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Looking for a "Trados grid" converter
Thread poster: kd42
kd42
kd42
Estonia
Local time: 12:22
English to Russian
Nov 19, 2018

Good day,

I have agencies among my clients, they normally use a Trados grid, i.e. exact and fuzzy match discount ladder.

My problem is that these grids often differ, one agency offers 50% of full rate for a repetition, while another one - only 20%, some offer full rate for matches below 85%, some - below 50%.
With many new clients I am getting lost in these. The obvious solution would be to offer different "new word rate" to clients with differe... See more
Good day,

I have agencies among my clients, they normally use a Trados grid, i.e. exact and fuzzy match discount ladder.

My problem is that these grids often differ, one agency offers 50% of full rate for a repetition, while another one - only 20%, some offer full rate for matches below 85%, some - below 50%.
With many new clients I am getting lost in these. The obvious solution would be to offer different "new word rate" to clients with different Trados grids, so that my daily earnings are the same, quite logical, isn't it?
However, when I tried to make a little "Grid converter" using Excel, I discovered that the fuzzy range spread is an important variable. Therefore, I can calculate a rate for a specific job, but not for all jobs of a specific client.

Question: Is there some "universal", or "approximate" "Trados grid converter somewhere on the Internet? If you solved the same problem without a converter, how did you do it?

NB: This thread is NOT for discussing "unfair clients", "stupid discounts", "CAT tool dictatorship" and other similar issues. We are discussing a strictly technical matter related to money. ▲ Collapse
 
Ricki Farn
Ricki Farn
Germany
Local time: 11:22
English to German
You would need an extra variable Nov 20, 2018

Hi!

Some tasks have lots of fuzzy matches, others hardly any. This can be hard to predict. You would expect more fuzzies with clients who have been translating for a long time (aka updates or new versions of an existing product), or with some fields such as legal contracts, which are about rather repetitive real-world situations. You would not expect lots of fuzzies in content marketing or love letters. But I have seen exceptions.

So you would need the expected or stati... See more
Hi!

Some tasks have lots of fuzzy matches, others hardly any. This can be hard to predict. You would expect more fuzzies with clients who have been translating for a long time (aka updates or new versions of an existing product), or with some fields such as legal contracts, which are about rather repetitive real-world situations. You would not expect lots of fuzzies in content marketing or love letters. But I have seen exceptions.

So you would need the expected or statistical number of words in each range to compare CAT-tool grids.

Just for a worst-case scenario, I could imagine a client to be manipulative or deceptive about this. Imagine the client has done a CAT analysis of the project at hand and finds that there are very few matches in one range, but lots in another. They might intentionally set up their CAT grid so it looks good in itself, but is disadvantageous for you on their specific project; then show you the CAT grid, but not the wordcounts, and ask you to agree.

For such a worst-case scenario, it doesn't even have to be a one-off project. Some clients might have an idea of how they will update or vary their content over time, and thus what kind of matches they will likely be getting.

Edit: Another part of my brain has woken up in the meantime and told me that a CAT grid and word rate are basically an under-determined system of linear equations. So "it's not us, it's maths".

Coffee!
Ricki

[Edited at 2018-11-20 07:57 GMT] ▲ Collapse


kd42
 
kd42
kd42
Estonia
Local time: 12:22
English to Russian
TOPIC STARTER
Average temperature in a hospital Nov 20, 2018

Thanks, Ricki, for confirming my doubts.
I guess the only way to settle the issue is by trial and error, discussion and negotiation, as we always do.
Чай!

Ricki Farn
 


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Looking for a "Trados grid" converter







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