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What am I earning?
Thread poster: Felix CHARNLEY
Jean Dimitriadis
Jean Dimitriadis  Identity Verified
English to French
+ ...
42 indeed Jul 5, 2018

Hello Nikki,

42 is a particularly fitting answer to what seems to me as a particularly unfitting and unreasonable question in these forums.

What's better than humour for discouraging/frowning upon such attitudes?

Here's the allusion, the book itself is an engrossing, exhilarating read (also found as an audio book, read by Stephen Fry and Martin Freeman):

The number 42 is, in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, the "Answer
... See more
Hello Nikki,

42 is a particularly fitting answer to what seems to me as a particularly unfitting and unreasonable question in these forums.

What's better than humour for discouraging/frowning upon such attitudes?

Here's the allusion, the book itself is an engrossing, exhilarating read (also found as an audio book, read by Stephen Fry and Martin Freeman):

The number 42 is, in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, the "Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything", calculated by an enormous supercomputer named Deep Thought over a period of 7.5 million years. Unfortunately, no one knows what the question is. Thus, to calculate the Ultimate Question, a special computer the size of a small planet was built from organic components and named "Earth".


[Edited at 2018-07-05 00:51 GMT]
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Meta Arkadia
P.L.F. Persio
Katalin Szilárd
 
Felix CHARNLEY
Felix CHARNLEY  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:40
TOPIC STARTER
Annoying Jul 5, 2018

Yes I've been translating for 6+ years and can translate with these combinations as well as any of you but I don't know any of this terminology. I look forward to a concise and useful answer amidst the sassy comments to come.

 
Nikki Scott-Despaigne
Nikki Scott-Despaigne  Identity Verified
Local time: 20:40
French to English
On the matter of 42 Jul 6, 2018

Yes, I remember when everyone was reading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Got it.

@Felix. You want an answer to your question. You are being paid USD for the translation of 412 words. You will have understood that it is peanuts and not worth considering, all the more so since you need to deduct charges, costs, etc.

Felix, you then asked for "generic rates" for different tasks. You say you don't want explanations, just answers. Answers without explanation
... See more
Yes, I remember when everyone was reading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Got it.

@Felix. You want an answer to your question. You are being paid USD for the translation of 412 words. You will have understood that it is peanuts and not worth considering, all the more so since you need to deduct charges, costs, etc.

Felix, you then asked for "generic rates" for different tasks. You say you don't want explanations, just answers. Answers without explanations are pretty useless. Rates that you can expect to charge and be paid will depend on a number of factors (language pair, field, level of expertise, client's location, level of urgency, etc). You no doubt already know the minmum rate you need to charge to make money from your translation activity.

- hourly rate translating : translation is almost always calculated on a per word basis, n° of words of the source document

- hourly rate proofreading : again, this is usually a per word rate. Clients are not comfortable with an hourly rate as they think the translator will deliberately take ages. However, for poorly written texts, an hourly rate can be a good safeguard against underselling oneself. I prefer to see the document first and give a quote for the job, whether an hourly rate if it is badly written or a per word rate if it is just a proof-reading job and not an editing!

- proofreading rate monolingual p word : see above. Proofreading is necessarily monolingual as you read the document as a standalone piece of text to see if it flow, if it makes sense. Proofreading does not involved comparing the translation to the original text.

- proofreading rate bilingual p word : when you compare the translation to the original (source) text, this is not proofreading but revision. This is paid at a higher rate than proofreading. You are being asked to check the translation against the original, to see if terminology is correct, if the translation is faithful to the original.

- Minimum order value (min fee) : you should decide what it appropriate for you.

- Fuzzy matches (85-99% on source, as percentage) : check a post by Etienne Philippe on this subject.
- Exact matches (on source, as percentage) : idem

- Translation (on source) + currency : I don't know what you mean here. Sorry
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Mirko Mainardi
 
Emma Page
Emma Page
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:40
French to English
+ ...
As we live all over the world, there are NOT generic answers for this. But start from an hourly rate Jul 6, 2018

Felix CHARNLEY wrote:

Ok I've got an annoying form asking these pedantic questions. Someone PLEASE hit me with some generic rates. I really don't have time for an explanation just chuck some numbers my way (any language, any level of experience, like I said "generic"). THANKS!

hourly rate translating
hourly rate proofreading
proofreading rate monolingual p word
proofreading rate bilingual p word
Minimum order value (min fee)
Fuzzy matches (85-99% on source, as percentage)
Exact matches (on source, as percentage)
Translation (on source) + currency

THANK YOU!


