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10400 words in 24 hours
Thread poster: Nicole Coati
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LinguaS LC
LinguaS LC
Italy
Local time: 13:31
English to German
+ ...
Speak and it's a lot faster Jul 14, 2017

The average capacity is 2500 words per day, so you must be Superman. [/quote]


While I completely agree that a medical and other technical texts require more time, I also found that I could definitely boost my 3000 words per day output by switching to speech-recognition . No more typos (after an initial phase), no tired wrists, no slowing down. And I get a nice flow to many texts, so it's ideal fee presentations etc. Did a 40000 word project in less than 2 weeks including pro
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The average capacity is 2500 words per day, so you must be Superman. [/quote]


While I completely agree that a medical and other technical texts require more time, I also found that I could definitely boost my 3000 words per day output by switching to speech-recognition . No more typos (after an initial phase), no tired wrists, no slowing down. And I get a nice flow to many texts, so it's ideal fee presentations etc. Did a 40000 word project in less than 2 weeks including proofing in Across and was even praised for the excellent quality which thrilled me no end.
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gayd (X)
gayd (X)
it depends Jul 16, 2017

LinguaS Ltd wrote:


The average capacity is 2500 words per day, so you must be Superman.



While I completely agree that a medical and other technical texts require more time, I also found that I could definitely boost my 3000 words per day output by switching to speech-recognition . No more typos (after an initial phase), no tired wrists, no slowing down. And I get a nice flow to many texts, so it's ideal fee presentations etc. Did a 40000 word project in less than 2 weeks including proofing in Across and was even praised for the excellent quality which thrilled me no end. [/quote]

I think that it's possible to use speech recognition only for texts for which no rephrasing is needed and which contain relatively short sentences.

And speaking all the time can be exhausting as well

[Modifié le 2017-07-16 06:04 GMT]

[Modifié le 2017-07-16 06:10 GMT]


 
Nor Afizah
Nor Afizah
Malaysia
Local time: 20:31
English to Malay
Seriously? Jul 16, 2017

My average is 1,500 words per day. Anything more than that-sounds like a problematic/desperate client who is unable to think right!

 
Christopher Schröder
Christopher Schröder
United Kingdom
Member (2011)
Swedish to English
+ ...
Wow Jul 17, 2017

Looks like it's all been kicking off in my absence.

True story:

My great-grandfather worked as a translator for the Nazi supreme command, and one dark day in 1941 the Führer, who had by this time become dangerously addicted to romantic fiction, asked him to drop all work on the latest Allied submarine blueprints and instead translate the latest Millski & Boonski novel from Russian - by tomorrow.

"But mein Führer, this is more than 10,000 words, a profes
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Looks like it's all been kicking off in my absence.

True story:

My great-grandfather worked as a translator for the Nazi supreme command, and one dark day in 1941 the Führer, who had by this time become dangerously addicted to romantic fiction, asked him to drop all work on the latest Allied submarine blueprints and instead translate the latest Millski & Boonski novel from Russian - by tomorrow.

"But mein Führer, this is more than 10,000 words, a professional cannot possibly translate that much in 24 hours!"

Let's just say the Führer was not best pleased. In fact the very next day he declared war on Russia. A coincidence?

The irony is, as Lincoln pointed out, that 24 hours is two 8-hour days with 8 hours of sleep in the middle, and an occasional 5,000 words a day is a far from frightening proposition.

If only Great-Grampa had had this mathematical insight, he would've been spared four years of every 24 hours being two 10-hour days with 4 hours of sleep in the middle, and the world might have been a very different place today.
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Markus Waismayer
Markus Waismayer
Austria
Local time: 13:31
English to German
Tactics Aug 18, 2017

I translate English to German within the medical field.
So - no matter, which kind of document should be translated - 10.000 per day is impossible. And even if anyone could meet such deadlines, the translation must be horrible.
Additionally my approach is not only to translate, but also proofread the delivered documents, as from my point of view it is absolutely necessary to achieve a sufficient result.
So I also have to calculate the time schedule with respect to proofread the
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I translate English to German within the medical field.
So - no matter, which kind of document should be translated - 10.000 per day is impossible. And even if anyone could meet such deadlines, the translation must be horrible.
Additionally my approach is not only to translate, but also proofread the delivered documents, as from my point of view it is absolutely necessary to achieve a sufficient result.
So I also have to calculate the time schedule with respect to proofread the translation, no matter how many proofreaders are following up my work.

The result is, that I rarely get back any documents. And if this happens, we are not talking about any objective errors like typos, grammar etc.
And if any deadline or rate is completely unrealistic, I simply don´t accept it.

