Friday, May 18, 2012
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Mox is a young but well educated translator. Two PhDs, six languages...
and he hardly earns the minimum wage.
BUY THEM FROM AMAZON
Subscribe via email
My sites
Traducciones técnicas - My professional site
Vita Brevis (Spanish). Publishing house whom I collaborate with.
That reminds me when I translated 14000 words in 36 hours. I got out of my office, my mom saw me and thought that I was stoned! :) :)
ReplyDeleteThat's me... every Friday evening! :)
ReplyDeleteI did my best when I translated about 15.000 words in 2 days. It was me, IBM Translation Manager and I. Amazing... *_*
ReplyDeleteN
hahaha this one is really good!!!
ReplyDeleteOne day, an old client called me at 7:00 AM in total despair. He said he had a job of 10.000 words that should be delivered the next day. Seems like the assigned translator had an emergency (a broken finger!) and it took a while to notify the client, so things got to this point.
ReplyDeleteI said I couldn't translate 10.000 words in a day, but the client said he really needed to deliver it, quality wasn't an issue (!). I accepted it, and it was insane. I was just going from one sentence to the next, proof-reading was not an option. At about 10 PM I drank one of those caffeine energy drinks, and man, does that thing work... I translated until 5 AM, and still couldn't sleep for hours ^_^
I'll NEVER do it again!
so I can't dream that you can help me
Deletecuz I'm in the same situation
LOL! :))
ReplyDeleteSo true. Those words you love to hear.
ReplyDeleteSimply insane...
ReplyDelete5,000 words in 5 hours is my personal best (or personal worst?)
ReplyDelete'No need to proofread.' I just went from one segment to the next, without ever looking back.
Oh, and one time I had to translate 38k in 3 days. Including 3k in ONE HOUR from a document that the client had forgotten. I told him it wasn't possible, so I offered to quickly proofread an automated translation and the client accepted. In the end, it all worked out great. Thanks to my work, the client won USD 2.5M for social projects. I delivered that 3k document 10 minutes before the deadline for the submission of this application.
^ whatever you charged, it wasn't enough.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree.
DeleteWell, I made 2-months worth in 3 days and took a week off after this job. I wouldn't like working like this all the time, but once a year it's not so bad :)
Delete12000 words in one day and 8000 words the following.
ReplyDeleteWOW! 20000 in two days, I never thought I could do it, at that time I was working with a client who demanded around 4000 per day, it was insane!!!! But I was happy about my new record!!!!!!!!
It makes no sense at all.
ReplyDeleteThat's why I decided to leave the business.
Enjoy the delirium!
No sense at all, and proud of it! Look at Mox's happiness face, that's me!
DeleteYeah... And I look forward to hearing your comments in a couple of years when you'll be forced to proofread your own crap :)
DeleteA mental condition called being a translator. I like it. The running gag at many a translators' meeting I heard is "my mom told me to get a decent job, but I wouldn't listen". hahaha
ReplyDeleteTranslators accepting this kind of insanity is what makes clients believe that it /can/ be done. Wrong message entirely, in my opinion.
ReplyDeletewow.. and i was worried about my 5000 words in one weekend. thanks for the encouragement everyone! however, i agree with the last anonymous, as long as you keep saying yes to these insane jobs, clients will get greedier and much less understanding!
ReplyDeleteAnd then having to read your own drivel that you produced in an allnighter time and time again, because it's stored in your TM... priceless.
ReplyDeletehahaha, so true!
DeleteTee hee hee... (c:
DeleteWow... I never thought of accepting more than 4,000 a day. But I usually stick to 3,000 a day for my long happy life. :P
ReplyDeleteHow many words is normal and ideal to you guys?
I aim for 2 to 3K a day. If a client asked for 10K a day, I'd laugh and bite my tongue not to say "Do you want chips with that?".
ReplyDeleteIf some translators really do the amount of work that is stated above by some, I am not surprised that agencies see and treat us like slaves! If we are to be respected as professionals, learning to say "no" may be advisable ;-)
I could not agree more Karine...;)
DeleteHear! Hear! :)
DeleteBTW, I'd never accept such volume from agencies. I would only do it for my dearest clients.
Delete"How many words is normal" is a meaningless question. A series of bullet points full of in-house acronyms in a powerpoint takes ages, especially if your client is expecting something they can project without fiddling with the layout after you've translated it.
ReplyDeleteEndless legalese in a Word document, on the other hand, goes much quicker, especially if you use voice-to-text software (followed by careful proofreading of course). I'm pretty sure I've done around 5000k words a day like that (from PO to delivery) on more than one occasion, but this cannot be kept up indefinitely.
Having said all that, between 2000 and 3000 words a day seems like an industry standard. If you do less than that a day, you are either not earning much or managing to charge a lot more than I do. If you're doing more and your clients are satisfied, you should be charging perhaps double your usual rate.
Umm speaking of proofreading, make that "5k words" not "5000k words" :o
DeleteNo comment, just LOL : )
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that this can be done in a proper way! It can be done technically, but I would not be sure about the quality... And yes, clients have no idea what can be done, and what not. But if somebody does the job in this time, they now it...
ReplyDeleteA client asked me, on Friday afternoon, to do 24,000 words for Monday morning...I said no of course...I have a life too :D
ReplyDeleteNow that you have shown to your clients that "quality is not an issue", you'll be soon replaced by MT, anyway.
ReplyDeleteMaintenant que vous avez montré à vos clients que «la qualité n'est pas un problème", vous serez bientôt remplacé par la TA, de toute façon.
Ahora que ya ha demostrado a sus clientes que "la calidad no es un problema", usted pronto será sustituido por la MT, de todos modos.
You guys are saying awful things. It is only possible with google translate, and NOT humanly doable with decent quality on a coherent text.
ReplyDeleteFunny and true! Once, I had the similar task - to translate 12 pages of transcription of a marketing survey. It was a general English, not sophisticated one. I managed that somehow in 14 hours, but I was mentally exhausted anyway.
ReplyDeleteThis dude wanted me to translate from English to Japanese a 99k page book. What kind of book has 99k pages? O_o I'm hoping they meant 99k words. Either way I just laughed and was like naah.
ReplyDeleteI never thought that I would say it here, but some comments are even better that the post:)
ReplyDelete