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"Premium"(?) jobs do not necessarily pay above-market rates
Thread poster: Mirko Mainardi
gayd (X)
gayd (X)
yes Jul 28, 2017

Jenny Forbes wrote:

As the translator of two cookery books I endorse what Ramay Rieger says.
In France, and doubtless elsewhere too, "la gastronomie" is regarded as an art and the translation of cookery books demands an enormous amount of knowledge, cultural understanding and research. In no way is it a "doddle".


but anyone can have access to this knowledge. The only thing that drives the prices is the demand/offer ratio.
If there is no barrier to entry, prices are very low because the supply of translations is exceeding the demand.
For one job in this field, there are more than 100 applicants.


 
Robert Forstag
Robert Forstag  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 13:58
Spanish to English
+ ...
Exactly right Jul 28, 2017

David GAY wrote:

Jenny Forbes wrote:

As the translator of two cookery books I endorse what Ramay Rieger says.
In France, and doubtless elsewhere too, "la gastronomie" is regarded as an art and the translation of cookery books demands an enormous amount of knowledge, cultural understanding and research. In no way is it a "doddle".


but anyone can have access to this knowledge. The only thing that drives the prices is the demand/offer ratio.
If there is no barrier to entry, prices are very low because the supply of translations is exceeding the demand.
For one job in this field, there are more than 100 applicants.


This really gets to the heart of the matter: there are simply too many translators!

And there are too many translators precisely because there are no barriers to entry.

I remember that proz.com member Wilkinson (?) made this observation in a post at least seven years ago. The observation seemed on point even then, and it strikes me as more true than ever today.


 
Ramey Rieger (X)
Ramey Rieger (X)  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 18:58
German to English
Premium translation/Premium jobs Jul 28, 2017

What it comes down to is cornering your market. This only comes with time and experience. The flooded translation market is partially a result of a globalized market/world - there are many multi-linguists out there thinking because they speak a language, they can translate one as well. This is simply not true, and time will tell. Steady clients keep coming back because the work fulfiled or exceeded expectations. The proof is in the pudding, and always will be. Those truly professional translator... See more
What it comes down to is cornering your market. This only comes with time and experience. The flooded translation market is partially a result of a globalized market/world - there are many multi-linguists out there thinking because they speak a language, they can translate one as well. This is simply not true, and time will tell. Steady clients keep coming back because the work fulfiled or exceeded expectations. The proof is in the pudding, and always will be. Those truly professional translators will still be there when two-thirds of the wannabees have thrown in the towel. If a job is posted as Premium, yet offers a substandard rate, then it is up to the site to remedy that matter. Annoyed members can even apply with their justified rate and the consequences be damned. As a beginner, I was dependent on Proz for jobs. This has long ceased to be the case as I have built up my clientéle by way of quality work. Maybe I've been lucky (grateful I am) or maybe I'm just good.

And now for an objection:
David Gay wrote:
but anyone can have access to this knowledge.

This is a flat-out insult to those who have garnered immense, in depth knowledge!

Moving right along,
Ramey

[Edited at 2017-07-28 14:48 GMT]
Collapse


 
MK2010
MK2010  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 13:58
French to English
+ ...
Other considerations Jul 28, 2017

Robert Forstag wrote:
All this is over and apart from the fundamental issue regarding improper identification of such an offer as "premium" that Mirko raised in his initial post in this thread.

[Edited at 2017-07-28 14:21 GMT]


Rate-wise, I would agree it's not "premium," and yes, that means ProZ violated its own rule. But compared to many if not most of the job offers that come across this board on a daily basis, I would still put this one in the "interesting" category, because of word count combined with regularity. To me, having regular gigs drastically improves quality of life and it is something I highly value.

Speaking of rates, it really comes down to how much you can make in an hour, anyway.


 
José Henrique Lamensdorf
José Henrique Lamensdorf  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 14:58
English to Portuguese
+ ...
In memoriam
Lack of differentiation Jul 28, 2017

Robert Forstag wrote:

This really gets to the heart of the matter: there are simply too many translators!


I'm not sure about that.
There are many translators, but a huuuge global crowd of "tranzlaters", bilingual - and often sesquilingual - people who assert they are able to translate.

Likewise, there are many photographers, but there is an overwhelming quantity of people using cameras and cell phones to take snapshots.

Robert Forstag wrote:
And there are too many translators precisely because there are no barriers to entry.


The only barrier is self-awareness.
I have been a professional translator in EN PT for 44 years.
I am sesquilingual in IT/FR/ES. The only reason why I am not a "tranzlater" in these languages is because I chose not to. Yet I see everywhere the output of "tranzlaters" whose knowledge in BOTH EN and PT is lesser than mine in the aforementioned three languages.


