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Translation track record
Thread poster: Juliano Martins
Juliano Martins
Juliano Martins  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 02:26
Member (2008)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
May 31, 2016

Hi people,

I have been translating for 8 years now. And I have a spreadsheet with all my jobs since day one, in June 2008. Therefore, I have very detailed statistics.

Do you keep a track record as well?
How has it been for you throughout your career?

I’m going to share my yearly results with you (wordcounts and money earned in USD in today’s exchange rate compared to BRL – applying today’s exchange rate may cause an imprecision, but let’s do
... See more
Hi people,

I have been translating for 8 years now. And I have a spreadsheet with all my jobs since day one, in June 2008. Therefore, I have very detailed statistics.

Do you keep a track record as well?
How has it been for you throughout your career?

I’m going to share my yearly results with you (wordcounts and money earned in USD in today’s exchange rate compared to BRL – applying today’s exchange rate may cause an imprecision, but let’s do it this way). And I would like to read about your opinions and experiences.

Year 2008, June to December, 326 K translated words, 7 K proofed words, 16 K USD.
Year 2009, 586 K translated words, 15 K proofed words, 20 K USD.
Year 2010, 709 K translated words, 909 K proofed words, 29 K USD.
Year 2011, 1121 K translated words, 871 K proofed words, 39 K USD.
Year 2012, 1241 K translated words, 708 K proofed words, 50 K USD.
Year 2013, 1264 K translated words, 515 K proofed words, 55 K USD.
Year 2014, 1257 K translated words, 419 K proofed words, 57 K USD.
Year 2015, 972 K translated words, 446 K proofed words, 60 K USD.
Year 2016, January to May, 451 K translated words, 278 K proofed words, 30 K USD.

Regards!
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Gabriela Gavrilova
Gabriela Gavrilova  Identity Verified
Local time: 07:26
German to Bulgarian
+ ...
Machine Translation? May 31, 2016

Hello,

I'm wondering how you manage to translate 4000 words every single day?
How are you doing all the office work, a freelancer need to do?
Kind,
Gabriela


 
Juliano Martins
Juliano Martins  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 02:26
Member (2008)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
It's doable May 31, 2016

Hi Gabriela,

I can translate a little over 5K words per day, in a regular 8-hour working day (let's say 2.5K in the morning and 2.5K in the afternoon). If I work one or two more hours, 6K words a day is completely doable. So, when I have 4K words to translate, I just need to work much less than usual, piece of cake.

The office work is preparing the invoices, answering emails, etc., right? I do it in the meantime or when I have some time left.

Kind regards!


 
Juliano Martins
Juliano Martins  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 02:26
Member (2008)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
No machine translation May 31, 2016

By the way, it’s not machine translation, but pure human translation.

 
The Misha
The Misha
Local time: 01:26
Russian to English
+ ...
Why on earth would you post your financials for everyone to see? May 31, 2016

Aside from the fact that any comparison only makes sense when you compare apples to apples, this is also a very private matter - more so, some would argue, than your romantic life. And what do you expect in return - that we post ours too (no, thank you)? A pat on the back? A wagging finger for working at dirt cheap rates (because they seem to be, I am afraid). This post really, and I mean REALLY, left me puzzled. Or is it a cultural thing?

 
Gudrun Wolfrath
Gudrun Wolfrath  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 07:26
English to German
+ ...
Juliano, it's May 31, 2016

marketing time, isn't it?

I don't keep a track record by the way.


 
TDVTrans
TDVTrans  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 01:26
Dutch to English
+ ...
I have been keeping a record since 2004 May 31, 2016

Hi Juliano,

I have been doing the same thing you have, a detailed record of all the translation work. I have been a freelancer since 2004 and have actually reached my 5500th job yesterday.

I see that your work volume and thus income is progressing nicely over the years. My income and work volume has been a bit up and down but, overall, I really can't complain. I do work pretty long hours, from 7AM to 7PM but I really love translating. I do use Trados but probably for a
... See more
Hi Juliano,

I have been doing the same thing you have, a detailed record of all the translation work. I have been a freelancer since 2004 and have actually reached my 5500th job yesterday.

I see that your work volume and thus income is progressing nicely over the years. My income and work volume has been a bit up and down but, overall, I really can't complain. I do work pretty long hours, from 7AM to 7PM but I really love translating. I do use Trados but probably for around 30% of my work. My daily output is also more or less 5000 words. One thing I've noticed though is that my number of clients has declined over the years. You know the saying, don't put all your eggs in one basket, so at some point I'm going to have to look for some new clients.

Good luck with your future endeavors and I hope you can remain freelancing for many years to come.

Tom (I'm in New York)
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Juliano Martins
Juliano Martins  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 02:26
Member (2008)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
I was just curious May 31, 2016

Gudrun Wolfrath wrote:

marketing time, isn't it?


