| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9] > | Is there a way to prevent the decline in translation rates? Thread poster: Erwin S. Fernandez
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Adieu wrote:
Russian life is just so tumultuous that we developed short memories...
...are you SERIOUSLY telling me it's still all good just because a dollar buys more roubles??? But do you still have 20 RUR beers or pasta...
An interesting while somewhat overemotional reply to what I wrote about my life and situation. I thought I was careful enough to outline the pros and cons in a way fit for a forum post. Maybe the hidden claim behind the uppercase and triple question marks are that I'm either a naive idiot or an agent for we-all-know-whom, tasked with spreading misinformation. An idiot I may well be, but I don't think the man I wrote about, who is much more successful than me, is on the idiot bandwagon too. My purchasing power kept increasing through hard work, but what I've been really focusing on were not those cans of beer but doing my job in such a way that things in our economy would work properly – at least where I am
| | | | Adieu 
Ukrainian to English
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I was just aiming to illustrate with something that those unfamiliar with Russian life and rouble exchange rates could easily visualize.
Emotional? Yeah, I guess. For two good reasons:
1) Personal: competing with Russian translators who lower prices can be frustrating. Sometimes, you can almost see the back and forth, like waves, of clients getting seduced by discount translation rates from Russia, and then getting disappointed by their quality and coming back a couple ... See more I was just aiming to illustrate with something that those unfamiliar with Russian life and rouble exchange rates could easily visualize.
Emotional? Yeah, I guess. For two good reasons:
1) Personal: competing with Russian translators who lower prices can be frustrating. Sometimes, you can almost see the back and forth, like waves, of clients getting seduced by discount translation rates from Russia, and then getting disappointed by their quality and coming back a couple weeks later.
Oh well... I would be a lot more upset if I didn't have a spare language pair to keep me busy in the downtime.
2) Selfless: I am deeply saddened by the situation in my motherland ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Re. automatically lower quality | Jun 8, 2021 |
Adieu wrote:
Sometimes, you can almost see the back and forth, like waves, of clients getting seduced by discount translation rates from Russia, and then getting disappointed by their quality and coming back a couple weeks later
Another strange assumption: my translations are crap just because I'm a Russian who chose to stay and am therefore intellectually and/or professionally inferior to you, who chose to leave. Correct me if I'm wrong. Are you claiming you're better for just that reason? You might be, after all, if you do simultaneous interpreting (I don't) or if you do medical translations (they're my no-no subject of choice). I already wrote about lots of crap translators we have over here and how they make competition easy. But if I chose to charge a UK company a rate they'd think is l quite low, I'd be able to pay my bills and buy whatever I want to buy, even affording some luxury, at much lower cost than a translator (Russian or otherwise) situated in the UK, considering the taxes, cost of living, etc. Does this mean my translations will automatically be worse than theirs? Well, I know what I'm worth, and I just have to say no to that one. I could give some particulars of how those exchange rates work, but that's off-topic
| | | | Adieu
Ukrainian to English
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But if you were as good or better than, why would you choose to compete on price?
Even if you do actually have lower expenses, why not charge more and work less?
As to why I suspect I am somewhat better than most budget options: my straying clients tend to return. Pretty quickly.
In short: if you ARE good, PLEASE CHARGE MORE. Charge global rates. Then go higher once they recognize your value.
PS your English does seem pretty impressive.... See more But if you were as good or better than, why would you choose to compete on price?
Even if you do actually have lower expenses, why not charge more and work less?
As to why I suspect I am somewhat better than most budget options: my straying clients tend to return. Pretty quickly.
In short: if you ARE good, PLEASE CHARGE MORE. Charge global rates. Then go higher once they recognize your value.
PS your English does seem pretty impressive. Assuming your work ethic is also strong, you really don't need to offer any exchange rate inspired or regional discounts.