 
Robert Rietvelt
Robert Rietvelt  Identity Verified
Local time: 18:58
Member (2006)
Spanish to Dutch
+ ...
Not Exactly an answer on my question Jul 28, 2017

David GAY wrote:

Robert Rietvelt wrote:

David GAY wrote:

Ramey Rieger wrote:

...would be STUNNED to know how much research is involved in translating what you call a simple recipe! Conversions, available ingredients, etc. The same applies to a tourist leaflet (history, landmarks, possible dialect, etc.) or a medical text (wouldn't touch it). Professionalism is the rate-setter in my opinion, not the source text. When it comes to rates, and I say this for the umpteenth time, what counts is experience, references and communication. I assume that the Proz minimum rate is set according to an average calculated by the rates translators post in their profiles.



David Gay wrote:
The translation market is a dual market
there's a market for non specialized translation with very low rates, because anybody can translate those texts.
there's a market for technical translation, i.e. translation requiring special expertise for which the prices
are or should be much higher. I think the biggest mistake is to consider that the prices should be the same
for a catalogue, for a touristic leaflet, a cooking recipe, a medical text and so forth

Cheers!
Ramey


To me, the only criteria is the level of knowledge involved

medical, engineering, financial, legal translation vs cooking, tourism.
If the level of knowledge involved is much higher, there's much less competition and prices are much higher.



I do Tourism among other things.

In a former life I worked as a tour operator for 3 years at a travel agency, 9 years as a tour leader in Asia, Europe, Latin America and the USA, more than 10 years as a travel photographer and travelled for years (as backpacker) around the world.

Does that qualify?

[Edited at 2017-07-28 13:57 GMT]




Can you find clients who pay more than 0.1 euro per sw for touristic translations? I'm afraid the markets for cooking recipes and touristic brochures are overcrowded

[Modifié le 2017-07-28 14:01 GMT]

[Modifié le 2017-07-28 14:07 GMT]


But to answer your question: YES I Do!


 
gayd (X)
gayd (X)
Good for you Jul 28, 2017

Robert Rietvelt wrote:

David GAY wrote:

Robert Rietvelt wrote:

David GAY wrote:

Ramey Rieger wrote:

...would be STUNNED to know how much research is involved in translating what you call a simple recipe! Conversions, available ingredients, etc. The same applies to a tourist leaflet (history, landmarks, possible dialect, etc.) or a medical text (wouldn't touch it). Professionalism is the rate-setter in my opinion, not the source text. When it comes to rates, and I say this for the umpteenth time, what counts is experience, references and communication. I assume that the Proz minimum rate is set according to an average calculated by the rates translators post in their profiles.



David Gay wrote:
The translation market is a dual market
there's a market for non specialized translation with very low rates, because anybody can translate those texts.
there's a market for technical translation, i.e. translation requiring special expertise for which the prices
are or should be much higher. I think the biggest mistake is to consider that the prices should be the same
for a catalogue, for a touristic leaflet, a cooking recipe, a medical text and so forth

Cheers!
Ramey


To me, the only criteria is the level of knowledge involved

medical, engineering, financial, legal translation vs cooking, tourism.
If the level of knowledge involved is much higher, there's much less competition and prices are much higher.



I do Tourism among other things.

In a former life I worked as a tour operator for 3 years at a travel agency, 9 years as a tour leader in Asia, Europe, Latin America and the USA, more than 10 years as a travel photographer and travelled for years (as backpacker) around the world.

Does that qualify?

[Edited at 2017-07-28 13:57 GMT]




Can you find clients who pay more than 0.1 euro per sw for touristic translations? I'm afraid the markets for cooking recipes and touristic brochures are overcrowded

[Modifié le 2017-07-28 14:01 GMT]

[Modifié le 2017-07-28 14:07 GMT]


But to answer your question: YES I Do!


If you have such clients, it's fine. I guess it's not the agencies which have given you a WWA because these agencies don't seem to pay that much.

[Modifié le 2017-07-28 15:32 GMT]


 
Robert Forstag
Robert Forstag  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 13:58
Spanish to English
+ ...
Tradeoffs and leveraging Jul 28, 2017

MK2010 wrote:

Robert Forstag wrote:
All this is over and apart from the fundamental issue regarding improper identification of such an offer as "premium" that Mirko raised in his initial post in this thread.

[Edited at 2017-07-28 14:21 GMT]


Rate-wise, I would agree it's not "premium," and yes, that means ProZ violated its own rule. But compared to many if not most of the job offers that come across this board on a daily basis, I would still put this one in the "interesting" category, because of word count combined with regularity. To me, having regular gigs drastically improves quality of life and it is something I highly value.