In my opinion - and I also know "the other side", because I as well worked within several fields of the pharmaceutical industry - the main problem is not the client, but some of the PMs. A client usually knows, what he can expect und usually his first priority is quality. Because if he don´t receives quality, he as well loses time.
PMs often don´t have any clue, what they are selling. And they don´t have any idea, if they are dealing with highly complex documents, which need a lot of investigational work or simple ones. From that point of view it is also impossible to define any amount of words, which should be translated per day, because there is a difference, if some simple letters should be translated or any highly specified information with highly specified terms, for which you need to understand the whole medical context.

So at the end, the document is forwarded to any translator meeting the deadline, but performing a horrible translation, because there is no way to deliver a high quality translation overnight. As a consequence, a revision or retranslation is necessary - there are more and more offers for revision/retranslation projects and that´s just the logical consequence of the whole story.
And I guess, it´s quite similiar with low rates.
So this leads to a "lose-lose" situation for all sides. The translator jeopardizes his own business, the client is angry and the PM faces several problems surrounding this problem.

I think, these tight deadlines often are negotiation tactics. Meaning, that a rush job is indicated, but the time is mainly used for negotiation. And that means, the client would accept some more days, but in fact they are not used for translation, but waiting for someone, who accepts a low rate e.g.
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Kevin Fulton
Kevin Fulton  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 08:31
German to English
Levels of outsourcing Aug 19, 2017

miraculix73 wrote:
So - no matter, which kind of document should be translated - 10.000 per day is impossible. And even if anyone could meet such deadlines, the translation must be horrible.
Additionally my approach is not only to translate, but also proofread the delivered documents, as from my point of view it is absolutely necessary to achieve a sufficient result.
{snip]
I think, these tight deadlines often are negotiation tactics. Meaning, that a rush job is indicated, but the time is mainly used for negotiation. And that means, the client would accept some more days, but in fact they are not used for translation, but waiting for someone, who accepts a low rate e.g.


Although I don't entirely disagree, there is an additional factor in play: sub-sub-contracting, that is, a chain of outsourcers.

I've seen this happen myself, when various agencies have offered me the same job at increasingly decreasing rates and tighter deadlines:

Let's say agency "A" receives an order from a client who wants a 10,000-word translation in the pharmaceutical area, with a deadline of 7 working days at a rate of .25/word, not an unreasonable request. Agency "A" realizes that it can outsource to reliable agency "B" for .22/word, thereby pocketing .03/word for no work at all. Agency "B" realizes that its best pharma translator isn't available, so it outsources to agency "C" at a rate of .18/word and with a correspondingly shorter deadline. Agency "C" takes a few days to find a reasonably competence translator ...
You see where this is going.

No serious agency is going to accept a 10K-word translation and promise 24 hour delivery with any guarantee of quality. I've seen large-ish jobs with short deadlines broken up among several translators, but I doubt whether the agencies involved promised any QC, since these jobs were in all likelihood "gist" translations when the client wanted to know a request for proposal was worth pursuing.


 
Merab Dekano
Merab Dekano  Identity Verified
Spain
Member (2014)
English to Spanish
+ ...
It's not about speed Aug 19, 2017

If you stay awake working 24 hours, and you are familiar with the subject matter, you may hit the deadline. You also may miss it if you get stuck with a term, abbreviation or two.

Conclusion: risky, fishy project. Stay away. We all know average speed is about 3,000k words a day. Ask for three days. If they disagree, move on.

As a rule, I never accept even 3,000k a day projects for delivery the same day. You may have an emergency (have to take your kid to the hospital,
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If you stay awake working 24 hours, and you are familiar with the subject matter, you may hit the deadline. You also may miss it if you get stuck with a term, abbreviation or two.

Conclusion: risky, fishy project. Stay away. We all know average speed is about 3,000k words a day. Ask for three days. If they disagree, move on.

As a rule, I never accept even 3,000k a day projects for delivery the same day. You may have an emergency (have to take your kid to the hospital, fall from the stairs, fall from a bike, get fever, etc.). If offered for the same day, I always propose to deliver it next day (to have the safely of the night, in case something goes wrong), and most of the time deliver it the same day.

10,000k words next day delivery, a big no.
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Nikki Scott-Despaigne
Nikki Scott-Despaigne  Identity Verified
Local time: 13:31
French to English
Hear, hear Aug 21, 2017

Lingua 5B wrote:

Jenny Forbes wrote:
The PM seems to have been treating the translator as a recalcitrant employee or lazy schoolgirl, rather than as an independent service provider or business operator - an attitude often deplored in these forums.


Agree!


 
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