| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4] > | Is there a fierce competition between translators? Thread poster: Tomedes
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Phil Hand wrote:
Just to answer this question: my view on this is very much informed by my experience working in an emerging language pair (but then, you do, too!)
Yup! At least as far as clients and agencies from outside Poland are concerned. Internally, this was a much nicer market some years back.
In Chinese, there is no high quality market. It simply doesn't exist yet. There are a few good translators, most of them working outside China. But there are not enough to guarantee that if you pay enough money, you'll find one; and they are swamped by poor quality vendors. You could spend 10 euros per word in China, and there's still no guarantee that you'll get good quality work done.
That's bad, and yeah, it promotes peanuts, and promoting peanuts promotes monkeys, and... the cycle repeats.
As a result, a lot of high quality clients have to make do. My favourite story is of the boss of a multinational visiting their China office, and the China CEO having to interpret for him. My big direct client is a multinational who hates working with a freelancer. They want to go through an agency, but they can't because local agencies won't give them the quality they want. So for many companies, there's a vicious cycle of low quality leading to low expectations and unwillingness to pay high prices.
We've seen that here, and it was also part of the reason I didn't get my degree in English Studies but went for something different instead.
What's different in Poland right now, though (and sorry is this is a nonsequitur, but I'm really happy it's Friday, a quarter past seven p.m., this week), is that expectations of quality have actually managed to form, while the readiness to pay for it has not yet. In the past, they just wanted you to be good and woe upon you were you not. The prominence of test samples is a legacy of that period. Nowadays there's the whole QA thing with QA sheets and style guides, TMs, instructions, whatever, which, I guess, comes down to some sort of compliance or keeping standards.
So, they expect quality, but they've even lost the requisite smarts to realise how much work time their requests generate (even for a good translator) and how low the pay is in consequence.
For me, every good new translator that appears is another brick in the foundations of what will one day be the world's biggest and best translation market. Every time I see a Chinese company with well-translated marketing materials, I cheer, because that company is more likely to pay for good translation next time, too (if they can only find it).
I certainly cheer up when I see a good EN-PL or PL-EN translator. For the same reason as you described there, I practically force other translators to listen to me talking to them about their legal rights or business strategies or marketing. Free of charge, just read the darn thing, and if you complain it's too long, then I'll rip you apart but first of all be genuinely disappointed because I really need you to read it. And come up with a presentation that shows you in a better light, enables you to reap the benefits of your education and get the respect and acknowledgement you deserve for your experience (usually longer than my own), negotiate better, get better rates. The better rates other translators can negotiate – and agencies too – the better rates I will get. Hence, I'll probably need to flood the market with free webinars on negotiation and presentation.
So, while I understand what you mean - for any given job, only one person can get it, and everyone else loses
Yeah, and everybody's competing means that rates were being dragged down and people were being led to accept more and more ridiculous requests just to get the job.
- over the long term, good competition will improve my prospects immeasurably. And even on a single job, good competition need not be zero-sum. Right now, for many jobs, the competition is me (good but no specialist knowledge) or some cheapie. If we can upgrade that to me (good and expensive) vs a specialist (specialist and expensive), then we can get the client to consider more options, and pay more. Thus, not zero-sum.
Yeah, the way I see it, the better the general image of the profession in the society, the better my own fate. Bad translators don't really raise my rates or get me good deals unless directly so by botching a job later assigned to me (and usually with a constrained budget thanks to the expenses incurred in having it translated first by someone else). The way I see it, the more respect fellow translators get for their degrees, experience, skills, the hard work they do, the better it is for me. Not that I'd literally have such a materialistic outlook (then again, not like the thought doesn't cross my mind).
I've been thinking about this because I took a guy who runs a small European agency to a meeting the other day, and the culture shock was visible. What is by Chinese standards a high quality agency still doesn't really register as a potential partner for a European set up. There's so much space to grow and improve here! And I would have thought that the same is true of Poland, isn't it?