Denis Fesik wrote: Adieu wrote:
Sometimes, you can almost see the back and forth, like waves, of clients getting seduced by discount translation rates from Russia, and then getting disappointed by their quality and coming back a couple weeks later Another strange assumption: my translations are crap just because I'm a Russian who chose to stay and am therefore intellectually and/or professionally inferior to you, who chose to leave. Correct me if I'm wrong. Are you claiming you're better for just that reason? You might be, after all, if you do simultaneous interpreting (I don't) or if you do medical translations (they're my no-no subject of choice). I already wrote about lots of crap translators we have over here and how they make competition easy. But if I chose to charge a UK company a rate they'd think is l quite low, I'd be able to pay my bills and buy whatever I want to buy, even affording some luxury, at much lower cost than a translator (Russian or otherwise) situated in the UK, considering the taxes, cost of living, etc. Does this mean my translations will automatically be worse than theirs? Well, I know what I'm worth, and I just have to say no to that one. I could give some particulars of how those exchange rates work, but that's off-topic
[Edited at 2021-06-08 17:15 GMT]
[Edited at 2021-06-08 17:20 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 16:14
Member
English to Turkish
| What's stopping you from charging decent (i.e. normal) rates? | Jun 8, 2021 |
Denis Fesik wrote:
Adieu wrote:
But if I chose to charge a UK company a rate they'd think is l quite low, I'd be able to pay my bills and buy whatever I want to buy, even affording some luxury, at much lower cost than a translator (Russian or otherwise) situated in the UK, considering the taxes, cost of living, etc.
International translation market is not meant to be based on the value of Russian or Turkish money. Why do you feel the need to f.ck that market up (in probably the same way you have done in your country) when you can charge normal rates and get rich instead?
Please don't take my words personally, I have no beef with you or Russian translators. By 'you' in this post I'm referring to my 'beloved' Turkish colleagues who share the same mentality about exchange rates as you do.
| | | | | No low-ball competition here | Jun 9, 2021 |
Baran Keki wrote: Why do you feel the need to f.ck that market up (in probably the same way you have done in your country) when you can charge normal rates and get rich instead?
Just to make things clear: I'm not competing with anybody here; as I wrote earlier, I'm not a freelancer, and the rates I charge for doing freelance jobs are ones I'm happy with, I don't even know what the industry's average rates are. If I cared to enter the international market, I'd sure check that out and wouldn't be playing low-ball games. There are factors that hinder me from entering the translation elite, but I'm still working on it. What I'm doing with our local market is not effing it up but trying to fix it by teaching lessons to greedy customers who are convinced that good translations can be done for cheap, as in the case of me de-ruining a complete mess that a crowd of translation zeroes (from a country where rates are even lower than ours) have made out of an 800-page project that was supposed to drive industry forward
| | | | Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 16:14
Member
English to Turkish
| Translation elite? | Jun 10, 2021 |
Denis Fesik wrote:
There are factors that hinder me from entering the translation elite, but I'm still working on it.
I wonder what you're referring to by 'translation elite'. Do you mean those who work for 'boutique translations agencies' that pay 17 cents per word? I suspect in order for you, or me, to enter that 'elite' we have to translate from Swedish or Dutch to English. We're unfortunately in the 'wrong' language pairs.
[Edited at 2021-06-10 09:18 GMT]
| | | | Adieu
Ukrainian to English
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That's probably just to cover their taxes.
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Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 16:14
Member
English to Turkish
| I hope you can make it | Jun 10, 2021 |
Adieu wrote:
That's probably just to cover their taxes.
You seem to have changed your language pair. I hope this helps you get into that 'elite'
| | | | Adieu
Ukrainian to English
+ ...
Baran Keki wrote: Adieu wrote:
That's probably just to cover their taxes. You seem to have changed your language pair. I hope this helps you get into that 'elite'
There's a natural limit on how much people are willing to pay for Ukrainian.
It's just not the national language of a rich country with high taxes.
Oh well... I'd still rather work Russian, but I take what I can get.