This depends so much on so many things...but as a starting point. Why not think about an acceptable hourly wage for you, where you live, for the point you feel you are at in your career. Take into account taxes paid (add an appropriate %, if you're freelancing and will have to pay them out of pocket). For a per-word rate, figure out how fast you translate and approximate what you would need to charge to make that hourly rate or more. Now don't charge less than that.

For example. If I feel that I want to make about 35,000 GBP per year NET (before taxes), I need to make about 18/hour if I work 35 hours per week. As a freelance I may not always have 35 hours of work every week, so I raise my price to 20 or 25 GBP/hour to account for that. If I translate AROUND 400 words an hour, I need to charge no less than 0.05 GBP/word to be making 20 GBP an hour, but that isn't including any admin time (emailing, formatting, invoicing, etc). So you can see that if I want to make a salary in the ballpark of 35,000, I need to be cautious of accepting anything which is less than 0.05 GBP/word for a translation, or 20 GBP per hour.

The above numbers do not reflect my personal finances, but rather are an example of how you could figure out a baseline for yourself. Insert currency and living wage, adjust for taxes, etc. dependent on where you live.

Now, if I have a lot of work, I may choose to only accept things on the higher end of my payscale. If I'm going through a slow patch, I may do something cheaper just to keep busy.

Minimum order value depends on how much you value your administrative time. Again, if you are very busy it should be on the high end (what is the min number of hours for which it is worth it to you to correspond with a client and issue an invoice. This could be 1 hour, it could be 4. It could be a full day.) If you are struggling to find work, you may scrap the idea altogether.


 
Kay-Viktor Stegemann
Kay-Viktor Stegemann
Germany
Local time: 20:40
English to German
In memoriam
42 Jul 6, 2018

-deleted-

[Edited at 2018-07-06 09:16 GMT]


 
Daniel Frisano
Daniel Frisano  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 20:40
Member (2008)
English to Italian
+ ...
_ Jul 6, 2018

Felix CHARNLEY wrote:

I look forward to a concise and useful answer amidst the sassy comments to come.



You already got it. The first answer, by Mr. Stegemann.


 
Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL
Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:40
Member (2004)
English to Italian
Good suggestions... Jul 6, 2018

Emma Page wrote:

Felix CHARNLEY wrote:

Ok I've got an annoying form asking these pedantic questions. Someone PLEASE hit me with some generic rates. I really don't have time for an explanation just chuck some numbers my way (any language, any level of experience, like I said "generic"). THANKS!

hourly rate translating
hourly rate proofreading
proofreading rate monolingual p word
proofreading rate bilingual p word
Minimum order value (min fee)
Fuzzy matches (85-99% on source, as percentage)
Exact matches (on source, as percentage)
Translation (on source) + currency

THANK YOU!


This depends so much on so many things...but as a starting point. Why not think about an acceptable hourly wage for you, where you live, for the point you feel you are at in your career. Take into account taxes paid (add an appropriate %, if you're freelancing and will have to pay them out of pocket). For a per-word rate, figure out how fast you translate and approximate what you would need to charge to make that hourly rate or more. Now don't charge less than that.

For example. If I feel that I want to make about 35,000 GBP per year NET (before taxes), I need to make about 18/hour if I work 35 hours per week. As a freelance I may not always have 35 hours of work every week, so I raise my price to 20 or 25 GBP/hour to account for that. If I translate AROUND 400 words an hour, I need to charge no less than 0.05 GBP/word to be making 20 GBP an hour, but that isn't including any admin time (emailing, formatting, invoicing, etc). So you can see that if I want to make a salary in the ballpark of 35,000, I need to be cautious of accepting anything which is less than 0.05 GBP/word for a translation, or 20 GBP per hour.

The above numbers do not reflect my personal finances, but rather are an example of how you could figure out a baseline for yourself. Insert currency and living wage, adjust for taxes, etc. dependent on where you live.

Now, if I have a lot of work, I may choose to only accept things on the higher end of my payscale. If I'm going through a slow patch, I may do something cheaper just to keep busy.

Minimum order value depends on how much you value your administrative time. Again, if you are very busy it should be on the high end (what is the min number of hours for which it is worth it to you to correspond with a client and issue an invoice. This could be 1 hour, it could be 4. It could be a full day.) If you are struggling to find work, you may scrap the idea altogether.


But double everything...


P.L.F. Persio
Emma Page
 
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