Company Scam? Memsource Output Different from Memsource Bilingual File
Thread poster: Scott Saylor
Scott Saylor
Scott Saylor  Identity Verified
Local time: 13:51
Japanese to English
Aug 17, 2017

Hello, I will keep things anonymous here but I just want to know the general thoughts of the community on my situation.

I translate a flat PER WORD rate, and I agreed to use a CAT tool to do a translation for a company, at my per target word rate.

The output translation is approximately 40,000 words, but the company is saying that the "bilingual file" is all that I worked on, so that is all that I get paid for.

I am very confused, because it doesn't seem li
... See more
Hello, I will keep things anonymous here but I just want to know the general thoughts of the community on my situation.

I translate a flat PER WORD rate, and I agreed to use a CAT tool to do a translation for a company, at my per target word rate.

The output translation is approximately 40,000 words, but the company is saying that the "bilingual file" is all that I worked on, so that is all that I get paid for.

I am very confused, because it doesn't seem like 100% matches were missing from the bilingual file. In fact, I don't really know why the output file is so different. And the company is being very selective about the information it is divulging. I cannot open any of the files anymore, because I pressed "complete" on them. So all I have are what the PM is sending me (the bilingual files). I did save one fully output file (the largest) and it has 11% more words in it than the total wordcount of the entire three bilingual files of the three documents I translated.

What do I do? I don't want a situation, but I also don't offer discounts, and I don't like that this type of large discrepancy was concealed.

The company is saying "We only get paid for the bilingual file." That's wonderful, but I have no way of verifying that anyway, and what the company gets paid is not what I charge anyway. So.... thoughts?
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Natalie
Natalie  Identity Verified
Poland
Local time: 21:51
Member (2002)
English to Russian
+ ...

Moderator of this forum
SITE LOCALIZER
There are legitimate reasons for situations like this Aug 18, 2017

Hi Scott, it is very difficult to say anything without seeing the files themselves, however, there are plenty of legitimate reasons for situations like this:

- the output files contain large parts of the text translated previously;
- the output files contain tons of repetitions;
- somebody else was working at another part of the translation in parallel with you (as Memsource is cloud-based!), etc.

If you have at least one full output file you can compare it
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Hi Scott, it is very difficult to say anything without seeing the files themselves, however, there are plenty of legitimate reasons for situations like this:

- the output files contain large parts of the text translated previously;
- the output files contain tons of repetitions;
- somebody else was working at another part of the translation in parallel with you (as Memsource is cloud-based!), etc.

If you have at least one full output file you can compare it with the bilingual file that you translated and you will see where is the difference.

Moreover, you can evaluate the time spent at the translation: if you have spent, for example, 5 days by translating 2000 words per day you could translate 10,000 words but it would be impossible to translate 40,000 during this time.

My best educated guess is that either some previously translated files were updated and you have been working only at the updated parts, or "your" files were something what is called "frequents". In both cases the output file may differ significantly from the text you have been working at.

Natalia
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Mirko Mainardi
Mirko Mainardi  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 21:51
Member
English to Italian
First-time client? Aug 18, 2017

Scott Saylor wrote:

I did save one fully output file (the largest) and it has 11% more words in it than the total wordcount of the entire three bilingual files of the three documents I translated.



Is this the first time you work for this client? If so, then maybe they're "just" weighting the wordcount, even if you said you don't offer discounts for fuzzies, reps, etc.

Besides, you should know better than anyone else if the files you translated contained a lot of repetitions, 100% matches, locked segments, etc. to the point it might explain the stark difference in wordcounts you're seeing.

At any rate, if you can't export mxliffs anymore, then use what you have. You wrote you have the export of a single file out of 3, and that that alone seems to have more target words than the 3 files the PM sent you. Have you asked them for a simple explanation to that?


 
Scott Saylor
Scott Saylor  Identity Verified
Local time: 13:51
Japanese to English
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks Aug 18, 2017

Hi Mirko and Natalie-

Good idea about the long file that I have in output form to compare it.

I guess I am confused why my bilingual file does, indeed, include repetitions and 100% matches, yet somehow the output target file is so much larger. No other translator worked on my section. There did not seem to be any locked segments.

I guess I will find out when I do the comparison.

It's not a first-time client (agency) but a client I haven't work
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Hi Mirko and Natalie-

Good idea about the long file that I have in output form to compare it.

I guess I am confused why my bilingual file does, indeed, include repetitions and 100% matches, yet somehow the output target file is so much larger. No other translator worked on my section. There did not seem to be any locked segments.

I guess I will find out when I do the comparison.

It's not a first-time client (agency) but a client I haven't worked with for a couple years. I recall them doing really frustrating things like highlighting text not to translate (which were repeats) but yet leaving the text for me to reproduce in the final document, thus having to perform work on those sections anyway. I don't think I'm going to work for them again. The edges they try to cut leave a bad taste in my mouth, and they never come right out and say what they are actually doing (instead trying to conceal or neglecting to mention details that involve their penny-pinching tactics.) Comes across as deceptive. Plus, with Japanese companies, as soon as you stick up for yourself you get labeled difficult, so I don't anticipate getting a flood of requests from them in the future either.
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Company Scam? Memsource Output Different from Memsource Bilingual File







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