| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | End customer looking for registered freelancers Thread poster: Philippe Etienne
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to translate from English into various languages for commercial purposes, at a fixed rate of EUR0.03/source word, or 0.02 into Brazilian Portuguese.
Of course discounts on TM matches should apply.
A minimum output of 10kwords per week is required.
Benefits package:
Working "for" a globally known, listed company.
Other benefits may include a constant stream of work, but that's about it, because you are freelance, remember.
If you don't ... See more to translate from English into various languages for commercial purposes, at a fixed rate of EUR0.03/source word, or 0.02 into Brazilian Portuguese.
Of course discounts on TM matches should apply.
A minimum output of 10kwords per week is required.
Benefits package:
Working "for" a globally known, listed company.
Other benefits may include a constant stream of work, but that's about it, because you are freelance, remember.
If you don't want to miss this opportunity and would like to earn 1300 euros of gross turnover translating 43kwords a month, please search the job board.
Philippe
Edit: Brazil with a zed
[Edited at 2014-02-26 15:12 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Jan Willem van Dormolen (X) 
Netherlands
Local time: 19:43
English to Dutch
+ ...
| At that rate... | Feb 26, 2014 |
Philippe Etienne wrote:
to translate from English into various languages for commercial purposes, at a fixed rate of EUR0.03/source word, or 0.02 into Brazilian Portuguese.
...you can look for a very long time. Better stick it into Google Translate - that will give you about the same quality.
Rates like this are an insult to professional translators. End of.
Of course discounts on TM matches should apply.
Of course.
| | | | | I hardly can resist... | Feb 26, 2014 |
...unfortunately I don't speak Brazilian Portuguese...
| | | | rodrigomaya
Brazil
Local time: 14:43
Member (2012)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
| Good luck, you will need it | Feb 26, 2014 |
Philippe Etienne wrote:
to translate from English into various languages for commercial purposes, at a fixed rate of EUR0.03/source word, or 0.02 into Brazilian Portuguese.
Of course discounts on TM matches should apply.
A minimum output of 10kwords per week is required.
Benefits package:
Working "for" a globally known, listed company.
Other benefits may include a constant stream of work, but that's about it, because you are freelance, remember.
If you don't want to miss this opportunity and would like to earn 1300 euros of gross turnover translating 43kwords a month, please search the job board.
Philippe
Edit: Brazil with a zed
[Edited at 2014-02-26 15:12 GMT]
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Nicole Coesel
Netherlands
Local time: 19:43
Member (2012)
English to Dutch
+ ...
| Oh my, should we just clap our hands?? | Feb 26, 2014 |
The party suggesting this does not know what professional translating is all about. I too get offers like that, yet if possible, I choose not to reply.
Yet because I am a female and hormones do tend to flair up, at times under-payers like this get an answer which suits their proposal
| | | | | An eye-opener | Feb 26, 2014 |
I now know where not to look when planning a trip!
Philippe
| | | | | Tempting indeed :) | Feb 26, 2014 |
I am afraid that there are people in our industry who would still attempt to subcontract this work to earn a penny from it...
Just to be sure - this is the END customer (i.e. not a translation agency) offering this rate, right?
| | | | Radian Yazynin
Local time: 20:43
Member (2004)
English to Russian
+ ...
| They put it incorrectly | Feb 26, 2014 |
Instead of "a globally known, listed company" it should read: "Among the global industry leaders, pioneers in pricing strategy" -- that's the way we got used to hear about such stuff.
[Edited at 2014-02-26 17:57 GMT]
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Joakim Braun
Sweden
Local time: 19:43
German to Swedish
+ ...
| The cash just keeps flowing in every month | Feb 26, 2014 |
Philippe Etienne wrote:
If you don't want to miss this opportunity and would like to earn 1300 euros of gross turnover translating 43kwords a month, please search the job board.
[Edited at 2014-02-26 15:12 GMT]
"Gross turnover"... it's almost as if I'm on Nasdaq already.
But I think I'll stay with my current rates and make 6,000+ euros translating that text volume.
| | | | | Some more info | Feb 26, 2014 |
Thank you everybody for your comments.
The "ad" I posted is my interpretation: I have taken the main specs of an actual job offer posted today on the Proz.com job board, and anonymised it with an attempt to be sarcastic.
