| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | Going rates for MTPE Thread poster: Helene van der Westhuizen
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Good afternoon,
Can I ask what the going rates are among translators who do Post-editing on machine translations?
I apologise if it has been discussed before, but I haven't been able to find it on a quick search and my time is very limited.
I am asking in the context of MTPEs really being new translations more often than not?
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I admittedly don't have much experience with MTPE but regarding the few cases I have worked so far I only quoted after having a good look at the text. If it’s good (it happens) I quote the same as proofreading, if it is a disgrace (it happens) I either decline or I quote as a translation from scratch…
| | | | Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 00:25
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Helene van der Westhuizen wrote:
Can I ask what the going rates are among translators who do post-editing on machine translations?
I do not often do PEMT, but here are my views:
Some agencies (particularly middle-man agencies) want to pay an editing rate for PEMT, so unless you quote a rate that is 1/3 or 1/4 of the translation rate that they accept, you won't get the job. Realistically, PEMT should be charged per hour, because you never know whether the client's machine translation system produces good or bad translations. However, many agencies prefer to hear a per-word rate, not an hourly rate (or: they accept an hourly rate, but then cap the number of hours). The problem with per-word rates for PEMT, as you can imagine, is that you seldom know what quality of translations get pumped out by the client's machine translation system.
I usually say that for once-off jobs or for the first few jobs of a longer project, my PEMT rate is the same as or within 80% of my usual translation rate. For long-term projects (i.e. where I'm able to evaluate the client's machine translation system and determine how good or bad it is), I'm willing to reduce my PEMT rate eventually, if the machine translation system produces good and/or consistent machine translations.
There are agencies offering PEMT who are willing to pay a fair rate (i.e. per hour, or high per-word rate), but most offers of PEMT that I get these says are for clients who believe they can save a buck by pre-translating their text against a machine.
In addition, when you're offered PEMT, ask the client whether he wants you to stick to the machine translation as closely as possible or whether he wants you to assume all freedom in how you translate (using the machine translation simply as a typing aid).
Samuel
| | | | Angus Stewart
United Kingdom
Local time: 23:25
Member (2011)
French to English
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I typically charge my clients 80% of my rate for translation for MTPE. My reason for this is that the process I apply is very different to the one I use for editing or proofreading a human translation even if quality of the MT is better than average. Consequently, more work is consequently involved on my part as for instance I have to do all the terminology research that would normally be done by thee human translator and that is time consuming especially when acronyms are involved.
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In the end PEMT is nothing more and nothing less then proofing a bad text, whatever they say (my experience). Some clients want you to edit it into a perfect text, others are happy when it is 'readable', whatever that is.
In either way, you will spent more time on the first one and less time on the second. And since 1 hour in South Africa also has 60 minutes, as anywhere else in the world, I would suggest you ask an hourly rate. Only seems fare, except for the agency: 'Hey, it is a ... See more In the end PEMT is nothing more and nothing less then proofing a bad text, whatever they say (my experience). Some clients want you to edit it into a perfect text, others are happy when it is 'readable', whatever that is.
In either way, you will spent more time on the first one and less time on the second. And since 1 hour in South Africa also has 60 minutes, as anywhere else in the world, I would suggest you ask an hourly rate. Only seems fare, except for the agency: 'Hey, it is a MT-translation'. The logic still beats me.
[Edited at 2019-06-02 22:11 GMT]
[Edited at 2019-06-02 22:13 GMT]
[Edited at 2019-06-02 22:45 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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I think it greatly depends on the type of text you're translating.
I do a lot of financial/investment related work, and for those texts, as well as legal texts, I think machine translations can speed up the work because they require little creativity, the text simply has to be very accurate and readable. So you can do that work fairly quickly and a rate of 60% - 80% of your normal translation rate should be as profitable as a normal translation.
Problems start when the ... See more I think it greatly depends on the type of text you're translating.
I do a lot of financial/investment related work, and for those texts, as well as legal texts, I think machine translations can speed up the work because they require little creativity, the text simply has to be very accurate and readable. So you can do that work fairly quickly and a rate of 60% - 80% of your normal translation rate should be as profitable as a normal translation.
Problems start when the source is not so straightforward, when translations require much more creativity or source sentences are simply too long for the machine to produce something readable. You can easily be tricked into believing a machine translated sentence makes sense, while in reality there are weird wordings or even mistranslations you simply overlook.
