Calculation Thread poster: Jacqueline Noire
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in China, for written translation we count the rate by per thousand words. But my target group is foreigners rather than chinese, my hotel education told me I have to have a customer oriented mind on performing a service. So I want to adapt western method rather than local.
I charge overseas by words. For example, 0.05 Usd per word. What I dont understand is in some countries people charge by pages. I got people ask me how much I charge per pages as well. I have no idea how many wor... See more in China, for written translation we count the rate by per thousand words. But my target group is foreigners rather than chinese, my hotel education told me I have to have a customer oriented mind on performing a service. So I want to adapt western method rather than local.
I charge overseas by words. For example, 0.05 Usd per word. What I dont understand is in some countries people charge by pages. I got people ask me how much I charge per pages as well. I have no idea how many words should be in one page. So I dont know how to quote the project. Does it also had some kind of font stardard in the page or so?
Please help
Thanks!
Jackie
[Subject edited by staff or moderator 2008-06-26 13:35] ▲ Collapse
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| Ask your client to define | Jun 26, 2008 |
Jacqueline Noire wrote:
in China, for written translation we count the rate by per thousand words. But my target group is foreigners rather than chinese, my hotel education told me I have to have a customer oriented mind on performing a service. So I want to adapt western method rather than local.
I charge overseas by words. For example, 0.05 Usd per word. What I dont understand is in some countries people charge by pages. I got people ask me how much I charge per pages as well. I have no idea how many words should be in one page. So I dont know how to quote the project. Does it also had some kind of font stardard in the page or so?
I know that standard pages differ among countries. So it's perfectly all right to ask your client for a definition of a page. For example, I have seen a page defined as 1,500 characters and as 1,800 characters. (I deal with Western languages with alphabets, so this is much less text than 1,500 Chinese characters.) Other customers want quotes per line (sometimes defined as 55 characters, sometimes as 60 characters, sometimes with and sometimes without spaces). Once you have some figures, you can do the arithmetic based on some files you've got.
That said, you may have a customer who doesn't deal with the nuts and bolts of putting words on paper. Often such customers want to know a price per page because they want a cost figure. It is perfectly okay to point out to such customers that the number of words on a page will differ depending on the size of the paper, the font, the line spacing and the margins. You can ask to see a sample page and make it clear that you're extrapolating from that when you give a quote.
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Thanks for the suggestion, yeah, I guess this is the best way to do.
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SilviuM
Romania
Local time: 04:20
Romanian to English
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| The... caCulation of one's project | Jun 26, 2008 |
Well, Ms. / Mrs. Sun, besides your very funny intro (the "caculation" part), I can tell you this: 1 page contains approx. 300 words (= 1.800 characters, give or take) if it's A4, of course, whilst the usually used font is... Tahoma 10 OR Arial 10.
Now, of course that the headings and the sub-headings may be written with smaller ones; bolted even(!) Furthermore, some charge by word and some by page. I'm guessing it all comes down to negotiating skills and resolve, but usually, whilst... See more Well, Ms. / Mrs. Sun, besides your very funny intro (the "caculation" part), I can tell you this: 1 page contains approx. 300 words (= 1.800 characters, give or take) if it's A4, of course, whilst the usually used font is... Tahoma 10 OR Arial 10.
Now, of course that the headings and the sub-headings may be written with smaller ones; bolted even(!) Furthermore, some charge by word and some by page. I'm guessing it all comes down to negotiating skills and resolve, but usually, whilst dealing with publishing houses, you'll have to accept THEIR tariffing system, namely: by page.
If dealing with companies, and depending on their size (= relevance on the market), you could go for charging by word; sometimes, even by character. It's all up to your intuition and negotiating skills... again.
I wish you best of luck in your endeavor(-s)!
[Editat la 2008-06-26 15:50] ▲ Collapse
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I charge by word, in China we charge by thousand characters.
Just curious actually, if the client is serious they will tell me anyway how many word they had on file. .. You know.
Again I think it has to be depend on the given situation...
thanks!