[Edited at 2013-08-09 16:21 GMT]
In Poland, the epitome of quality and all goodness is the good old Polish 'biuro tłumaczeń'. Right now, those guys usually haven't heard about CATs yet, they might not understand what 'reference materials are', but they are thoroughly professional in what they do and how they do it. They respect translators, they work with good ones, and they stick with them, and they stand up for them – well, they don't even stand up for translators because they believe that an end-client complaint is their problem, not the translator's problem. They'll create some problems for the translator (probably not to the full extent of the losses they incurred as an agency/reseller) when they actually lose some money due to the defects of the translation. The jobs are usually nice, normal jobs, without all the mind-numbing hassle and bother known to the modern world. They certainly know ways to handle customers, other than flattery, absolute obedience and keeping the serotonin high, which is the pestilence that came from the west.
Speaking of which, corruption generally came from the west, even though Polish agencies, right now, have a bad press among Polish translators compared to agencies from just about anywhere else. We respect the guys who stick with the old ways, Boshin-style, though the dominant style is probably bottom-feeding and clueless customer-pleasing. I'm probably a countercultural Boshin translator myself, although I very much want to influence the future and look forward to seeing it.
Boshin translators are not obedient little '[dear] linguists' who'd never dream about translating into L2, domesticate all the time and defer to a client's business personnel in matters of language (no matter that you have a Master's in English Studies and dude has an FCE), while spending their time and money studying to become proficient CAT techies, in addition to a vast offer of office assistant services. Boshin translators translate. And they translate into L2 and fields they don't know much about, because they're good. Because they want to be good translators, not pleasure providers, and not software techies, either. Not that there's anything wrong with being a software techie. I feel tempted to ditch translation and open up a PC shop all the time.
[Edited at 2013-08-09 17:48 GMT]
| | | | Ivan Czar 
Hungary
Local time: 22:31
English to Hungarian
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| Competition kills this business | Aug 9, 2013 |
Dear Collegues,
In my opinion there should not be any competition in this business.
Especially because we are a bit "rare breed", so we should stick together...
I think, if somebody does her/his translation "on time, without error" then sooner or later she/he finds her/himself in a strange situation... such as:
- "sorry, I can not undertake... I have other project"
- "no problem, we negotiate a deadline you accept with the client"
<... See more Dear Collegues,
In my opinion there should not be any competition in this business.
Especially because we are a bit "rare breed", so we should stick together...
I think, if somebody does her/his translation "on time, without error" then sooner or later she/he finds her/himself in a strange situation... such as:
- "sorry, I can not undertake... I have other project"
- "no problem, we negotiate a deadline you accept with the client"
or another instance:
- "sorry, I can not undertake, however I can recommend a collegue"
- "thank you, however we would like you to do it yourself"
So there is no need of competition. On the other hand:
- "Hello collegue, I have a nice XX to German translation, and I do not feel it is my topic, are you interested?"
- "Thank you, God sent you, as I have an XX to ENG so I would glady give that to you"
What I would like to highlight... the most important thing here is that the client must receive the translation in the best quality... however sometime we receive some projects with text from not our fields... if we can maintain a friendly, teamworking, openminded attitude... then we always will have help from a collegue.
And in my experience all the collegues I approach this way came back some day, "look, I can not take any more project, would you join?"
Let us build bridges, not walls. Competition just separates us and hammers down the prices, so none of will profit... ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tomedes
United States
Local time: 13:31
Member (1970)
French to English
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TOPIC STARTER | Thank you all for your very interesting comments! | Aug 11, 2013 |
I was actually expecting one defined answer for some reason, but as it turns out again – every coin has two sides, particularly in such a diverse field as translation.
It feels like you have a lot more to say on this subject, I'm definitely getting wiser by the minute.
| | | | Dinny
Greece
Local time: 23:31
Italian to Danish
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| Where is the "Like" button? | Aug 12, 2013 |
I truly enjoyed reading all your comments!
Dinny
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tomedes wrote:
I was actually expecting one defined answer for some reason, but as it turns out again – every coin has two sides, particularly in such a diverse field as translation.
It feels like you have a lot more to say on this subject, I'm definitely getting wiser by the minute.
Now regarding what Ivan said above. I have given it some thought and yes, I think it's possible to make it so that there's little competition among translators, at least to some extent.