But I have stuck to facts.
It is indeed an end customer - a translation "consumer", not a "reseller" -, and a major player in their game.
Their Blue Board is a gleaming 5 or so, and they have already posted jobs here.
They ha... See more Thank you everybody for your comments.
The "ad" I posted is my interpretation: I have taken the main specs of an actual job offer posted today on the Proz.com job board, and anonymised it with an attempt to be sarcastic.
But I have stuck to facts.
It is indeed an end customer - a translation "consumer", not a "reseller" -, and a major player in their game.
Their Blue Board is a gleaming 5 or so, and they have already posted jobs here.
They have their own CAT system, so it doesn't seem as if they knew nothing about translation.
In a nutshell: they certainly didn't put random requirements, which likely means they do get people willing to work in these conditions.
Philippe ▲ Collapse
| | | | | I am not surprised | Feb 26, 2014 |
that there are people willing to work for such rate. E.g. in my home country (Poland) the rates "generously" offered by translation agencies oscillate between EUR 0.02 and 0.03 per word... And sometimes it's even less than that (yes, I was once offered EUR 2 / page for translation of a highly technical text - what, by the way, isn't even my field of expertise...) So I am not very suprised but what I can't understand is the fact that people accepting such jobs could easily earn way more - instead... See more that there are people willing to work for such rate. E.g. in my home country (Poland) the rates "generously" offered by translation agencies oscillate between EUR 0.02 and 0.03 per word... And sometimes it's even less than that (yes, I was once offered EUR 2 / page for translation of a highly technical text - what, by the way, isn't even my field of expertise...) So I am not very suprised but what I can't understand is the fact that people accepting such jobs could easily earn way more - instead, they deprive themselves of this chance on their own free will! ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Your trash may be someone else's treasure | Feb 26, 2014 |
Philippe Etienne wrote:
In a nutshell: they certainly didn't put random requirements, which likely means they do get people willing to work in these conditions.
Philippe
Why am I not surprised? There will always be some hopeless cases (err… people who simply don't want to earn higher rates), people whose translation skills are not up to par, etc.
A translator with 10 years of experience is claiming on another forum that EUR 0.03 is a super duper rate, so if you are charging more then perhaps you are making too much! Ouch! He is also zipping through all his translations at more than 1,000 words per hour. Am I really just an expensive, detail-oriented snail? Oh wait! But then he mentions that reading is not really his thing. This explains a lot.
[Edited at 2014-02-26 20:09 GMT]
[Edited at 2014-02-26 21:46 GMT]
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Carole Paquis
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:43
Member (2007)
English to French
| That's exactly what I thought | Feb 26, 2014 |
Philippe Etienne wrote:
I now know where not to look when planning a trip!
Philippe
These were my thoughts when I saw the post.
Carole PAQUIS
| | | | | To each his own | Feb 27, 2014 |
As someone who started at the very bottom of the price mountain (accepting projects at the equivalent of about .01-.02 USD at very beginning), I don't understand the outrage caused by translators accepting low prices. There seems to be a presumption on the part of many on this forum that Beginning Translator A accepting a low rate directly affects their own business, and that it is therefore morally reprehensible for anyone to accept such rates. Leaving aside for the moment the assumption inhere... See more As someone who started at the very bottom of the price mountain (accepting projects at the equivalent of about .01-.02 USD at very beginning), I don't understand the outrage caused by translators accepting low prices. There seems to be a presumption on the part of many on this forum that Beginning Translator A accepting a low rate directly affects their own business, and that it is therefore morally reprehensible for anyone to accept such rates. Leaving aside for the moment the assumption inherent here that the well-being of translators living in the US/Western Europe is somehow more important than that of translators from other places (where such rates provide for a good standard of living), I just don't think that the numerous, low-priced 'Beginning Translator A's will ever, as a group, be able to provide translations that match those of more experienced translators in quality. Therefore, I doubt that the effect of these translators on our own business is important enough to worry about.
This is a different situation than the car market in the US in the 1980s, when foreign car makers were able to out-compete US car makers in America because their cars were cheaper AND offered comparable (or higher) quality. To continue the car analogy, the more comparable example to the translation market is the current car market in China, where cheap, low-quality Made in China cars are available, but are routinely out-competed by foreign models that are more expensive but offer higher quality. When you walk down the street in China, you see both Chinese and foreign models, and I don't see why this shouldn't be the case (metaphorically) with translation as well.