I can see this to a point. There can be a tradeoff between quantity and/or regularity, on the one hand, and per-word rate on the other. But, to my mind, the rate being offered for the kind of work demanded here (and, let's be honest, the end client involved) is simply too low, and the quantity of work not high enough to justify the low rate.

Maybe if the "gig" here involved 20,000 words a month at the 6-cent rate for "easy" work with a comfortable deadline and only minimal research, I would think about accepting it (i.e., based on the same considerations you mention).

I would also point out that, if we are going to take into account "other considerations," then factors such as professional self-respect, morale, and motivation also come into play. As an experienced translator, I do not like to work on any project for which I consider the fee too low. This takes us to our next topic.

Speaking of rates, it really comes down to how much you can make in an hour, anyway.


Without a doubt, and this rate is in the end determined by the combination of the fee you are paid and the speed of your work. This means that faster translators can to some extent leverage their speed by offering more competitive rates than their slower colleagues. To take the present offer as an example, a translator who could turn around the project in 10 hours (which is super-fast, but perhaps not beyond the realm of possibility for a translator who types fast, is highly disciplined, and who has a strong familiarity with and special flair for the material involved) might comfortably offer to do the work for the 6 cents, since this would translate into more than 50 euros per hour worked.

[Edited at 2017-07-28 23:10 GMT]


 
gayd (X)
gayd (X)
0.06 is the maximum rate Jul 28, 2017

Robert Forstag wrote:



Speaking of rates, it really comes down to how much you can make in an hour, anyway.


Without a doubt, and this rate is in the end determined by the combination of the fee you are paid and the speed of your work. This means that faster translators can to some extent leverage their speed by offering more competitive rates than their slower colleagues. To take the present offer as an example, a translator who could turn around the project in 10 hours (which is super-fast, but perhaps not beyond the realm of possibility for a translator who types fast, is highly disciplined, and who has a strong familiarity with and special flair for the material involved) might comfortably offer to do the work for the 6 cents, since this would translate into more than 50 euros per hour worked.

[Edited at 2017-07-28 15:48 GMT]


Once again, it's UP TO 0.06. And I bet that for the next job, they'll post a new job on PROZ to get the best rate.
So I doubt it shall be a long lasting relationship...


 
José Henrique Lamensdorf
José Henrique Lamensdorf  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 14:58
English to Portuguese
+ ...
In memoriam
That's what I meant - wrong perceptions from globalization Jul 28, 2017

David GAY wrote:

José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote:

There is another paragraph at http://www.proz.com/faq/4096#4096:
Note that it can hurt a company's reputation to mark a job as premium if potential candidates do not consider it as such. It is therefore in an outsourcer's own interest to be selective about which jobs it calls premium.


Let's consider a 10,000 words EN>PT translation job, paying EUR 0.10/word via PayPal in 60 days after delivery.
  • Proz Community Rates says the average for this pair is EUR 0.09/word.
  • Translator will supposedly be paid EUR 1,000 sixty days later.
  • Proz Community Rate for this pair is EUR 0.09/word

Apparently this is a Premium Job. Is it?

Case 1: Target is European PT, translator located in Portugal
PayPal fee is 3.4%
No currency exchange fees - everything in EUR
APR on credit cards (reference for interest calculation) is 10.1%, so 1.6% for two months
Translator will receive NET EUR 1,000 - (3.4% + 1.6%) = EUR 950

Case 2: Target is Brazilian PT, translator located in Brazil
PayPal fee is 6.5%
PayPal currency exchange fee is 3.5%
APR on credit cards (reference for interest calculation) is 490% (sic!!!), so 34.3% for two months
Translator will receive NET EUR 1,000 - (6.5% + 3.5% + 34.3%) = EUR 557

Something quite similar would occur if we compared an EN>ES translation between Spain and Argentina (where Proz has offices - so they should be aware of it).

So while globalization exists, the one-size-fits-all approach does NOT apply globally.


Yes, but in Brazil, you don't have to buy fruits. You can pluck them for free.


The places in Brazil where you can pluck fruits for free are probably where you don't have Internet access, no cell phone signal, not even electric power (unless you take batteries or solar cells with you).

While bananas, mango, pineapples, and several other fruits are relatively cheap here, all berries - except strawberries - are outrageously expensive. Cherries usually cost at least 10x what they do in North America.


 
Gabriele Demuth
Gabriele Demuth  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:58
English to German
Prestigious? Jul 28, 2017

Ramey Rieger wrote:

...would be STUNNED to know how much research is involved in translating what you call a simple recipe! Conversions, available ingredients, etc. The same applies to a tourist leaflet (history, landmarks, possible dialect, etc.) or a medical text (wouldn't touch it).