Basically, it comes down to the Blue Ocean kind of thing (along with its attendant Golden Circle method): basically, specialise. Specialising means dividing the market. It's not cutting the competition down or out, it's basically making competition irrelevant, sort of like MacArthur took the frog leaps to get into Japan (for the record, crusaders did the same thing centuries earlier). Can't take a castle? Bypass it, make it irrelevant, whatever.
So. Everybody has at least a slightly different comfort zone. Comfort zone isn't exactly the same as specialisation, and even specialisation shouldn't be understood exclusively in terms of subject fields. It can also mean types of jobs, for example, or types of clients. Or types of requirements. For example, I specialise in rush jobs, and I specialise in clients who are demanding but reasonable (i.e. think logically and comply with the rules of the art). Other guys may specialise in connecting with less logical clients, pleasing people who need this emotion-serotonin thing in their translation service. Yet another group might specialise in providing some sort of complex service. Then, I prefer to leave clients alone and be left alone by them in turn unless something's really, really important, unlike someone who loves to stay in touch (down to typing in a newsletter every week or so).
We compete because we don't really know that much about each other and his or her comfort zone, so we can't come up with a division. And, obviously, if we wanted to divide the market too openly, the anti-trust courts would have something to say about that.
In the ideal situation where you have two translators with different practices, they'd be better off swapping referrals than competing, at least in the case of specialised jobs.
Now as regards agencies and translators, agencies exist for:
– handling multiple languages and voluminous projects,
– ... as well as all other logistics, basically,
– having inhouse or other proofreaders and QA guys,
– ... and otherwise being the QA watchdog for the client,
– picking the right translators,
– finding jobs for translators,
– guaranteeing the job for the client and the payment for the translator.
... For most of which I'm willing to give up a chunk of my own pay (the client should be coughing up an extra in return for whatever benefits him and not me, though I do see incentives provided to client by agencies as investments leading to future jobs for me).
Things go wrong when some of you guys make us work on zombie farms and try to make a large mark-up by pocketing the CAT discounts or rush surcharges (without passing them on that is; and we eventually find out), bicker about pennies and put pressure on us to reduce our rates (which is often more of a psychological than economic bother) or especially insult our intelligence with all that overhyped language I personally hate so much.
Whenever I see another 'exciting opportunity' that's basically a request for me to be flexible on the pay or payment deadline while tolerating all sorts of quirky requests in the PO, the agency loses points with me instead of earning any. I'm probably not alone on this. 'Look, this job sucks, but I've heard you need to pay the bills,' is more inviting, actually. Basically, being on the same team is what counts. We aren't playing on the same team if we're trying to play each other.
[Edited at 2013-08-12 20:54 GMT]
| | | | | There is also the slick competition | Aug 12, 2013 |
Łukasz Gos-Furmankiewicz wrote:
Now as regards agencies and translators, agencies exist for:
– handling multiple languages and voluminous projects,
– ... as well as all other logistics, basically,
– having inhouse or other proofreaders and QA guys,
– ... and otherwise being the QA watchdog for the client,
– picking the right translators,
– finding jobs for translators,
– guaranteeing the job for the client and the payment for the translator.
There are other agencies that waive accountability on all points above, yet they offer:
- lowest rates!
- fastest service!
- longest payment terms!
Sometimes they camouflage the resulting low quality included in their package by displaying a dazzling web site, which hypnotizes the naive end-client into entrusting them with their translation work.
All that honest, hard-working, value-adding translation agencies can do to fight back is to build impressive web sites. Bottom line is that for the less-than-savvy end-client over the www, they all look the same.
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José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote: Łukasz Gos-Furmankiewicz wrote:
Now as regards agencies and translators, agencies exist for:
– handling multiple languages and voluminous projects,
– ... as well as all other logistics, basically,
– having inhouse or other proofreaders and QA guys,
– ... and otherwise being the QA watchdog for the client,
– picking the right translators,
– finding jobs for translators,
– guaranteeing the job for the client and the payment for the translator. There are other agencies that waive accountability on all points above, yet they offer: - lowest rates! - fastest service! - longest payment terms!