[Edited at 2021-06-10 11:57 GMT]
| | | | | Elite language pairs? | Jun 10, 2021 |
Baran Keki wrote:
I wonder what you're referring to by 'translation elite'. Do you mean those who work for 'boutique translations agencies' that pay 17 cents per word? I suspect in order for you, or me, to enter that 'elite' we have to translate from Swedish or Dutch to English
The language pair thing is not an issue here, but the rest of your post contains part of the answer: the countries that have the highest cost of living are supposed to be home to the elite. That's not true, if you ask me. And it only illustrates the point I made: you can charge somewhat lower rates if your country's cost of living is lower than that in Denmark, but what really matters is that you deliver excellent quality, and that is what makes you part of the elite. I've made great efforts dealing with the wild Runglish a Russian company doing a huge project in Turkey was trying to foist on their Turkish colleagues, but my capabilities are limited, so Turkish engineers just had to come to terms with how Russians like to call this or that thing. My language pair suits me alright because there aren't many translation companies who can really do Russian
| | | | Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 16:14
Member
English to Turkish
| Correct me if I'm wrong | Jun 11, 2021 |
Denis Fesik wrote:
And it only illustrates the point I made: you can charge somewhat lower rates if your country's cost of living is lower than that in Denmark, but what really matters is that you deliver excellent quality, and that is what makes you part of the elite.
But isn't this the very definition of 'undercutting others'? If you deliver 'excellent quality', why don't you demand at least the going rate in Denmark? If you really deliver 'excellent quality' with great subject matter expertise then you should demand even higher rates. I don't think the Danish agency will assess the beer and food prices in Russia before agreeing to your rates. Their decision will more likely be informed by the undercutting *******s (again please don't take this personally) who continually shoot themselves in the foot to get more jobs. But if you indeed deliver excellent quality then you'll doubtless be better placed to negotiate better rates.
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| Getting there, but... | Jun 11, 2021 |
Baran Keki wrote:
But isn't this the very definition of 'undercutting others'? If you deliver 'excellent quality', why don't you demand at least the going rate in Denmark?
As I wrote a couple of posts back, I'm not in the 'undercutting' business; this notion that you can get decent Russian translations for peanuts (spoiler: no, you can't, unless you get really lucky to find someone who loves peanuts and is willing to do their best for them) has taken shape through no fault of mine, and many of us here are underpaid for that very reason. In my case, going international will be problematic (I have no formal papers to show because my academic pursuits went haywire in the early noughties, so any new customer will have to take my word on whatever I've put on my CV, which is a major competitive disadvantage, especially when entering the 'First World' markets where you normally need specialist qualifications to do any work and provide any services), and the rates I charge to our local companies are quite high and will become higher, despite there being a lot of pressure
| | | | Abba Storgen (X)
United States
Local time: 08:14
Greek to English
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Denis Fesik wrote:
even affording some luxury,
What kind of "luxury"?
| | | | | There's luxury and there's luxury | Jun 11, 2021 |
Eleftherios Kritikakis wrote:
What kind of "luxury"?
Well, it's anything on top of what a workman's family was able to afford back in Soviet times, nothing too fancy. Buying better foods, imported clothes, fancy gadgets; going places, giving presents. Am I misusing the word? I used to be part of a pretty poor family, so I might call 'luxury' what doesn't deserve that name; it has nothing to do with living in a palace or flying a private jet. I said 'some luxury,' didn't I? It's just that I calculated the sum total of all the bills I have to pay here (income taxes included), and even in the middle of winter when we have central heating going full blast (and working as intended, even overdoing it sometimes, despite the fact that our house is not a paragon of energy efficiency), the amount is hovering around EUR 200. If I charged my customers the kind of rates people charge for translation in Denmark, I'd become filthy rich in no time flat. And yes, the more adventurous readers of this thread who have their own loyal customer base are welcome to relocate to any major city in Russia – as a means of dealing with the dwindling rates. Our people love foreigners, but communication problems are still likely to arise. Maybe there's some other country which is a better option, considering the climate and other things
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