posted 02 September 2005 22:05            

I've recently resumed translation, and started to "look for" projects. Ran into this forum last night. I feel I need REALITY CHECK before going further on this path. I appreciate any sincere input.

I am a native Japanese speaker born in Tokyo, yet have lived in the US for 21 years. I did several translation projects during those years, but I never looked for any; those projects came to me.

Years ago I've heard, from someone who had been translating professionally between EN and JP for years, that the fee ranges between 15 and 30 cents per English word. So, up until January 2001 (when I finished the last sizable project), I was setting my fee as 21 cents per English word. In most cases, the fee for "middlemen" was added on top of that. Yet I did thorough job, and projects worked out fine with that fee.

(1) However, recently, I saw many translation websites putting up the fee to be 10, or 12 to 18 (at most) cents per word. If the people hosting the site are charging that, individual translators must be getting paid less. It seems to me the translation fee rate has come down quite a bit. Is this the trend in recent years?

(2) And here is the core issue I am facing: Recently, I signed up in translatorsBase.com website (by paying $79 US), where translators bid on projects. I've been bidding there since late July, and haven't made any money yet. (I did one small project, but didn't charge anything because of a special situation.)

I placed a bid on a large project (100,000 words) on 8/4, for 12 cents per word. I received an amiable response from the potential client (in Singapore), that he was interested in hiring me. Then several e-mails were exchanged. He had asked me a discounted rate for a large volume, so I gave him 10 cents per word.

After a while, he wrote to me yesterday, asking if I would accept 7 cents per word.

In addition, he is asking me if I would invest on Trados which costs more than $700 US. (I told him I would like to use Wordfast, which I had downloaded for free. Well I will tell him that again.)

In addition, 3 days ago, I did "test" translation (news article), for which I wouldn't get paid. It took me 3 hours to do that manually (which was in PDF file. But I converted that to Word document afterwards).

I did the math here: There were 344 words in that "test" document. So if I were getting 7 cents per word, I would have made about $24 in 3 hours. That is $8 an hour! Is this what "professionals" get paid? You cannot make decent living with this amount in a larger city in the US or Japan.

Now I am feeling quite unhappy. A friend of mine, who is a writer, says the guy in Singapore is "shaking me down," "probably charging 25 cents per word or something from the client," and I should not put up with this. What would you think?

In the mean time, I have the name of a large corporation, which seems to be a real client of the project. Thus I am contacting them to find out the truth behind it...

Thank you for your time reading this. I hope this info and possible replies will be useful for other translators.

posted 07 April 2006 11:01            

Well you don't have to take work for a rate you're not happy with. That's one of the main advantages to being a freelancer.

I don't have a feel for rates for Japanese, but 7 cents seems low to me for a translator living in the US.

If you did 344 words in 3 hours, that's a little on the slow side. Average translators can do about 2000 words a day, which I guess equates to about 250-300 words an hour. Bearing that in mind your hourly rates would be higher.

posted 21 June 2006 05:06            

Thank you for your kind reply to my posting.

About 9 months passed since the time I had done my posting, and I am now much better informed of what's going on.

Also I sped up a bit - I can do 300 hundreds or more words per hour now. But it largely depends on the contents; if the text is full of jargon, I have to look up dictionary a lot and sometimes do web-search, and that becomes time-consuming process.

That test translation (I wrote about) was actually done that way.

While I sped up, I actually took the job for 7 cents per word or even less. One time I did a project for 3.4 cents per word, as a result of mis-calculation of the # of characters by someone else. (After I had started, I realized the text contained twice as many of characters as it was said. And it was too late to bow out.)

Well, last fall, I was bidding with 10 cents per word in TranslatorsBase.com, but it seemed that I wasn't going anywhere. When I started to bid for 8 cents per word, I started to receive responses. But if I can get done 300 words an hour, I am pretty happy with that.

Thus I did several projects through TranslatorsBase. Also a couple through Language123. Then I joined GetAFreelancer thsi spring and got some projects there, too.

But overall, I got 10 cents a word for few small documents, and that was the best rate. All other projects paid less.

Am I looking at wrong places? I wonder I am trying to fish in ponds where only small fishes are around.

By the way, Alex, are you also a translator?

If Alex or anyone enlighten me, I appreciate that greatly.

Sincerely,

posted 21 June 2006 05:57            

I was out to lunch when I asked you, "Are you also a tranlator?"

You are the host of this website, and also wrote the e-book, "How to make $80,000 with translation..." right?

$80,000 will be really nice.

posted 21 June 2006 17:50            

quote:

---

Originally posted by mayumipeep:
P.S.

I was out to lunch when I asked you, "Are you also a tranlator?"

You are the host of this website, and also wrote the e-book, "How to make $80,000 with translation..." right?

$80,000 will be really nice.

Mayumi

---

Yes I am

posted 21 June 2006 18:25            

Thank you for such a quick reply.

What would you think of the last part of my "main" message?

"Thus I did several projects through TranslatorsBase. Also a couple through Language123. Then I joined GetAFreelancer this spring and got some projects there, too.

But overall, I got 10 cents a word for few small documents, and that was the best rate. All other projects paid less.

Am I looking at wrong places? I wonder I am trying to fish in ponds where only small fishes are around."

Is the answer to this in your e-book? I will be purchasing your e-book, "How to make $80,000 with translation..." very soon, when I actually have a time to read.

Hey, your marketing web-page is great. I am also a student of marketing, and I am impressed.

Sincerely,