Yes. Well, one's clients resemble one's advertising. Perhaps it'd be better to drop references to low, fast etc. I don't think I have any in my own copy. I remember having an obiter somewhere about my rates being in fact affordable, but that wasn a remark, not a selling point.
Dealing with destitute or hard-pressed clients is one thing, but attracting penny pinchers or the ASAP!!!!111one dudes is basically gimping one's business IMHO.
Sometimes they camouflage the resulting low quality included in their package by displaying a dazzling web site, which hypnotizes the naive end-client into entrusting them with their translation work.
All that honest, hard-working, value-adding translation agencies can do to fight back is to build impressive web sites. Bottom line is that for the less-than-savvy end-client over the www, they all look the same.
One word: Wordpress. A decent free Wordpress theme beats most hand-made stuff these days (and certainly to neat look as much as to manageability). I only went hand-made myself because I'm too proud to use a generated website (unless I wrote the generator). I paid in many, many hours, sleepless nights and anguish over getting handheld compatibility right and so on. It would have been much cheaper to get a premium WP theme or even hire a professional designer, I guess.
Speaking of which, WebsitesForTranslators would probably work for agencies just as well.
Heck, for a nice, friendly agency, I'd probably do something like that as a favour. Whatever they competed out of the sharks' mouths using it would be a boon to me even if I didn't get the job. (Because the market gets better whenever a good agency wins.)
[Edited at 2013-08-12 22:58 GMT]
| | | | | Why I hate Chinese agencies | Oct 18, 2013 |
I know quite a few bosses who run translation agencies, and believe it or not, most of them care about only two things: 1)getting more tasks from customers, and 2)paying as little as possible to translators.
To achieve goal No. 1, 90% of them charge lower prices, and meanwhile boast to customers that they have professors from renowned universities in China as their editors. And you know what? Customers like it! This is the root cause that makes the market going down every year: the ... See more I know quite a few bosses who run translation agencies, and believe it or not, most of them care about only two things: 1)getting more tasks from customers, and 2)paying as little as possible to translators.
To achieve goal No. 1, 90% of them charge lower prices, and meanwhile boast to customers that they have professors from renowned universities in China as their editors. And you know what? Customers like it! This is the root cause that makes the market going down every year: the entire market is filled with fraud and there is hardly any room for integrity. You wanna charge 0.10 USD per source word? Customers would say: The largest translation company in China charge lower than you! Then you need to worry about survival.
To achieve goal No. 2, the boss would never pay its full-time translators or freelancers good money. This is the very reason that many translators simply leave for large companies, where they don't worry about the workload and are paid higher salaries, and what's more, they can even better choices than doing translation. That said, there are good translators in China, but most of them are forced to leave translation agencies or quit this trade.
So translation in China is fierce, and it's a very complicated situation that all parties are to blame: new translators willing to translate at 0.01 USD per word, translation agencies keeping reducing their prices, customers greedily cutting down cost without thinking about consequences, and almost everybody, including many translators, undervaluing the true value of translation.
[Edited at 2013-10-18 14:27 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Sarah McDowell
Canada
Local time: 15:31
Member (2012)
Russian to English
+ ...
Yan Yuliang wrote:
I know quite a few bosses who run translation agencies, and believe it or not, most of them care about only two things: 1)getting more tasks from customers, and 2)paying as little as possible to translators.
To achieve goal No. 1, 90% of them charge lower prices, and meanwhile boast to customers that they have professors from renowned universities in China as their editors. And you know what? Customers like it! This is the root cause that makes the market going down every year: the entire market is filled with fraud and there is hardly any room for integrity. You wanna charge 0.10 USD per source word? Customers would say: The largest translation company in China charge lower than you! Then you need to worry about survival.
To achieve goal No. 2, the boss would never pay its full-time translators or freelancers good money. This is the very reason that many translators simply leave for large companies, where they don't worry about the workload and are paid higher salaries, and what's more, they can even better choices than doing translation. That said, there are good translators in China, but most of them are forced to leave translation agencies or quit this trade.