Best regards
Jacqueline
(Yuanyuan is my first name, My family name is Sun
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USER0059 (X) 
Finland
Local time: 04:20
English to Finnish
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| 1,560 characters | Jun 26, 2008 |
Paul Merriam wrote:
I know that standard pages differ among countries. So it's perfectly all right to ask your client for a definition of a page. For example, I have seen a page defined as 1,500 characters and as 1,800 characters.
As an illustration to your point: I use a page length of 1,560 characters, because that seemed like the most common choice (in my country) when I started.
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andrea32145 (X)
English to Chinese
In my opinion, a page contains almost 1500 words.
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I don't suppose you work for any Polish translation agencies but from my experience they usually require you to give them your rate per 1 page which most often includes 1800 characters (with spaces). I have heard that there are Polish agencies that treat 1 page as 1500-1600 characters, so as you can see, it really depends on your client. Don't hesitate to ask him about his rules.
Good luck
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| thanks for all replies | Jul 6, 2008 |
thanks for all the replies here
I would consider 1600 chars for reference.
Best regards and good luck to you all.
Jacqueline.
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| The Brazilian "lauda" and the bottle | Jul 7, 2008 |
In Brazil, a common measurement, not only for translation, but for writing and publishing as well is the "lauda". If you look it up in a Portuguese dictionary, it means "a printed page".
IMHO a "lauda" is a measurement unit as good as a bottle. I think anywhere in the world Coca-Cola is sold, it is available in at least half a dozen different size containers, and prices vary accordingly. So unless one says how many mililiters, fl.oz., or any other volume measurement it contains, it ... See more In Brazil, a common measurement, not only for translation, but for writing and publishing as well is the "lauda". If you look it up in a Portuguese dictionary, it means "a printed page".
IMHO a "lauda" is a measurement unit as good as a bottle. I think anywhere in the world Coca-Cola is sold, it is available in at least half a dozen different size containers, and prices vary accordingly. So unless one says how many mililiters, fl.oz., or any other volume measurement it contains, it says nothing.
So we have several sizes of "laudas" in Brazil. The shortest one is defined by law, and it is used by certified public translators, comprising 1,000 characters without counting spaces. On the other hand, most book publishers adopt a 2,100-char, spaces-including "lauda". However these two don't prevent several other endeavors to define their own "laudas" in-between. ▲ Collapse
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artugil (X)
English to Spanish
Jacqueline Noire wrote:
in China, for written translation we count the rate by per thousand words. But my target group is foreigners rather than chinese, my hotel education told me I have to have a customer oriented mind on performing a service. So I want to adapt western method rather than local.
I charge overseas by words. For example, 0.05 Usd per word. What I dont understand is in some countries people charge by pages. I got people ask me how much I charge per pages as well. I have no idea how many words should be in one page. So I dont know how to quote the project. Does it also had some kind of font stardard in the page or so?
Please help
Thanks!
Jackie
[Subject edited by staff or moderator 2008-06-26 13:35]
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eng2chi
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:20
English to Chinese
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| estimate the sample page your client can provide | Jul 9, 2008 |
It is great to be considerate of your Western clients. But in fact clients, wherever they are from, may have followed the practice of paying you per word in dealing with the English Chinese pairs. So don't hesitate to ask your clients for sample pages, then you tell them the charge (or range) after you count the average words on a page and multiply the count by your unit price.
Even the page is in printed medium, or scanned as images that cannot be recognized by OCR, you can stil... See more It is great to be considerate of your Western clients. But in fact clients, wherever they are from, may have followed the practice of paying you per word in dealing with the English Chinese pairs. So don't hesitate to ask your clients for sample pages, then you tell them the charge (or range) after you count the average words on a page and multiply the count by your unit price.
Even the page is in printed medium, or scanned as images that cannot be recognized by OCR, you can still use the manual estimation approach.
An exception that may really need your page-based quotation is DTP cases, where lots of formating effort has to be put. You may charge more by folding your unit price if you really handle DTP cases, otherwise you may just say no to page-based quotation, and stick to the price per word. ▲ Collapse
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