CAT translation grid for pharmaceutical texts Auteur du fil: Cindy Schoeman
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Cindy Schoeman
Afrique du Sud
Local time: 20:04
afrikaans vers anglais
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Hi everyone
I'm hoping someone can help me with a good CAT grid for the translation of pharmaceutical texts. According to the agency, it will be mostly for clinical trials. I have extensive experience in this area but normally the agency would provide their rates and I would either accept or not. I'm also really not good with numbers... My 100% rate for these kinds of texts is usually 0.034 Euro per word.
If someone could help me out with an example of a good CAT grid, ... See more Hi everyone
I'm hoping someone can help me with a good CAT grid for the translation of pharmaceutical texts. According to the agency, it will be mostly for clinical trials. I have extensive experience in this area but normally the agency would provide their rates and I would either accept or not. I'm also really not good with numbers... My 100% rate for these kinds of texts is usually 0.034 Euro per word.
If someone could help me out with an example of a good CAT grid, I would be incredibly grateful. ▲ Collapse
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Andriy Yasharov 
Ukraine
Local time: 21:04
Membre (2008)
anglais vers russe
+ ...
When working with a CAT tool, the following CAT grid may be applied to your rate:
- New Words: 100%
- 50-74%: 100%
- 75-84%: 60% of the word rate
- 85-94%: 55% of the word rate
- 95-99%: 25% of the word rate
- 100%: 0%
- Repetitions: 0%
Sometimes a better fuzzy match grid can be applied:
No match is 100% of the word rate
50-74% matches are 100% ... See more When working with a CAT tool, the following CAT grid may be applied to your rate:
- New Words: 100%
- 50-74%: 100%
- 75-84%: 60% of the word rate
- 85-94%: 55% of the word rate
- 95-99%: 25% of the word rate
- 100%: 0%
- Repetitions: 0%
Sometimes a better fuzzy match grid can be applied:
No match is 100% of the word rate
50-74% matches are 100% of the word rate
75-84% matches are 50%
85-94% matches are 50%
95-99% matches are 20%
100% matches are 10%
Repetitions are 10%
Context Matches are 10% ▲ Collapse
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Ana Vozone
Local time: 19:04
Membre (2010)
anglais vers portugais
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| 0,034 cents per word | Feb 12 |
for pharmaceutical texts is less than a third of my rate... Is this what your agency offers you?
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Samuel Murray
Pays-Bas
Local time: 20:04
Membre (2006)
anglais vers afrikaans
+ ...
Ana Vozone wrote:
For pharmaceutical texts is less than a third of my rate... Is this what your agency offers you?
Cindy is from South Africa. One of my US clients that usually offers me 5c per word recently opened a branch in South Africa, and the South African branch promptly offered me 1.5c per word, and they have no difficulty finding people to work at that rate. There is an oversupply of skilled bilinguals in South Africa, and thanks to Corona more people now know about translation as a profession.
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Samuel Murray
Pays-Bas
Local time: 20:04
Membre (2006)
anglais vers afrikaans
+ ...
.
[Edited at 2025-02-12 14:34 GMT]
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Andriy Yasharov wrote:
When working with a CAT tool, the following CAT grid may be applied to your rate:
New Words: 100%
50-74%: 100%
75-84%: 60% of the word rate
85-94%: 55% of the word rate
95-99%: 25% of the word rate
100%: 0%
Repetitions: 0%
That's a horrible grid.
There is no justification for applying any discount to 75-84% matches, they just aren't useful.
0% rate for 100% matches and reps is also outrageous - unless they are locked by the agency, and the translator is explicitly only responsible for the segments they translate and not the quality and consistency of the document as a whole (in which case, why not just run the whole thing through DEEPL and be done with).
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Lieven Malaise
Belgique
Local time: 20:04
Membre (2020)
français vers néerlandais
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Rachel Waddington wrote:
That's a horrible grid.
There is no justification for applying any discount to 75-84% matches, they just aren't useful.
60% is even higher than the grid I use since the year 2005, where 50% is applied for 75-84% matches.
I don't agree, by the way, that those matches aren't useful. Everything above 80% mostly means that you only have to change a few words. I can't really measure it, but I have always got the impression that those matches cost me less than half the time I would need for no matches.
As far as non-paid 100% matches are concerned, they don't even have to be locked to not touch them. Customers aren't entitled to anything more than they pay for.
[Bijgewerkt op 2025-02-12 15:17 GMT]
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Lieven Malaise wrote:
As far as non-paid 100% matches are concerned, they don't even have to be locked to not touch them. Customers aren't entitled to anything more than they pay for.
[Bijgewerkt op 2025-02-12 15:17 GMT]
It's going to take a certain amount of labour and expertise to work around the 100% matches and repetitions, and I don't see why that should be the translator's job if they aren't being paid for it.
But the main issue is that if the 100% matches are not reviewed, the quality of the document as a whole is going to be rubbish. There are almost certain to be terminological inaccuracies, and mistakes made in the past will propaged through into the new document. Some of the matches will be completely wrong in their new context. And the text will not flow well if it is a patchwork of sentences from different translators that hasn't been reviewed.
The (in my view) essential step of reading the finished translation through to check that it all makes sense and reads well won't be possible because how are you going to just read the sections you translated and skip the reps and 100% matches?
All that is fine if the customer explicitly accepts that the translator is only responsible for the segments they translate, and not the quality of the overall document (I would definitely want that in writing). But I do wonder why anyone would pay a professional translator and not let them do their job of providing a quality translation.
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Lieven Malaise
Belgique
Local time: 20:04
Membre (2020)
français vers néerlandais
+ ...
Rachel Waddington wrote:
But the main issue is that if the 100% matches are not reviewed, the quality of the document as a whole is going to be rubbish. There are almost certain to be terminological inaccuracies, and mistakes made in the past will propaged through into the new document. Some of the matches will be completely wrong in their new context. And the text will not flow well if it is a patchwork of sentences from different translators that hasn't been reviewed.
It's simply not your responsibility if you're not paid for it. I work for an agency that has one end client in particular that occasionally asks to translate very technical stuff. Those documents are typically very long and consist for 90% or more of locked existing translations. Those translations contain errors and terminology that is translated in sometimes 3 different ways. It's basically one big mess, but the agency nor the end client seem to care. So I don't care either, meaning that I focus on the parts that I'm asked to translate making sure that it is done properly, but ignoring the rest.
It's not the first time I encounter this kind of behaviour from an agency/end client. There is another end client that a few times a year asks for updates of already translated documents (user manuals, also with locked segments). Years ago I pointed out that the existing translation was sometimes of very low quality, but I was told to ignore it. So I ignore it.
I used to make my agency clients aware of this kind of problems, but that was when 100% matches were still paid by default. Nowadays more (still a minority, but still...) agency clients no longer pay for 100% matches. And that's fine, but you simply can't expect to get a certain service if you refuse to pay for it.
Personally I believe locking segments is a terrible idea, because it creates several problems the PM or end client that doesn't speak your language knows nothing about. But to each their responsibility.
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