Something to the tune of 20K.
Julian Holmes wrote:
It was for a machine tool that I was very familiar with and the Japanese was pretty much a doddle.
I used to be a very fast typist (until I buggered up my right right hand). On this particular job, I was in good form and bashed out several pages of source text all to do with the X axis which turned into about 20 pages of English (@200 words per page) and then found that the next two sections were exactly the same but for the Y and Z axes.
I proofed what I'd already done to make sure that everything was OK, did a couple of copy and pastes and find and replaces and - hey presto! - the translation literally tripled in an instant.
This was about 20 odd years ago. Aaaah, the good ol' days before the advent of CATs! You could bill the customer for total word counts without discounts for repetitions. And, the rates were that much higher then! Holmsey went home very satisfied that day.
Do I get a cigar and bragging rights for this one?
Definitely!