If one day beginning translators are magically able to offer low rates for great quality translations, or if MT makes the leap, then we'll all be replaced, and I don't think any amount of banding together, or derisive comments about low-rate translators, by translators would prevent this. I remember my father telling us that he did not want to buy a Japanese car; he owns one now.
So, as has been suggested in another current thread on the forum, I hope people here are at least nice to those offering low rates. If you feel that giving advice to someone is going to undercut your own business, then perhaps saying nothing is best.
Final two thoughts, from the end-user perspective. 1. Regarding the post referenced by the OP, my strong suspicion is that the end user has an in-house localization/translation team, and that they are just looking for a rough translation, that they will then edit. This was the case with my initial work I performed at the low rate. If I was a large, multinational company, this is exactly the strategy I would take towards translation if it saved me money.
This leads me to my second point- I think we forget how high translation charges can be for companies. If I was a small-medium business owner, looking to translate a 20,000 word document, I honestly think I would be shocked at the price necessary for a good translation. This is not to say that our prices are not fair, but rather to say that I don't think that companies that look to take a different approach towards translation should be looked at as being poorly run enterprises.
To me, the biggest problem with the translation market continues to be end-users being uneducated about the relationship between price/quality in translation, not low rates offered by translators. If an end user knows what quality to expect from a .03 translation, and still wants to sign up for it for whatever reason, then great, however, in many cases end users expect far more than they should from low rate translations.
[Edited at 2014-02-27 08:42 GMT]
[Edited at 2014-02-27 08:49 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | No outrage and no worry | Feb 27, 2014 |
Delivering sloppy jobs because the rate is low is beyond me, but I could also drop a few checking and proofreading rounds and decrease my rate by a few pennies.
However at 0.03, I could hardly earn as little as 30 euros/hour. Let alone doing a quick check for typos! And I'd probably get an ulcer thinking at all the mistakes I didn't correct.
More than translators accepting such rates (their business, not mine), it is how translation is valued as a profession by some end custo... See more Delivering sloppy jobs because the rate is low is beyond me, but I could also drop a few checking and proofreading rounds and decrease my rate by a few pennies.
However at 0.03, I could hardly earn as little as 30 euros/hour. Let alone doing a quick check for typos! And I'd probably get an ulcer thinking at all the mistakes I didn't correct.
More than translators accepting such rates (their business, not mine), it is how translation is valued as a profession by some end customers that surprises me.
Sorry, but I don't see translation as a minimum-wage job. And in "cheaper" countries, chances are that you will even less easily find the ideal native candidate willing to work for such rates.
Let's not forget that commercial translation is meant to open new markets to translation customers. You don't find a EUR5,000 user manual or website translation expensive when you market your products to a new pool of millions of potential buyers and expect a multimillion return from moving to that market. Unless you think only "cutting costs", a strategy that has its own limits...
Conversely, if customers consider translation as typing in another language, and not as the actual value it brings to their business, then yes, they can command the lowest rates they see fit, and translators can compete with Google Translate.
The popularity of free online translation also helps to spread the idea that translation isn't a job.
Fortunately, many end customers understand what increased visibility quality translation gives them, whatever their country of origin. For example, I sometimes translate sizeable texts for a Chinese manufacturer through a European agency, whom I charge EUR0.11/source word for EN>FR. My translation is then edited, checked, formatted and whatever, then resold with added value. Of course, the end customer doesn't sell the average coat hanger with its laughable instructions, and they're not after the cheapest agency.
As regards the "emerging country cheaper" tune, I lived 13 years in Morocco (widely FR-speaking) with the whole family nucleus, and standards of living being equal, I didn't see any major difference in spending compared to Europe. We just lived in a large city instead of the countryside and we had a cleaning lady every day. However, things that you take for granted here in Europe have a price there: for instance, the risk of dying in a car crash is something like 10 times higher. But a shortened working life is not necessarily something you take into account in your rates. Everything has a price.
Carole Paquis wrote:
These were my thoughts when I saw the post.
And do not hesitate to spread the word that there are other websites that do the same thing, with maybe a more "fair-trade" approach to translation!
Philippe ▲ Collapse
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