So translation in China is fierce, and it's a very complicated situation that all parties are to blame: new translators willing to translate at 0.01 USD per word, translation agencies keeping reducing their prices, customers greedily cutting down cost without thinking about consequences, and almost everybody, including many translators, undervaluing the true value of translation.
[Edited at 2013-10-18 14:27 GMT]
Hi Yan,
Thanks for your insight into the Chinese translation market. When reading this I was thinking if you replace "Russia" with "China" it would not be far off the mark.
It's hard for freelance translators because many of the agencies actually charge their customers prices less than what many translators charge.
| | | | | CIS countries | Oct 19, 2013 |
Sarah McDowell wrote:
Hi Yan,
Thanks for your insight into the Chinese translation market. When reading this I was thinking if you replace "Russia" with "China" it would not be far off the mark.
I totally agree with Sarah.
And I am still trying to figure out why this happens here - in the CIS countries.
I believe this is a reflection of a more general income disparity between, say, China/Russia and Western Europe.
I used to work for peanuts 10 years ago for some pathetic Russian agencies.
But then you either change your career direction (95% do this), or reach a higher level of clients - Western agencies/Western direct clients.
BTW, any other profession here is grossly underpaid.
[Edited at 2013-10-19 06:32 GMT]
| | | | Tomedes
United States
Local time: 13:31
Member (1970)
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Different perspective | Oct 20, 2013 |
Vadim, Sarah and Yan - Most of the time discussions are made in generalization but learning about a more specific experience really explains the different shades of perspective, so thank you!
Speaking of different shades, we recently published a post about freelance translators average salary, I feel like you will have much to say on that matter
If you feel like ... See more Vadim, Sarah and Yan - Most of the time discussions are made in generalization but learning about a more specific experience really explains the different shades of perspective, so thank you!
Speaking of different shades, we recently published a post about freelance translators average salary, I feel like you will have much to say on that matter
If you feel like reading it - http://www.tomedes.com/how-much-can-a-freelance-translator-earn-per-month.php
[Edited at 2013-10-20 07:03 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Diana Obermeyer
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:31
Member (2013)
German to English
+ ...
| Are you serious? | Oct 20, 2013 |
I looked at that link - Are you serious????
"Most translators cover between 400-600 words per hour for a job of average difficulty." - Sure, on a text with lots of repetitions... assuming that all of those repetitions are also paid for...
"This works out to 2,000-3,000 words per day" - So given your first assumption, your average translator works a 5 hour day? I mean, this figure isn't unrealistic. I'm sure a lot of translators' workloads work out AT 2,000-3,000 words. But in 5 hours? I guess, that will be the source of that little slip then...
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| I don't see a problem with that throughput | Oct 20, 2013 |
dianaft wrote:
Are you serious????
"Most translators cover between 400-600 words per hour for a job of average difficulty."
I also think this is normal productivity for an experienced translator who's also a fast typist. With no repetitions, mind you.
In relaxed mode I probably do closer to 300 words/hour. But if I know I can be done in 5 hours, not 8 (and sometimes the deadline leaves me no choice), then I'll shift into the productive mode where I can do up to 800 words/hour. Then I get 3 hours to relax Why not?
P.S. Fixed typo: Productive mood now reads Productive mode.
[Edited at 2013-10-20 19:46 GMT]
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Mikhail Kropotov wrote: dianaft wrote:
Are you serious????
"Most translators cover between 400-600 words per hour for a job of average difficulty." I also think this is normal productivity for an experienced translator who's also a fast typist. With no repetitions, mind you. In relaxed mode I probably do closer to 300 words/hour. But if I know I can be done in 5 hours, not 8 (and sometimes the deadline leaves me no choice), then I'll shift into the productive mood where I can do up to 800 words/hour. Then I get 3 hours to relax Why not?
In turbo mode, I can do 800 words/hour. This is usually after 3 pm.
| | | | Tomedes
United States
Local time: 13:31
Member (1970)
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Turbo indeed | Oct 21, 2013 |
Yan Yuliang wrote:
In turbo mode, I can do 800 words/hour. This is usually after 3 pm.
I'm wondering what makes 3 pm so special?
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