No, just curiosity.


 
Juliano Martins
Juliano Martins  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 02:26
Member (2008)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Hi Tom May 31, 2016

Thanks for the message. I wish luck to you too!

 
Philippe Etienne
Philippe Etienne  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 07:26
Member
English to French
Doing well! May 31, 2016

The good thing is that your turnover is increasing steadily, and that you're able to get past the million words per year. Definitely, your work is appreciated and your productivity stratospheric.
As a comparison, I've been cruising between about 400 and 700kwords for the past 15 years and my best yearly turnover is around 65k€ (2005). I work full-time, my workload is consistent throughout the year (agencies) and it varies between 250 and 450 jobs.
I use Translation Office 3000 for
... See more
The good thing is that your turnover is increasing steadily, and that you're able to get past the million words per year. Definitely, your work is appreciated and your productivity stratospheric.
As a comparison, I've been cruising between about 400 and 700kwords for the past 15 years and my best yearly turnover is around 65k€ (2005). I work full-time, my workload is consistent throughout the year (agencies) and it varies between 250 and 450 jobs.
I use Translation Office 3000 for job management and stats since 2005.

Philippe
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Sheila Wilson
Sheila Wilson  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 06:26
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
Forgive me if my maths is wrong May 31, 2016

Juliano Martins wrote:
Year 2016, January to May, 451 K translated words, 278 K proofed words, 30 K USD.

What occurs immediately to me is that if you charged $0.10 for translating and $0.03 per word for proofreading - figures in line with the ProZ.com community rates for your main pair - you could do one of two things:
- work less than 5.5 hours each day for the same income (i.e. have at least 2.5 extra leisure hours per day), or
- earn around $45k (i.e. 50% more) for doing the same amount of work.

Yes, I do keep similar statistics nowadays. I set up a spreadsheet back in 2012 to keep track of open jobs and help prepare invoices. For no overhead at all, this provides data that I can easily break down in any number of ways. But I don't propose to share them here.


 
Fiona Grace Peterson
Fiona Grace Peterson  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 07:26
Italian to English
What is the point of this thread? May 31, 2016

Forgive me if I am being obtuse, but what exactly is the point of this thread? Is it to see how your earnings or output rank against others? Because it seems like a rather pointless exercise to me. We all work in different language combinations, in different sectors, using different tools. And we all have different ideas of how much we want to earn, all of our circumstances are different.

You have already posted at length about your Babelcube experiences. Where does that fit into th
... See more
Forgive me if I am being obtuse, but what exactly is the point of this thread? Is it to see how your earnings or output rank against others? Because it seems like a rather pointless exercise to me. We all work in different language combinations, in different sectors, using different tools. And we all have different ideas of how much we want to earn, all of our circumstances are different.

You have already posted at length about your Babelcube experiences. Where does that fit into the picture?
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Juliano Martins
Juliano Martins  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 02:26
Member (2008)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks for the tip May 31, 2016

Sheila Wilson wrote:

What occurs immediately to me is that if you charged $0.10 for translating and $0.03 per word for proofreading - figures in line with the ProZ.com community rates for your main pair - you could do one of two things:
- work less than 5.5 hours each day for the same income (i.e. have at least 2.5 extra leisure hours per day), or
- earn around $45k (i.e. 50% more) for doing the same amount of work.



Usually I get paid 0.07 USD for translation and 0.02 for proofreading.


 
Juliano Martins
Juliano Martins  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 02:26
Member (2008)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
The point May 31, 2016

Fiona Grace Peterson wrote:

Forgive me if I am being obtuse, but what exactly is the point of this thread? Is it to see how your earnings or output rank against others? Because it seems like a rather pointless exercise to me. We all work in different language combinations, in different sectors, using different tools. And we all have different ideas of how much we want to earn, all of our circumstances are different.


The point was curiosity about other translators. Everyone always gets surprised with my numbers and I would like to have numbers from other people. I am aware that different language pairs may have different results.

You have already posted at length about your Babelcube experiences. Where does that fit into the picture?


Babelcube was another discussion.


 
Juliano Martins
Juliano Martins  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 02:26
Member (2008)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Well... May 31, 2016

The Misha wrote:
Why on earth would you post your financials for everyone to see?


Well, this question of yours may be directed to everyone here, including you, since everyone here has on their profile how much they earn per word.

Aside from the fact that any comparison only makes sense when you compare apples to apples, this is also a very private matter


I’m comparing translators, that’s it.

And what do you expect in return - that we post ours too (no, thank you)?


Some people have already done it. Thank you.

A wagging finger for working at dirt cheap rates (because they seem to be, I am afraid).


Cheap rates? Bullshit. Ask any Brazilian if 60K USD a year is not a good salary.


 
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