So in that case, you may need multiple very good reviews in order to filter out all the crap, and it will take a lot more time than translation from scratch would probably take. In that case, I would say refuse, or charge the same rate as your translation rate. You probably won't get the job, but who cares, I'm sure you have plenty of other useful things to do for your business, things that will lead to more profit than wasting time on a crappy machine translation, with the risk of receiving bad feedback because you were fooled by the machine's ability to produce bad, but seemingly good texts.
Yeah, been there, done that!
[Edited at 2019-08-02 20:19 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | It's worthless | Nov 11, 2019 |
and I charge the full rate. I have yet to see an MTPE output better than Google Translate's one. It's extorsion and I don't submit to extorsionists. And no, I don't provide "readable" texts any longer. In 6 out of 10 cases they came back with me being the one to be blamed for the inadequate quality. Not any longer.
| | | | Daniel Jeory
Local time: 23:25
Member (2003)
German to English
Wojciech Sztukowski wrote:
and I charge the full rate. I have yet to see an MTPE output better than Google Translate's one. It's extorsion and I don't submit to extorsionists. And no, I don't provide "readable" texts any longer. In 6 out of 10 cases they came back with me being the one to be blamed for the inadequate quality. Not any longer.
Absolutely correct. They expect you to do it at 50% of your translation rate on the assumption that it takes half the time! (Excuse me while I roll on the floor laughing.) The output I have seen from one particular very large agency that shall remain nameless is absolutely appalling even after 5 years of supposed 'learning'. And, as you rightly say, the hilarious thing is that Google Translate and Microsoft Translate are significantly better.
All joking aside, however, I do believe that more and more firms are using Google Translate as its output improves or are investing in proprietary models. I wonder how many firms stop to think what happens to the confidential texts they happily submit to Google's servers though.... 🤣
[Edited at 2019-11-15 16:19 GMT]
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Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 23:25
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| That's the key issue | Nov 15, 2019 |
farolingo wrote:
I wonder how many firms stop to think what happens to the confidential texts they happily submit to Google's servers though....
I suspect that among smaller firms in particular they don't often stop to think.
I deal with a lot of large Japanese companies and they are keenly aware of the potential for problems involved here, to the point where I am forbidden from using MT (not that I use it for others). Probably a side-effect of the extremely risk-averse nature of Japanese culture.
Regards,
Dan
| | | | TTilch
Local time: 00:25
English to German
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| you'll find your rate by looking around you | Jun 29, 2021 |
Hi all,
Simply do not offer any rates "by word" or "by character" at all - ever heard of a software programmer being paid by word? A hairdresser being paid by the number of hairs they cut? A mechanic by the number of parts they exchanged? Certainly not.
So when you receive offers like this:
"We offer USD 0.035/Word for human translation and USD 0.025/word for MTPE.
I understand that the rate is low but this is only exception for this project. Please ... See more Hi all,
Simply do not offer any rates "by word" or "by character" at all - ever heard of a software programmer being paid by word? A hairdresser being paid by the number of hairs they cut? A mechanic by the number of parts they exchanged? Certainly not.
So when you receive offers like this:
"We offer USD 0.035/Word for human translation and USD 0.025/word for MTPE.
I understand that the rate is low but this is only exception for this project. Please note that the MTPE quality is very good which will allow you to complete about 2500 words per hour."
you simply reply: "My rate is 75 USD per hour. If you send me the text in question, I can provide you with a quotation." That's it. They either take it or leave it - and the more translators just start to say "no thank you" to ridiculous offers, the less of these "offers" there are going to be around. All you have to do is use your heads/a little maths and look around you - you just charge at least the same amount per hour that you have to pay for services yourself. It's as simple as that.
Or do you really enjoy having to work 4-5 hours to be able to pay 1 hour motorcar mechanic or solicitor fees?!
Regards,
Tanja ▲ Collapse
| | | | | In case of good quality MTPE | Sep 23, 2021 |
I checked out this forum because I have not done MTPE for quite a while, and I was curious to know what the going rate was.
I used to consider MTPE totally worthless.
However, one of my clients asked me for my opinion on some files run by DeepL MT engine.
I am surprised at the high quality of the resulting text.
What I really like is that my client asked me first what I thought of the quality and if I would be interested.
And much to my surprise, I am indeed intere... See more I checked out this forum because I have not done MTPE for quite a while, and I was curious to know what the going rate was.
I used to consider MTPE totally worthless.
However, one of my clients asked me for my opinion on some files run by DeepL MT engine.
I am surprised at the high quality of the resulting text.
What I really like is that my client asked me first what I thought of the quality and if I would be interested.
And much to my surprise, I am indeed interested.
The mistakes I found are to do with grammar and consistency.
