| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5] | Rates going down Thread poster: Hannele Marttila
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Don't concern yourself about rates.
A real rain is going to come and wash this translation business clean of all that's bad about it, rotten. The amateurs, the subservient, the discount beggars. The moonlighting part-timers, the google-translators, the fake natives, the eager galley slaves. The post-editing monkeys in a cage, the marketers of many tongues and masters of none. The terminally blind led by the terminologically blind. The rejected and desperate, the otherwise unemployab... See more Don't concern yourself about rates.
A real rain is going to come and wash this translation business clean of all that's bad about it, rotten. The amateurs, the subservient, the discount beggars. The moonlighting part-timers, the google-translators, the fake natives, the eager galley slaves. The post-editing monkeys in a cage, the marketers of many tongues and masters of none. The terminally blind led by the terminologically blind. The rejected and desperate, the otherwise unemployable, the slave masters and kitchen table agents. The secretaries, the sellers of false wares, the corrupt.
Yeah, rates are going down. For all those listed above.
But that's only the onset. Maybe there's five more years before the storm breaks in full. Maybe a little more. Maybe a lot less. But mark my words – everything you see here now will be ancient history by 2020. Dead. Forgotten.
The only translators left when it's over will be native speakers of their target, specialists in a field, 10+ years of experience, great writers, skillful researchers, vital parts of the economy, confident, proud, respected, and expensive.
So don't worry about rates now. Just try to be among them.
Or get out of the open marketplace already, before the rain comes.
Have a good year, S. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Who the rain is really going to "wash?" | Dec 31, 2013 |
septima wrote:
Don't concern yourself about rates.
A real rain is going to come and wash this translation business clean of all that's bad about it, rotten. The amateurs, the subservient, the discount beggars. The moonlighting part-timers, the google-translators, the fake natives, the eager galley slaves. The post-editing monkeys in a cage, the marketers of many tongues and masters of none. The terminally blind led by the terminologically blind. The rejected and desperate, the otherwise unemployable, the slave masters and kitchen table agents. The secretaries, the sellers of false wares, the corrupt.
Yeah, rates are going down. For all those listed above.
But that's only the onset. Maybe there's five more years before the storm breaks in full. Maybe a little more. Maybe a lot less. But mark my words – everything you see here now will be ancient history by 2020. Dead. Forgotten.
The only translators left when it's over will be native speakers of their target, specialists in a field, 10+ years of experience, great writers, skillful researchers, vital parts of the economy, confident, proud, respected, and expensive.
So don't worry about rates now. Just try to be among them.
Or get out of the open marketplace already, before the rain comes.
Have a good year, S.
Exactly how are amateurs rotten? I'm sure no one starts in a field already with 10+ years of experience in it, do they?
Overall, the biggest problem of today's economy is the lack of willingness of the market for apprentices, and it's like an ecosystem. If there's no room for young translators in your pair, who's going to replace you when you stop working–assuming the market doesn't go greedy and cuts costs by feeding everything to Google Translator and uses some native post-editor to fix the text?
| | | | | It's not about experience | Dec 31, 2013 |
Carlos A R de Souza wrote:
Exactly how are amateurs rotten? I'm sure no one starts in a field already with 10+ years of experience in it, do they?
Overall, the biggest problem of today's economy is the lack of willingness of the market for apprentices, and it's like an ecosystem. If there's no room for young translators in your pair, who's going to replace you when you stop working–assuming the market doesn't go greedy and cuts costs by feeding everything to Google Translator and uses some native post-editor to fix the text?
Carlos,
One thing is a beginner who's got prepared to do it, and gain experience. They'll stick for a while to what they feel sure they can do, develop experience from there, and thereafter widen their coverage.
A rotten amateur is someone who will do anything for cash, translation included. They think they have learned enough of a foreign language to translate... anything! They don't care about the subject matter, they don't care if they understand what it's all about in any language at all, and, most of all, their writing skills in their target language behhoove substantial improvement.
Of course, they'll take any rates they are offered, assuming the client knows how much that's worth, and accept any payment term the client imposes, as it's better to get some money, no matter how far in the future, than none.
Translation is just a temporary activity to keep them busy. If it takes off, they might stay with it, until - and if ever - they get a better offer to do anything else that they really know how to do.
