Proofreading for Beginner
Thread poster: Sally Lo
Sally Lo
Sally Lo
Indonesia
Local time: 00:12
Chinese to Indonesian
+ ...
Sep 28, 2020

Hi all.

I have an experience in translating for like 6-7 years, but I usually did that at some event/exhibition, and some of document translate.

For information, I graduated from Chinese Language & Literature in one of the university in Indonesia. And I can fluently speaks Chinese since I was a child.

I don't have experience for subtitling, editing, or even proofreading. But how do I give a rate for other since I'm just a beginner (for the skill; but upper
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Hi all.

I have an experience in translating for like 6-7 years, but I usually did that at some event/exhibition, and some of document translate.

For information, I graduated from Chinese Language & Literature in one of the university in Indonesia. And I can fluently speaks Chinese since I was a child.

I don't have experience for subtitling, editing, or even proofreading. But how do I give a rate for other since I'm just a beginner (for the skill; but upper intermediate for my Chinese level)?

Thankyou.
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Tina Vonhof (X)
Tina Vonhof (X)
Canada
Local time: 11:12
Dutch to English
+ ...
Don't give rates Sep 28, 2020

Sally Lo wrote:

Hi all.

I have an experience in translating for like 6-7 years, but I usually did that at some event/exhibition, and some of document translate.

For information, I graduated from Chinese Language & Literature in one of the university in Indonesia. And I can fluently speaks Chinese since I was a child.

I don't have experience for subtitling, editing, or even proofreading. But how do I give a rate for other since I'm just a beginner (for the skill; but upper intermediate for my Chinese level)?

Thankyou.


I don't think you should charge for those services if you have no experience in them. For the time being, it would be best to say that you don't offer them. If there is a possibility to take a course in proofreading and/or to practice with a mentor, you could work toward offering that in the future.


P.L.F. Persio
Sheila Wilson
Arabic & More
Jean Dimitriadis
 
Sheila Wilson
Sheila Wilson  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 17:12
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
It only makes sense to charge per hour for anything related to editing Sep 28, 2020

Tina Vonhof wrote:
I don't think you should charge for those services if you have no experience in them. For the time being, it would be best to say that you don't offer them. If there is a possibility to take a course in proofreading and/or to practice with a mentor, you could work toward offering that in the future.

I agree that you should find out what needs to be done before you start offering your services. Remember that as a proofreader of editor you're changing (aka correcting) the work of fellow professionals. You need to be able to justify changing anything other than obvious typos or you'll make yourself very unpopular. Technically, there's often nothing difficult technically to learn as changes are usually done in the CAT tool or in Word (often using the Track Changes tool).

When you do get to the point of quoting for editing jobs, there's never any sense in quoting anything other than your hourly rate. Agencies often ask for a per word/character rate, but you really can't do that until after you've seen the text. The amount of work involved depends not on your skill but entirely on the quality of work of the translator or the writer. I find I can process anything from 750 wph for a relatively poor English text, up to 3,000 wph for just reading through a near-perfect text. That's for monolingual revision -- bilingual would take longer.

As for subtitling, I know little about the job. But I do know that there's a considerable amount of studying and practice necessary to become proficient in the IT tools and processes used to create the subtitles.


P.L.F. Persio
 


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Proofreading for Beginner







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