| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7] > | 75,000 words in 15 working days? Thread poster: Beatriz Ramírez de Haro
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| Piece of cake... | Dec 22, 2009 |
I easily average 600 words (two pages) per hour of work even with the most difficult of source texts, final proofreading included.
You should also take into account the amount of money you'll make. It's probably not every day that you get a chance to earn enough money to buy a small car in two weeks.
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Dear Colleagues,
This is very valuable information: I now have a clear picture of the various options and feel in a better position to negotiate.
Thank you so much for your time and advice.
Merry Christmas!
Bea
| | | | betterlife
China
Local time: 08:39
English to Chinese
| Sometimes, 5000 words is not too much per day | Dec 22, 2009 |
However, I would rather to translate less for the quality and my health.
| | | | Robert Forstag 
United States
Local time: 20:39
Spanish to English
+ ...
| Only possible when.... | Dec 22, 2009 |
...the subject matter is so thoroughly known by the translator, and his or her translation and typing skills are so highly developed, that the job is the near equivalent of a transcription job within a single language by a skilled typist in that language. In addition, the text must be very well written and perfectly legible, and there must not be any time-consuming formatting issues (e.g., tables, heavy use of math symbols or other special symbols) that slow things down.
In other wo... See more ...the subject matter is so thoroughly known by the translator, and his or her translation and typing skills are so highly developed, that the job is the near equivalent of a transcription job within a single language by a skilled typist in that language. In addition, the text must be very well written and perfectly legible, and there must not be any time-consuming formatting issues (e.g., tables, heavy use of math symbols or other special symbols) that slow things down.
In other words, it is as Mediamatrix says. ▲ Collapse
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Sebastian Witte
Germany
Local time: 02:39
Member (2004)
English to German
+ ...
| To those saying that making this outsourcer's dream come true is not an issue: | Dec 22, 2009 |
I think you need to become more humble. Period.
| | | | | In defense of typists | Dec 22, 2009 |
Robert Forstag wrote:
...the subject matter is so thoroughly known by the translator, and his or her translation and typing skills are so highly developed, that the job is the near equivalent of a transcription job within a single language by a skilled typist in that language. In addition, the text must be very well written and perfectly legible, and there must not be any time-consuming formatting issues (e.g., tables, heavy use of math symbols or other special symbols) that slow things down.
In other words, it is as Mediamatrix says.
We can't really approach the speed of a good typist.
A properly fast typist will do 100 wpm at least. 100 wpm gives you 6000 words an hour, so 30 to 40 thousand words a day is definitely doable... and that means that a really good typist can take care of the 75000 words in two days, or three at a maximum. I'd say a translation will take at least 5 times as much unless the text is very repetitive.
Looking at it from the other direction, you don't need to approach the speed of a good typist to do the job on time... which is why it's a doable job, depending on the circumstances.
| | | | Neil Coffey
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:39
French to English
+ ...
| Agree - you need to serve the client | Dec 22, 2009 |
Sebastian Witte wrote:
I think you need to become more humble. Period.
I wouldn't have put it quite so poetically as needing to make their dream come true, but I do agree that fundamentally part of being a good translator, just as being a service provider in other fields, is finding a pragmatic solution to a client's needs, even if it's not the one you would have chosen in ideal circumstances.
| | | | Tara Salman (X)
Canada
Local time: 20:39
French to English
| Subcontracting | Dec 22, 2009 |
Hi,
What about farming it out to other translators? Give 12 translators 5000 words and a week to do it. In the meantime, do the remainder yourself (first 15,000 words so you know what it's about and how it should read) and take the rest of the time to revise the work of your translators. So yeah, in essence it's a translation project-management contract. Too bad I'm not in your language pair.
Tara
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| if it is gross 75K... | Dec 22, 2009 |
... then, assuming reasonable repetition rate that might accumulate in the course of translation, miracles might happen and if you take a risk you might be a hero.
[Редактировалось 2009-12-22 20:00 GMT]
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Tara Salman wrote: Hi, What about farming it out to other translators? Give 12 translators 5000 words and a week to do it. In the meantime, do the remainder yourself (first 15,000 words so you know what it's about and how it should read) and take the rest of the time to revise the work of your translators. So yeah, in essence it's a translation project-management contract. Too bad I'm not in your language pair. Tara
There is no way I could find 12 decent translators to get in on this, AND then coordinate things among so many people. When 12 people are involved, at least one of them is bound to screw something up.
I think it's best to keep such groups small. I would recruit one, maybe two people beside myself if I really wanted to go this route.
Even if you don't work at the same place and you don't have a server setup, TM exchanges and a jointly managed terminology in a Google spreadsheet can go a long way towards keeping everyone on the same page. Google spreadsheets are great for this because everyone can edit them from any web browser without installing a client program and all changes are instantly visible to everyone. Still, the fewer people are involved, the better.
| | | | | Nightmare... | Dec 23, 2009 |
... will be after you collect translations from those 12 and understand they do not fit together.
Crowdsourcing is no good.
FarkasAndras wrote: Give 12 translators 5000 words and a week to do it
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 02:39
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| Crowdsourcing | Dec 23, 2009 |
Sergei Leshchinsky wrote:
... will be after you collect translations from those 12 and understand they do not fit together. Crowdsourcing is no good.
Let's just get our terminology straight here -- twelve is not a crowd in the crowdsourcing sense. Twelve hundred is a crowd. Twelve is just a nightmare.
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Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 02:39
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| On subcontracting | Dec 23, 2009 |
Tara Salman wrote:
What about farming it out to other translators? Give 12 translators 5000 words and a week to do it. In the meantime, do the remainder yourself (first 15,000 words so you know what it's about and how it should read) and take the rest of the time to revise the work of your translators.
I agree with the comments made elsewhere that this is a recipe for an inconsistent translation, even if you revise the work yourself. But I'm of a mind to say that this may be a good way of doing it, simply because the client is asking for something to be done too quickly.
If 100 men can build a road in 4 weeks, but the client wants it done in 2 weeks (using the same 100 men), then the road is bound to be defective in some way, but if the client is happy with a defective road, then the client is happy.
One should explain to the client that doing 75000 words would normally take 30 days, but if he wants to have it done in 15 days, he should be aware that the end-product is likely to have a few defects. Explain what kinds of defects he is likely to encounter with each method (outsourcing will result in terminological and stylistic variance, whereas a one-person-job will result in a far more direct and much less elegant translation), and let him decide if he wants to take that risk. Let him know that he can't expect any discounts for defects because doing such a translation isn't less work for the translator -- it's actually more work.
| | | | DZiW (X)
Ukraine
English to Russian
+ ...
| nightmire deadline? | Dec 23, 2009 |
Guys, you must be joking - 5'000 per day is pretty feasible, although I would ask someone else to proofread it. Yet the only nightmare I could think of is waking up at 4am every day to send another PO/ reminder to get the earned money for the huge job done))
Everything else is but a daily routine.
[Edited at 2009-12-23 10:39 GMT]
| | | | Williamson
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:39
Flemish to English
+ ...
| Depends on the tools you use. | Dec 24, 2009 |
With Dragon Dictate (120 wpm), Trados or other CAT and MT combined, it should be feasible.
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