Germany’s Federal Association of Interpreters and Translators [Bundesverband der Dolmetscher und Übersetzer e.V. (BDÜ)] published the fifth edition of its rate survey in January 2016. The survey is based on pricing information collected from almost 1,100 translators and interpreters and covers 35 language pairs.
According to André Lindemann, association president, the survey is meant to provide guidance to new translators and inexperienced buyers in this “fragmented and often opaque market,” but should also be of value to many other market participants. The authors of the study stress, however, that the survey in no way represents any kind of official pricing guideline by the Association as this would be against Germany’s anti-trust laws. More.
See: Slator
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Comments about this article
United States
Local time: 01:45
Russian to English
+ ...
for posting this. Hard to believe, but good to know.
France
Local time: 07:45
English to French
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You can compare with SFT's results:
http://www.sft.fr/clients/sft/telechargements/news/fichier/1730_f1_2015_resultats_preliminaires.pdf
They are not very different.
Didier
Netherlands
Local time: 07:45
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
The results of this survey does not distinguish between agency translators and direct client translators, and a sizeable chunk of their respondents were direct client translators.
Germany
Local time: 07:45
German to English
But my primary reaction is the same as Samuel's = What is this guy talking about? Yes, I agree with the fact that the German survey found €0.15 per word to be the average fee in many language pairs in the case of projects for privat... See more
But my primary reaction is the same as Samuel's = What is this guy talking about? Yes, I agree with the fact that the German survey found €0.15 per word to be the average fee in many language pairs in the case of projects for private-sector direct clients. But what conclusion does the blogger want to draw from this fact?
If we are talking about private-sector direct clients that are a reasonably good match for a given established translator, then €0.15 per word is low. If we are talking about generalists that happen to hook up with and then hang on to a given direct client, then €0.15 might be fairly high. I also can't imagine (as is suggested at the end of the blog post) that there are really major translation agencies out there offering prices that low and able to stay in business.
The SFT survey at least lists the highest and lowest fees given by their respondents (although without any kind of further information about the distribution of rates, this is of pretty limited use). Information about high rates seems much more relevant to me than average rates. ▲ Collapse
Belgium
Local time: 07:45
German to English
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is not the blogger's error. I bought the book and was very surprised to see that it doesn't contain agency rates. It only contains rates for direct clients, who are split up in various categories (government agencies and/or courts, commercial companies, private persons, colleagues)
Italy
Local time: 07:45
Member (2009)
English to Italian
+ ...
90% of the translation agencies I've contacted don't accept a translation rate higher than 0,07-0,08€ per source word in the medical field! 0,07-0,08€ per source word in the medical field, not 0,15€
Belgium
Local time: 07:45
German to English
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The EUR 0.15 refers to direct clients, not agencies, and is the median per word rate for the language pair DE>EN in the categories "government agencies/courts" and "commercial companies".
Spain
Local time: 07:45
Spanish to English
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[Edited at 2016-02-08 09:16 GMT]
PS: Anecdotally, a colleague who translates from German to English tells me that rates are being increasingly squeezed in his pai... See more
[Edited at 2016-02-08 09:16 GMT]
PS: Anecdotally, a colleague who translates from German to English tells me that rates are being increasingly squeezed in his pair. In fact, he's translating from Danish as well now to pick up the slack.
PPS: Don't they usually charge per line rather than per word in Germany anyway?
[Edited at 2016-02-08 09:20 GMT] ▲ Collapse
Belgium
Local time: 07:45
German to English
+ ...
The book published by the German Translators' Association includes data on per line rates as well as on per word rates.
[Edited at 2016-02-08 15:20 GMT]
[Edited at 2016-02-08 15:55 GMT]
[Edited at 2016-02-08 15:56 GMT]
Spain
Local time: 07:45
Member (2015)
English to Spanish
Is this just for translators living in Germany?
Belgium
Local time: 07:45
German to English
+ ...
It's only for translators living in Germany.
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