| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4] | Poll: What is your average daily capacity for translation? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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| Because I make more charging less | Apr 28, 2022 |
Ice Scream wrote:
Justin Peterson wrote:
if you want to live an upper-middle class lifestyle in Madrid, you cannot be making 2000 E/month :/ * My rate is slightly below average in Spain.
So why not charge more, work less, and enjoy life more?
If I charged more, I'd get less work.
And I love what I do, so I'm not complaining.
| | | | | Strongly disagree | Apr 28, 2022 |
Ice Scream wrote:
Justin Peterson wrote:
* Again if you're doing poetry, or fiction, or creative advertising slogans, etc. this doesn't apply, I know...
It doesn't apply if you are producing high-quality translations of any kind.
As I said a while back in another thread, MT only replaces inputting your first draft.
That takes only 1/6 of my time. The next 2/3 is improving, and the last 1/6 is checking, both of which are still required with MT.
Inputting the text myself gives me a much better first draft than MT and so shortens the improving/checking steps to the extent that there is no benefit from using MT.
So MT post-editing only saves time and money for texts where style is not important. I don't get why a linguist would want to operate in that market.
I could not disagree more.
The use of MT is completely compatible with the creation of high-quality translations.
In fact, I'd say my quality has significantly improved since making heavy use of MT, and then investing my time and energy on the thorniest parts of the text where the MT struggles.
And I have colleagues who concur.
I don't know what kind of texts you're translating on which MT is useless. They must be quite special, and I say that without irony.
I can assure you that it performs very well with newspaper articles, for example, or just about anything featuring a fairly journalistic, fact-based, dialectic style.
But to claim that MT is useless when it comes to turning out any high-quality translation is a bit ... audacious, let's just say.
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Dan Lucas wrote:
Ice Scream wrote:
So why not charge more, work less, and enjoy life more?
I think, fair play to him, he already acknowledged that he personally hasn't been able to find clients who will accept those higher rates. An alternative strategy - which he appears to have seized with both hands - is to compensate through higher volume by dealing with lower-quality clients who are not concerned about MT. If it works, it works.
Still, I'm not sure I buy Justin's "it's just the way my language pair is" argument, because I've heard that used for all kinds of pairs, including my own. The fact is that in any given pair, different translators achieve varying levels of success.
While I accept that economic conditions in Spain haven't been great over the last decade, it seems to me that with a language pair as widely used as Spanish those high-paying clients must exist somewhere. Even if they make up only (say) 5% of potential clients, that should equate to hundreds of organizations, right? Could lack of specialisation be an issue, in the sense of impeding the ability to differentiate?
The other issue is that - as your comment makes clear - different freelancers have completely different definitions of success. You look at him slaving away for long hours every day in Madrid and think "Nah". And yet although you're content in Mid-Wales, presumably wild horses couldn't drag Justin to live there. As for me, my sister has a lovely flat just off Calle de Atocha, and I have enjoyed my visits, and I have admired the scenery in your part of the world as I pass through, but personally I wouldn't want to live in either Madrid or Brechfa. Or even Tokyo, for that matter.
Each of us has a different vision of where we want to be, and the compromises we are prepared to accept to get there. Which is I guess why I objected to his original "Is anyone NOT using MT in the year 2022?" rhetorical flourish. Other approaches are indeed possible, as he now accepts.
Dan
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 10:41
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
| I can relate to the attitude. | Apr 29, 2022 |
Justin Peterson wrote:
But to claim that MT is useless when it comes to turning out any high-quality translation is a bit ... audacious, let's just say.
I can relate to the attitude. Before I embraced MT I was fiercely against it.
But I was so wrong. It's quite simple: if you want to know if MT is helpful, you'll have to invest time to figure it out. It took me months to get from 'It might be not so bad after all' to 'It's actually great'. You have to practise and learn how to use it effectively.
I'm translating sales conditions as we speak (MTPE is made for this kind of stuff, at least in my language pair): number of translated words in my first hour: 954(*). Full quality translation. If you don't want to see it, you don't want to see it, I guess.
(*) An above standard MTPE translation speed, though (to me, at least). But as I said: MT is made for stuff like this.
