Charge extra for source texts with lots of typos? Thread poster: 2nl (X)
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2nl (X) 
Netherlands
Local time: 18:02
Normally, quotes are made based on word counts and matches with a TM. At that time you as a translator do not know whether a source text contains a lot of typos.
When a document contains a lot of typos (e.g. every 10th word), term recognition and thus any automation feature like auto-assembling can be problematic, if not impossible.
Clearly this will have an impact on your efficiency, terminological consistency and productivity.
My question: How do y... See more Normally, quotes are made based on word counts and matches with a TM. At that time you as a translator do not know whether a source text contains a lot of typos.
When a document contains a lot of typos (e.g. every 10th word), term recognition and thus any automation feature like auto-assembling can be problematic, if not impossible.
Clearly this will have an impact on your efficiency, terminological consistency and productivity.
My question: How do you handle this? Will you negotiate with your client to get compensated for the extra work?
Hans ▲ Collapse
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Inga Petkelyte
Portugal
Local time: 17:02
Lithuanian to Portuguese
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I would look at that based on the CAT or no CAT use: if the translation is supposed to be done using CAT, then, of course, I would report the issue to the outsourcer and woud agree about an extra pay. It is clear that typos are not screened as anormal words and cannot be extracted from the memory.
However, if the translation is purely human, typos are irritating but that's all. Some are funny: "love prices".
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Edward Vreeburg
Netherlands
Local time: 18:02
Member (2008)
English to Dutch
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| on the other hand... | Nov 19, 2015 |
if you use TM match, they will not show up as 100% matches - so you should get a higher price for them...
It gets worse if you get a text which has bad terminology, and general bad English (stuff that has been translated from another language into English first) and you have to make sense of what it is supposed to mean, or what the original writer might have intended...
(particularly true for technical stuff)....
Also if you have to report / correct all the typos... See more if you use TM match, they will not show up as 100% matches - so you should get a higher price for them...
It gets worse if you get a text which has bad terminology, and general bad English (stuff that has been translated from another language into English first) and you have to make sense of what it is supposed to mean, or what the original writer might have intended...
(particularly true for technical stuff)....
Also if you have to report / correct all the typos in the source language, you just add a fee...
then again, I''m telling you a lot of stuff that you either already know, or you're gonna use in your next training....
Ed Vreeburg
Vote for me on FOTY! ▲ Collapse
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2nl (X)
Netherlands
Local time: 18:02
TOPIC STARTER
Edward Vreeburg wrote:
then again, I''m telling you a lot of stuff that you either already know, or you're gonna use in your next training....
I'm not sure what to do myself. I'd like to hear how others deal with this.
No training on this subject planned  .
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| Don't charge | Nov 19, 2015 |
Ask your client to do a spellcheck before you start translating.
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2nl (X)
Netherlands
Local time: 18:02
TOPIC STARTER | That won't work | Nov 19, 2015 |
George Hopkins wrote:
Ask your client to do a spellcheck before you start translating.
That won't work, I'm afraid. A spell checker won't catch gems like:
Der Schneidparameter Assistent ist Bestandteil des Parameter Editors.
[Edited at 2015-11-19 20:01 GMT]
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| You win some, you loose some | Nov 19, 2015 |
I got my price, deal is deal. Sometimes it goes 'smoothly', other times it is a 'hell of a job'. It is all in the game, and at the end of the year, I make up the balance. That is just the way it is.
If I start 'nagging' about every word, I end up making my life impossible, so please see again the title of my reply.
Such is business.
[Edited at 2015-11-19 22:12 GMT]
[Edited at 2015-11-19 22:13 GMT]
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| Try to win them all | Nov 20, 2015 |
I'm not sure why I would just be resigned to "loose some" (or perhaps to lose some).
I check every source text before I take the job. Obviously, I don't read the whole thing, but I read a few sentences here and there. If there is a gross problem with text quality, I notice and set the price accordingly. Typos would have to be exceptionally bad to affect my price, but I have bumped the price before due to poor phrasing/language that made the text hard to decipher and generally a pain to wor... See more I'm not sure why I would just be resigned to "loose some" (or perhaps to lose some).
I check every source text before I take the job. Obviously, I don't read the whole thing, but I read a few sentences here and there. If there is a gross problem with text quality, I notice and set the price accordingly. Typos would have to be exceptionally bad to affect my price, but I have bumped the price before due to poor phrasing/language that made the text hard to decipher and generally a pain to work with. ▲ Collapse
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2nl (X)
Netherlands
Local time: 18:02
TOPIC STARTER | That's the kind of feedback I was hoping for ;) | Nov 20, 2015 |
FarkasAndras wrote:
I'm not sure why I would just be resigned to "loose some" (or perhaps to lose some).
I check every source text before I take the job. Obviously, I don't read the whole thing, but I read a few sentences here and there. If there is a gross problem with text quality, I notice and set the price accordingly. Typos would have to be exceptionally bad to affect my price, but I have bumped the price before due to poor phrasing/language that made the text hard to decipher and generally a pain to work with.
That's the kind of feedback I was hoping for . Perhaps I should start doing so myself too. Problem is, that I get so much work, that I often don't have the time to look into projects, before I start working on them. Okay, we call that a 'luxeprobleem' in Holland.
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Susan Welsh
United States
Local time: 12:02
Russian to English
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| bad PDF conversions | Nov 21, 2015 |
It also happens with bad PDF conversions supplied by the client, as recently happened to me (words run together, letters misidentified). Here a spellcheck in the source language would help a lot.
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2nl wrote: FarkasAndras wrote:
I'm not sure why I would just be resigned to "loose some" (or perhaps to lose some).
I check every source text before I take the job. Obviously, I don't read the whole thing, but I read a few sentences here and there. If there is a gross problem with text quality, I notice and set the price accordingly. Typos would have to be exceptionally bad to affect my price, but I have bumped the price before due to poor phrasing/language that made the text hard to decipher and generally a pain to work with. That's the kind of feedback I was hoping for . Perhaps I should start doing so myself too. Problem is, that I get so much work, that I often don't have the time to look into projects, before I start working on them. Okay, we call that a 'luxeprobleem' in Holland.
I think the gain (fewer nightmare projects) is worth the time investment. For small jobs of a couple thousand words, I spend 2-5 minutes skimming the text. For a large job (20,000 words or more) I might spend 20-30 minutes reading the table of contents and some bits here and there to get a feel of what it's about and how it's written, and then importing the file to my CAT and making sure that it doesn't become a tag soup and exports correctly. I also check the CAT statistics at this stage if I'm hoping for repetitions or TM matches.
I don't really have set rates, I set the rate for each project based on this preview.
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