Therefore, I'm offering my proofreading rate because the quality is really acceptable.
A human could have produced the translations. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Nils Johann
Germany
Local time: 00:25
German to Norwegian
+ ...
| I still have nightmares about how "Lamp shade" turned into "Umbrella" about 500 times. | Sep 23, 2021 |
One of the big agencies I work for have a decent system for MT, but it is unreliable and the QC for TM-feedback is still full of holes. I usually get 90 %, ca. € 0,11, for German - Norwegian. On the other hand, I have seen one almost perfect XTM English-Norwegian-translation, and mountains of text with tiny mistakes you have to search for with a magnifying glass.
And there are many traps:
Most MT uses English as a bridge-language, translating the text to English, an... See more One of the big agencies I work for have a decent system for MT, but it is unreliable and the QC for TM-feedback is still full of holes. I usually get 90 %, ca. € 0,11, for German - Norwegian. On the other hand, I have seen one almost perfect XTM English-Norwegian-translation, and mountains of text with tiny mistakes you have to search for with a magnifying glass.
And there are many traps:
Most MT uses English as a bridge-language, translating the text to English, and then to Target. If source or target is English, that helps. In my case however, that means three different syntax structures, all jumbled together.
First time as a Post-Editor in 2019, I worked for [Explicit deleted] Germany, I got tricked into some utterly poor working-conditions, spending about double the time/ getting half the pay, for a big monthlong project. (€ 0,06). Since then I rate German-Norwegian MT as a 10 % benefit, and make prices that way.
[Edited at 2021-09-23 18:24 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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| Can of worms | Sep 24, 2021 |
Helene, if you can afford doing so, I would recommend to avoid MTPE altogether.
Why? Point one, as I see it, is ethics. The consensus is that MTPE rates tend to be poor overall, but often not poor enough for some desperate souls to raise their hands. Which makes MTPE an uneasy equation of personal economics and agency market position. Point two: confidentiality. Most large corporations in Japan (where I am living) use in-house systems, but agencies often rely on dedicated MT servic... See more Helene, if you can afford doing so, I would recommend to avoid MTPE altogether.
Why? Point one, as I see it, is ethics. The consensus is that MTPE rates tend to be poor overall, but often not poor enough for some desperate souls to raise their hands. Which makes MTPE an uneasy equation of personal economics and agency market position. Point two: confidentiality. Most large corporations in Japan (where I am living) use in-house systems, but agencies often rely on dedicated MT service providers, where leaks may occur. If that happens, none of the other parties will own up to their culpability, and as the translator I could easily be treated as the prime suspect. Point three: MTPE requires a different skill set from translation. If MTPE becomes a habit, your translation skills may atrophy as the grey cells no longer need to do the heavy lifting.
If you feel you want to give it a try regardless, as a per-word rate I think Samuel’s 80% of your regular translation rate is a good ballpark figure. As for hourly rates, I would recommend to quote high because the number of hours will be capped by the agency. One of agencies’ favorites is to offer a very attractive hourly rate combined with an unrealistic cap on the number of hours. Unless you can check upfront that all is well and all conditions are out in the open, better think twice. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Adieu
Ukrainian to English
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They'll apply a match discount grid and you'll find yourself working at 40% of your proofreading rate.
2x - 2.5x proof/revision is the sweet spot. Charge more and you'll be tempted to make the turd too sparkly (which is actually NOT a good thing, not just for the market, but also because of how in-house MTPE engines self-learn)
Charge less...and you'll either give away freebies or be forced to cut corners and start making mistakes.
Marie Lucchetta-Redmond wrote:
I checked out this forum because I have not done MTPE for quite a while, and I was curious to know what the going rate was.
I used to consider MTPE totally worthless.
However, one of my clients asked me for my opinion on some files run by DeepL MT engine.
I am surprised at the high quality of the resulting text.
What I really like is that my client asked me first what I thought of the quality and if I would be interested.
And much to my surprise, I am indeed interested.
The mistakes I found are to do with grammar and consistency.
Therefore, I'm offering my proofreading rate because the quality is really acceptable.
A human could have produced the translations.
[Edited at 2021-09-24 06:54 GMT]
[Edited at 2021-09-24 06:55 GMT]
| | | | | The Holy Grail of Consistency with MT | Sep 28, 2021 |
Marie Lucchetta-Redmond wrote:
However, one of my clients asked me for my opinion on some files run by DeepL MT engine.
...
The mistakes I found are to do with grammar and consistency.
What kind of texts would this be that you can translate them in one run and achieve consistency?
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