| Páginas sobre el tema: < [1 2] | Charging per hours Autor de la hebra: Elisa Fernández Vic
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Angela Malik 
Reino Unido
Local time: 00:29
alemán al inglés
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| No "right" word count per day | Jun 21, 2015 |
Diana Coada, PGDip DPSI NRPSI wrote:
That is how I choose to work, at a reasonable per word rate. Translating 2000-3000 words a day, a number that somehow became an accepted/expected average, would literally fry my brain.
Obviously everyone's brains and working capacities are different. In this case there is no "right" amount of words per day, as translation capacity varies not only depending on the translator's working method, brain power and general schedule, but also on the language combination and specialisation.
Taking my own two working languages, for example, I can translate 3000-6000 words per 8-hr day of German to English in my area of specialisation, but only about 1500-2000 words per day of Russian to English. Part of this is because I am much more familiar with the terminology in German, but also because German and English are both Germanic languages and have similar ways of expressing similar ideas, whereas Russian as a Slavic language is just completely different and requires more thought and reworking to turn into English, and therefore takes more time to translate.
| | | | Diana Coada (X)
Reino Unido
Local time: 00:29
portugués al inglés
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| That's all fine, Angela | Jun 21, 2015 |
I agree there's no right word count per day.
I just took offence with the others' attitude towards translating ''only'' 1000-1500 words a day. One poster was downright rude to another poster in this thread.
My personal philosophy is work to live and not live to work, so translating/dictating 1000-2000 words in 2-4 hours is perfectly fine and gives me the rest of the day all to myself. That is how many translators choose and prefer to work, and we don't need to be told ... See more I agree there's no right word count per day.
I just took offence with the others' attitude towards translating ''only'' 1000-1500 words a day. One poster was downright rude to another poster in this thread.
My personal philosophy is work to live and not live to work, so translating/dictating 1000-2000 words in 2-4 hours is perfectly fine and gives me the rest of the day all to myself. That is how many translators choose and prefer to work, and we don't need to be told that we can't ''make a living'' or that we need to ''wake up''. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Samuel Murray
Países Bajos
Local time: 01:29
Miembro 2006
inglés al afrikaans
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| Interesting points | Jun 21, 2015 |
Elisa Fernández Vic wrote:
I think some jobs are much better suited to this kind of rate, i.e. proofreading (as the quality of the text can vary widely), AdWords translation (as a lot of thought goes into each word, but the amount of words in each ad is tiny) and advertising slogans translation (same).
Some interesting points were made in this thread. I think adwords and slogans should best be charged per adword or per slogan, with an accompanying minimum fee.
I agree with what Rudolf said about an hourly rate not allowing to you to earn more by working smarter. In fact, on a purely hourly basis, working smarter and harder will make you earn less, not more. Chris makes an interesting point that an hourly fee should relate to how much time a job would normally take (i.e. at normal speed), instead of the time it actually takes. If you're tired, and take longer, should the client end up paying more? If you're particularly sharp on that day, and you complete the task early, should you be penalised for working faster?
Most of my clients who prefer an hourly rate for anything typically tell me how long they estimate the task will take anyway, so the PO is more or less fixed from the start, even though the line item is "hour". If such a job is estimated (by the client) to take 6 hours, and it takes me 4 or 5 hours, then I invoice for 6 hours. But if the same job takes me only 2 or 3 hours, I'll tell the client to adjust the PO. Similarly, if after one or two hours' work I realise that the job will take 10 or 12 hours to complete, I inform the client immediately, to get authorisation to take that long.
A doubt that comes to mind is which task should be considered 'active time' and charged for. At the moment, I'm not charging for project management (emails and such), reviewing style guides or researching the topic at hand: I only charge for time spent proofreading or translating, not including breaks. Is this an standard policy?
If you really want to charge per hour and measure it, my suggestion would be to calculate the time in chunks of 10 minutes. This will allow you to take 10 minutes "off" for coffee or for answering other e-mails. I would not think it fair that you include administrative tasks (i.e. initial e-mails and invoicing time) in the hours that you charge, but I do think it's fair that you include time spent reading style guides, doing research, exchanging e-mails or chats with the client (except for those that relate to the initial job negotiation and final hand-over), and filling in required forms.
When quoting on a job that is invoiced by the hour, give the client an estimate of how many hours it will take, and do not exceed that number without getting authorisation from the client.
| | | | Angela Malik
Reino Unido
Local time: 00:29
alemán al inglés
+ ...
Diana Coada, PGDip DPSI NRPSI wrote:
My personal philosophy is work to live and not live to work, so translating/dictating 1000-2000 words in 2-4 hours is perfectly fine and gives me the rest of the day all to myself. That is how many translators choose and prefer to work, and we don't need to be told that we can't ''make a living'' or that we need to ''wake up''.
Agreed -- the whole point of freelancing and "being your own boss" is getting to decide how you spend your time and how much work you ultimately do. If you're happy translating "only" X amount of words per day then I'm happy for you!
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| Liberty to work | Jul 13, 2015 |
Angela Rimmer wrote: Agreed -- the whole point of freelancing and "being your own boss" is getting to decide how you spend your time and how much work you ultimately do. If you're happy translating "only" X amount of words per day then I'm happy for you!
Yes, in the [cyber based] free economic system, price rate is not easy to regulate.
Soonthon L.
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