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| Exactly. Well said. | Apr 29, 2022 |
Lieven Malaise wrote:
Justin Peterson wrote:
But to claim that MT is useless when it comes to turning out any high-quality translation is a bit ... audacious, let's just say.
I can relate to the attitude. Before I embraced MT I was fiercely against it.
But I was so wrong. It's quite simple: if you want to know if MT is helpful, you'll have to invest time to figure it out. It took me months to get from 'It might be not so bad after all' to 'It's actually great'. You have to practise and learn how to use it effectively.
I'm translating sales conditions as we speak (MTPE is made for this kind of stuff, at least in my language pair): number of translated words in my first hour: 954(*). Full quality translation. If you don't want to see it, you don't want to see it, I guess.
(*) An above standard MTPE translation speed, though (to me, at least). But as I said: MT is made for stuff like this.
+++
Exactly.
Yes, I too harbored an "'artisanal' must be better" attitude until I delved into MT. When I look back, I'd like to slap myself.
That being said, I do say without irony that if Ice Scream is dealing with very special texts, its utility might be reduced, or negated. Personally, I come across very few texts where it is not of great utility.
Yes. 950/h is a viable output if the text is MT-friendly, and you're working free of distractions. Many translators gape in disbelief at those kinds of figures ... I'll never get it, I guess.
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 10:41
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
Justin Peterson wrote:
That being said, I do say without irony that if Ice Scream is dealing with very special texts, its utility might be reduced, or negated.
That's absolutely true, but many of us, like me, are business translators, meaning that I deal with all kinds of business-related texts (boring to read, fun to translate). It is obvious that content like that is better suited for MT than editorial articles, literature etcetera.
Although even literature doesn't escape from the digital revolution completely: I know for a fact that authors like Stephen King (for many years now) use software to help them formulate sentences and speed up their writing process. If software can be used to generate content, it can be used to translate that same content.
However, unless one day computers learn to think as human beings do (in which case we are doomed, but no more than any other human being on the planet), there will always be a translation market. But it will definitely change of appearance and will probably get smaller.
| | | | Kay Denney 
France
Local time: 10:41
French to English
Justin Peterson wrote:
Ice Scream wrote:
MT only replaces inputting your first draft.
That takes only 1/6 of my time. The next 2/3 is improving, and the last 1/6 is checking, both of which are still required with MT.
In fact, I'd say my quality has significantly improved since making heavy use of MT, and then investing my time and energy on the thorniest parts of the text where the MT struggles.
I have a feeling that the difference between Chris and me on the one hand, and Justin on the other, is precisely the time and effort spent on that first draft.
I have worked as a translator for many years, Chris too I believe. I know that compared with when I was first starting out, my first draft is now produced painlessly and very rapidly. And also, it's far better even than some of the final versions I was sending to clients when I first started and had nobody reviewing my work.
On the couple of occasions when I had to proofread an MT, I ended up with a bad headache. Reviewing it is nothing like reviewing the work of a human being.
In the days when I worked at an agency, I reviewed a lot of translators' work and got to know exactly what kind of mistakes they made. J's work was flawless to the point that I'd never sent her our style guide, because if she used the same format for dates and sums of money I wouldn't have anything to change and I'd fall asleep. A was very strong on the technical stuff but used punctuation very sparingly. H did a generally good job but there were often little typos that the spell check wouldn't pick up, like hog instead of log. V had a great style, but occasionally misunderstood the source text.
With MT though, it's just all over the place, there's no sense of rhythm, there's nothing systematic, and the strain of having to always check absolutely everything because you can't trust that the terminology is right is what gives me a headache.
The first time, I accepted without knowing what was in store. The headache it gave me was bad enough for me to decide never to do it again.
Then a client gave me a text to proofread without specifying that it was MT, and it didn't occur to me to check, because it was a text about sweets in the Middle Ages, obviously not the kind of thing MT could do well. The translation was horrendous, using industrial terminology and mostly the present tense, all totally inappropriate.
It gave me a similar headache to the previous time, and I caught the client off guard asking whether it was MT, so he admitted it.
I'm not a fan of headaches, so I've been avoiding MT ever since.
