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Forum Newbie
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Last Login: 8/17/2006 1:24:36 AM
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I am starting out new in this field and I have a quesiton about charging on a per word basis. Since there are many words, ideas, and turns of pahrse which are wordy when translated into another language, by which languages' word count is the per word rate usually determined? Say a French document is 1500 words but comes out to 1700 in English. I assume that the base document is used to calculate cost, but I just thought I would ask.
Also, for those who work with Japanese, most companies I have seen do a character count. I assume that this includes hiragana as it is the inflection of the adjective/verb/etc, but is there an industry standard?
Thank you all for your time.
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Forum Newbie
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Last Login: 2 days ago @ 6:06:16 PM
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Hi, Blaz,
I always try to collect based on the number of target words, unless an agency tells me they are going to pay me based on the number of source words. With private clients, I always charge by the number of target words. After all, the target words are my production.
Hope that helps.
femme
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Forum Newbie
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Last Login: 2 days ago @ 9:38:19 PM
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| Since it takes more words from English into French, Spanish and Haitian Creole I usually add 10% to my price. For example if I charge .10 cents per word from French into English I would charge 11 cents for English into French
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Forum Newbie
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Last Login: 11/1/2007 4:11:05 AM
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Do as femme, she seems so clever with that idea!! :-)
I charge for the source text word count. My target language is Spanish and texts tent to be longer than in the source language (Eng), but I don't know how to charge the other way.
So, I have a question to femme, how do you know how much to quote if you haven't done the target language word count?
S.Torre
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Hi
Just add 10% to your normal rate if it's English to Spanish. From Spanish to English use your normal rate. I have noticed that the average rate for Spanish into English is 10 cents per word with a minimum of $30.00 to $35.00 USD.
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Forum Newbie
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Last Login: 9/11/2006 10:34:05 AM
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I'm doing a lot of work translating press releases and feature articles for PR agencies.
All these clients have to work based on fixed budgets, so they need a fixed price before I start translating. So I do it like kjgentil: I base my calculation on the source wordcount, but charge different rates depending on the translation direction. I often even work based on a wordcount spec for the target language. In such cases, I charge a certain percentage margin for editing work.
There are languages where wordcount is not such a good idea. German e.g. has the capability to create monster composite words that can dramatically reduce wordcount while character count could even go up. So, when the source language has such features, I prefer to base my calculation on character count.
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Last Login: 11/12/2008 10:32:15 AM
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Hi to everyone,
isn't it just easier to give an approximate value for the text to be translated to the customer? I mean, ok, a text might be slightly larger in the target than in the source language, but you'll never end up with a 1.000-word target text from an 100-word source.
I own a small - but extremelly busy - translating and interpreting agency in Greece, and no one's ever complained about the difference between estimated and real cost (it helps if you originally give the highest potential price and then deduct from that - even five euro less comes as a pleasant surprise!).
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Forum Newbie
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Last Login: 4/19/2007 7:57:19 PM
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Isnt that how it works normally? (i've not heard much of that approach in translating over the internet), but with selling cars for ex. You put the price you want to sell it for. Then from there you can go down a bit and if the person interested wants it cheaper, he can go elsewhere? The same with buying houses.
I'm going to start trying this approach.
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Forum Newbie
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Last Login: Yesterday @ 5:27:36 PM
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Publishers almost always pay based on the word count or character count in the target file, not the source material.
Some Spanish and European publishers also use "hittings" (pulsaciones), that is, every single hit of a key in the keyboard. This is different from characters, as blank spaces are counted as hittings, even though they are not "characters". Also, punctuation marks and diacritical signs are counted as "hittings" too.
The important thing is that you and your client get things very straight at the beggining of the agreement, and there is no place for misunderstandings. The method or criterion should be clearly specified in the contract or estimate.
If you will estimate based on the pages in the source file, please be careful to make the word count of an average page, then add 10 or even 20 % if target language is more "wordy". If you will charge by the page (in a book, for instance), how will you charge partial pages?
(This problem is avoided if you use word count instead of page count.
If you charge by the page, also be careful if the book has too many pages with reference notes or endnotes in much smaller fontsize. These pages will take twice or even more time to translate. If you translate a reference book with many footnotes or text in smaller font, and you have to estimate per page, think of this before budgeting.
Best regards.
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