech recognition writes all words correctly, and detecting a mistake is harder since it requires a detailed comparison of the source and target segments, to a level that requires a mental retranslation. Reviewing in such deep way requires a knowledge not all reviewers have. Thus, I don't like the degree of uncertainty caused by this kind of recognition mistakes. Even if I would love to use speech recognition regularly, to me the technology is still not good enough.
http://www.proz.com/forum/lighter_side_of_trans_interp/177607-the_perils_of_voice_recognition_technology.html
| | | | kemchho
Local time: 18:23
Gujarati to English
+ ...
| Question is relevant but far away from making sense: | Aug 19, 2010 |
Hello,
At the outset it appears that the question is asked as to find out how
"Intelligent" and/or "humorous one is"????????
Although, it is relevant albeit senseless and is more of a futile
exercise. It depends on various factor viz. the pair you are doing, the
quality of text like high pitched text or otherwise, number of hours you
are working and so on....
If at some vendor has a large amount of work he would rather go by ... See more Hello,
At the outset it appears that the question is asked as to find out how
"Intelligent" and/or "humorous one is"????????
Although, it is relevant albeit senseless and is more of a futile
exercise. It depends on various factor viz. the pair you are doing, the
quality of text like high pitched text or otherwise, number of hours you
are working and so on....
If at some vendor has a large amount of work he would rather go by pages
and how many hours per day will put in, while on the other hand very
small amount of data it will be counted in paragraphs if not pages. Number
of words does not come in picture at all.
It is more of futile exercise to go on counting words per paragraph / page.
Hope am asked to pages.
well enjoyed the post to make comment on,
thanks and regards,
Kemchho (How are you) ▲ Collapse
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