[Edited at 2022-04-29 08:14 GMT]
| | | | | Luddites will be defeated | Apr 29, 2022 |
I fully agree with Justin and Lieven that MT is a very useful tool for increasing productivity when dealng with the bulk of simple/monotonous/low quality texts that need to be translated within tight deadlines by colleagues not belonging to the elite old-timer perfectionist translators' club. We're not typists or stenographers and should focus on the key outcomes which for many such texts is the lack of factual mistakes and typos, as well as deadlines and final costs for the customers, not styli... See more I fully agree with Justin and Lieven that MT is a very useful tool for increasing productivity when dealng with the bulk of simple/monotonous/low quality texts that need to be translated within tight deadlines by colleagues not belonging to the elite old-timer perfectionist translators' club. We're not typists or stenographers and should focus on the key outcomes which for many such texts is the lack of factual mistakes and typos, as well as deadlines and final costs for the customers, not stylistic subtleties. For the hard-working horses of the translator community doing the dirty jobs, MT tools are crucial to stay competitive and sustain one's earnings in the fast-changing environment. ▲ Collapse
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| What is a good translation? | Apr 29, 2022 |
Justin Peterson wrote:
But to claim that MT is useless when it comes to turning out any high-quality translation is a bit ... audacious, let's just say.
MT will always be worse than my dictated draft and will therefore require more editing. If there is no net time saving (which there may be), it is indeed useless.
I suppose otherwise it boils down to how we define a good translation.
I could miss out half of my translation process and put out an accurate but very workmanlike translation.
I choose instead to double the amount of time spent on the translation to make it read better, and get paid more than twice as much. My customers recognise that a well-crafted text will serve them better.
There is nothing wrong with your approach. I am just surprised that a linguist would choose it once established.
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 10:41
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
| I'm not a '8Kw/d producer'. | Apr 29, 2022 |
Sadek_A wrote:
That can't be attained at the hands of an 8Kw/d producer, even when the product is that exotic type of 'translation' you're defending!
I'm not a '8Kw/d' producer, I'm a 4.5KEquivalentword/d producer. However, if I would only be doing MTPE assignments I would be a 7Kw/d producer. Firstly because that would be at at the financially necessary speed of 700 words per hour for 10 hours (yes, my working days consist of 10 translation hours; sometimes way less because I'm translating at a speed above average, sometimes way more because of the opposite), secondly because that is also a very achievable speed if you are used to it.
Some time ago I post-edited a long document about the different kinds of trees being used, and how they were used, in urban development projects. Not exactly the 'easy' content to translate fast, is it? Well, despite the subject I more or less achieved my 700 w/h translation speed, including the necessary research online. The score the reviewer gave me, was an 8/10 for language, an 8/10 for accuracy, an 8/10 for terminology and a 6/10 for style. Style could be better but, given the subject, as far as I'm concerned that's the price the translation agency has to pay for offering these assignments as MTPE (It's actually too demanding to be treated as MTPE. Give this to a any starting or unexperienced translator and the result will be absolutely terrible).
My point: the combination of (a lot) of years of experience as a translator and MTPE is a winner.
| | | | Jan Truper
Germany
Local time: 10:41
English to German
On average, I translate approx. 3000 words/day.
I could theoretically go higher (I've had rush rate stints of up to 6k/day), but whenever I do that for a couple of days, I end up with mild burn-out symptoms, both physically and mentally.
I use MT as I see fit, but it does not make me significantly faster (it does, however, make me better).
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 10:41
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
| Always hated maths. | May 1, 2022 |
Ice Scream wrote:
Not according to my Google. Gross minimum wage would then be a very generous 40,000 euros. Surprised more people don’t move to Belgium and work in McDonald’s…
Either way, a still reasonable 3,000 words a day at 4 cents makes you comfortably off, and even 8 cents seems very low to me for European languages.
Late reply, but I oversaw your post. You are right about the minimum wage, my apologies. It's indeed before taxes. I actually don't know what I was thinking to suppose it could be that high.
That being said, my word rate (for translation) ranges from 0,08 tot 0,09 euros. That might be low in general, but I'm pretty sure it's not especially low when you work for translation agencies, as I do. Anyway, high or low, combined with my daily capacity my rates provide me with a very satisfying income. It is what it is.
[Edited at 2022-05-01 13:54 GMT]
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