They don't know it, and of course they don't care (assuming translation is NOT their profession), so they drive both rates and overall quality down. It takes a while before their clients learn to separate the wheat from the chaff, especially if they are used to trying to buy wheat at chaff prices.
I began translating professionally as a sophomore in Mechanical Engineering. For seven years, I only translated technical material in that area, until I began gradually widening my scope. Yet it took me over 30 years in translation to pinpoint five specific areas where I should not translate any material intended for their respective practitioners.
As Socrates said, "We don't know what we don't know". The above is the time it took me to learn part of it.
| | | | Oksana Weiss 
Germany
Local time: 01:00
Member (2011)
English to Russian
+ ...
septima wrote:
A real rain is going to come and wash this translation business clean of all that's bad about it, rotten.
Thank you, septima, it was really refreshing to hear this in the beginning of a new year. Let's hope you are right!
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Jeff Whittaker
United States
Local time: 19:00
Spanish to English
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| DLyons
Ireland
Local time: 00:00
Spanish to English
+ ...
| Almost anything can be Googled nowadays. | Jan 3, 2014 |
A very imprudent article by this amateur translator. I wonder how the University of Tennessee would react to such academic dishonesty, had it been perpetrated by one of their staff?
| | | | 564354352 (X)
Denmark
Local time: 01:00
Danish to English
+ ...
| Fascinating approach | Jan 4, 2014 |
Although it is shocking to read this article, I can't help but admire this girl for her guts and cheek. I doubt that she realises at all that she is acting utterly unprofessionally. On the contrary, as she plays with the idea of calling herself a professional translator.
I would hope that her hobby translation for money won't go any further than to this one unfortunate client, but I have a vague suspicion that if they think they are getting value for their money, they might well recommend her to others and then her work might escalate until she truly believes that she IS a professional translator.
Shocking as it may seem, I actually know of at least one highly professional linguist who gladly recommends that her colleagues use Google Translate 'just to get the gist' of a continual flow of email communication they receive in languages they don't understand. If they then get the impression that it is something important, they will contact someone who can give them a proper translation.
And there's really nothing we, as professional translators, can do about such practices, is there? Why pay for a complete service, if you can get the result you need for free or next to nothing?
Tough odds, but this is our reality...
| | | | DLyons
Ireland
Local time: 00:00
Spanish to English
+ ...
| Is this what she teaches her students? | Jan 4, 2014 |
Gitte Hovedskov, MCIL wrote:
Although it is shocking to read this article, I can't help but admire this girl for her guts and cheek. I doubt that she realises at all that she is acting utterly unprofessionally. On the contrary, as she plays with the idea of calling herself a professional translator.
She's not a girl, she's a University faculty member. Who openly calls her client a fool!
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564354352 (X)
Denmark
Local time: 01:00
Danish to English
+ ...
DLyons wrote:
She's not a girl, she's a University faculty member. Who openly calls her client a fool!
Yikes!! Hadn't realised that. Thanks for putting me straight.
Well, this does put a completely different slant on her musings. Unless, of course, she has written this whole piece as a protest against the kind of work that she appears to be advocating?
I mean, what academic language professional could possibly propose such a ridiculous practice?
| | | | DLyons
Ireland
Local time: 00:00
Spanish to English
+ ...
| Not a language professional | Jan 4, 2014 |
Gitte Hovedskov, MCIL wrote:
DLyons wrote:
She's not a girl, she's a University faculty member. Who openly calls her client a fool!
Yikes!! Hadn't realised that. Thanks for putting me straight.
Well, this does put a completely different slant on her musings. Unless, of course, she has written this whole piece as a protest against the kind of work that she appears to be advocating?
I mean, what academic language professional could possibly propose such a ridiculous practice?
Her academic discipline isn't in languages - that was just moonlighting.
I don't want to be too specific, but I found her just by Googling, so it's not hard to track down who she is.
[Edited at 2014-01-04 12:47 GMT]
[Edited at 2014-01-04 21:18 GMT]
| | | | | Money matters | Jan 6, 2014 |
I do agree with Sandra, that "there are people willing to work for those ridiculous rates" and because of them the rates has been decreasing exponentially. For the type of task previous we were paid much more then now.
They say clearly ”you will do it or not make this clear as we have many people who can do same with less cost.”
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