Agree, recipes can be very time consuming and creative to translate, but not necessarily.

I saw that post, but I didn't see anything suggesting a rate. With tourism text I generally assume the rate would be fairly low, but I expect "prestigious" airlines to care about their texts, have a style guide and pay fairly good rates, otherwise they couldn't really call themselves prestigious, really.


 
gayd (X)
gayd (X)
but Jul 28, 2017

the rate of a translation has nothing to do with the time spent on it as long as you have an army of slave workers willing to do it almost for free.

 
MK2010
MK2010  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 13:58
French to English
+ ...
Yes Jul 28, 2017


Without a doubt, and this rate is in the end determined by the combination of the fee you are paid and the speed of your work. This means that faster translators can to some extent leverage their speed by offering more competitive rates than their slower colleagues. To take the present offer as an example, a translator who could turn around the project in 10 hours (which is super-fast, but perhaps not beyond the realm of possibility for a translator who types fast, is highly disciplined, and who has a strong familiarity with and special flair for the material involved) might comfortably offer to do the work for the 6 cents, since this would translate into more than 50 euros per hour worked.

[Edited at 2017-07-28 16:26 GMT]


This is why there seems to be a disconnect oftentimes when I look at people's profiles on here. A lot of times, there is a fairly standard per hour rate of about 30-40 dollars or euros per hour. Then when you look at the per word rate, the math doesn't add up.

[Edited at 2017-07-28 16:38 GMT]


 
Mirko Mainardi
Mirko Mainardi  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 18:58
Member
English to Italian
TOPIC STARTER
They don't make 'em (prestigious) like that anymore... Jul 28, 2017

Gabriele Demuth wrote:

I saw that post, but I didn't see anything suggesting a rate. With tourism text I generally assume the rate would be fairly low, but I expect "prestigious" airlines to care about their texts, have a style guide and pay fairly good rates, otherwise they couldn't really call themselves prestigious, really.


A few months ago I was contacted by an agency for something similar. Long term collaboration to work on website content for a really prestigious airline for which they had been working for a few years. Well, what they offered me was €0.055 for translation and €0.016 for review. The icing on the cake? Payment 90 days EOM...


 
Robert Rietvelt
Robert Rietvelt  Identity Verified
Local time: 18:58
Member (2006)
Spanish to Dutch
+ ...
What can ik say...... Jul 28, 2017

David GAY wrote:

Robert Rietvelt wrote:

David GAY wrote:

Robert Rietvelt wrote:

David GAY wrote:

Ramey Rieger wrote:

...would be STUNNED to know how much research is involved in translating what you call a simple recipe! Conversions, available ingredients, etc. The same applies to a tourist leaflet (history, landmarks, possible dialect, etc.) or a medical text (wouldn't touch it). Professionalism is the rate-setter in my opinion, not the source text. When it comes to rates, and I say this for the umpteenth time, what counts is experience, references and communication. I assume that the Proz minimum rate is set according to an average calculated by the rates translators post in their profiles.



David Gay wrote:
The translation market is a dual market
there's a market for non specialized translation with very low rates, because anybody can translate those texts.
there's a market for technical translation, i.e. translation requiring special expertise for which the prices
are or should be much higher. I think the biggest mistake is to consider that the prices should be the same
for a catalogue, for a touristic leaflet, a cooking recipe, a medical text and so forth

Cheers!
Ramey


To me, the only criteria is the level of knowledge involved

medical, engineering, financial, legal translation vs cooking, tourism.
If the level of knowledge involved is much higher, there's much less competition and prices are much higher.



I do Tourism among other things.

In a former life I worked as a tour operator for 3 years at a travel agency, 9 years as a tour leader in Asia, Europe, Latin America and the USA, more than 10 years as a travel photographer and travelled for years (as backpacker) around the world.

Does that qualify?

[Edited at 2017-07-28 13:57 GMT]




Can you find clients who pay more than 0.1 euro per sw for touristic translations? I'm afraid the markets for cooking recipes and touristic brochures are overcrowded

[Modifié le 2017-07-28 14:01 GMT]

[Modifié le 2017-07-28 14:07 GMT]


But to answer your question: YES I Do!


If you have such clients, it's fine. I guess it's not the agencies which have given you a WWA because these agencies don't seem to pay that much.

[Modifié le 2017-07-28 15:32 GMT]


Dream on in your own reality, mine is different.

Succes.


 
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"Premium"(?) jobs do not necessarily pay above-market rates






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