MTPE English to Spanish rates Thread poster: Celeste Pol
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Hello, all!
You see, I'm in a bit of a dilemma. I've been looking for a job (since I'll be jobless by January otherwise) for a few weeks now, and a company just offered me one as a MTL proofreader for a novel of over 2 million words. I would be expected to proofread 5000-10000 words per week.
My problem here... is the rates. I feel like they're laughably low, even if I'm new to this MTPE thing and I've only ever worked as a translator and a proofreader for human transla... See more Hello, all!
You see, I'm in a bit of a dilemma. I've been looking for a job (since I'll be jobless by January otherwise) for a few weeks now, and a company just offered me one as a MTL proofreader for a novel of over 2 million words. I would be expected to proofread 5000-10000 words per week.
My problem here... is the rates. I feel like they're laughably low, even if I'm new to this MTPE thing and I've only ever worked as a translator and a proofreader for human translations before.
Is 0,004-0,008 (depending on my quality) per Spanish word way too low, or is it just my imagination? How much would you rate for a literary English to Spanish MTPE?
Thank you in advance for your replies!
[Edited at 2022-12-15 23:38 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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It's insulting to propose that sort of rate. Not worth taking seriously.
| | | | | Better to reject | Dec 17, 2022 |
Today's translation business lowers the rates..more is the translation less is the rate...do no forget about the job..your work volume is not reduced anyway
| | | | Celeste Pol
Argentina
Local time: 00:44
Spanish
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TOPIC STARTER
Thomas T. Frost wrote:
It's insulting to propose that sort of rate. Not worth taking seriously.
Mmm. Thought so. But I'm curious, how much would you think it acceptable to rate MTPE? 🤔
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| First of all ... | Dec 18, 2022 |
...I would ask them for advanced payment. If granted, for their highest rate offered and by cheque, I would then wait for the cheque being sent by postal mail. If the amount on the cheque then is higher than agreed, I would either do nothing or call the Police. Are you sure you are not being scammed?
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Celeste Pol wrote:
Mmm. Thought so. But I'm curious, how much would you think it acceptable to rate MTPE? 🤔
I'm not sure. The benefit of MT varies wildly depending on the type of text, the language combination, the quality of the source and the MT engine used. There was a forum topic about the benefit of MT recently. In some cases, it may be possible to double the speed while in other cases, there is no time gain.
With a novel, the flow and choice of words are important, so I don't think I would give any MT reduction at all. 2 million words sounds excessive for a novel anyway. The average novel has 70,000 to 120,000 words.
If they are not so interested in quality, maybe you can save some time, but $0.004-$0.008 is fiction. If they removed a zero, you could start considering it.
We undermine our own profession if we let rogue elements get away with abuse like this.
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 04:44
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
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I wouldn't trust this offer one bit. First of all the proposed rate is beyond ridiculous and out of this world. Secondly I'm pretty sure machine translation isn't suitable at all to translate a novel, so you'll probably have an awful lot of work to edit the translation. Finally the word count is very suspicious. If you've never worked for this client before, I would very much recommend you to let it go.
[Edited at 2022-12-19 08:01 GMT]
| | | | Nikolay Novitskiy 
Russian Federation
Local time: 08:44
Member (2018)
English to Russian
A novel is not a user manual, and MT barely suits to deal with such a text.
As Thomas T. Frost had written above, word choice, style and atmosphere are very important. You will actually need to transcreate the novel other than to translate it word-by-word. MT won't help you doing this. You will actually have to do the job from scratch.
You mentioned volumes. Transcreating 10 000 words per weak is a big challenge, and you will spend all your time doing it, you will find ... See more A novel is not a user manual, and MT barely suits to deal with such a text.
As Thomas T. Frost had written above, word choice, style and atmosphere are very important. You will actually need to transcreate the novel other than to translate it word-by-word. MT won't help you doing this. You will actually have to do the job from scratch.
You mentioned volumes. Transcreating 10 000 words per weak is a big challenge, and you will spend all your time doing it, you will find yourself tired and exhausted only to get 80 USD for your hard work. When it comes to transctration, the rates are 0.20 - 0.15 USD / word (at least for En to Ru). So you will have 80 USD instead of 1 500 USD you deserved. Just think about it.
If you really want to translate a novel, I suggest you finding a writer and offer them your services in exchange for royalties. Another option is to establish your own tiny publishing business and to buy distribution rights in your country. You should start working with unknown writers because they won't ask lots of money (if any) for publishing rights.
The scheme works in Russia and I know translators who earn this way. It can work in Argentina as well, why not? ▲ Collapse
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If market transcreation rates applied to books, literary translators would be rolling in money -- and sadly, that's not the case. That said, the rate you're being offered is a joke. MTPE sounds bad enough, and I can't see how *mono*lingual post-editing could result in anything even close to quality. MT, even if the engine is fairly decent, might produce sentences that look deceptively logical in context, but say something completely different than the source. Or it can skip sentences/chunks of p... See more If market transcreation rates applied to books, literary translators would be rolling in money -- and sadly, that's not the case. That said, the rate you're being offered is a joke. MTPE sounds bad enough, and I can't see how *mono*lingual post-editing could result in anything even close to quality. MT, even if the engine is fairly decent, might produce sentences that look deceptively logical in context, but say something completely different than the source. Or it can skip sentences/chunks of paragraphs if it doesn't 'understand' them. There's no chance you'd be able to spot that during monolingual review and it would give the company a very good excuse to claim the quality was subpar. And cut your rate even further...
As outrageous as it sounds, apparently there are 'specialised' agencies offering such dubious services, one of them even in Belgium if memory serves me right. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Adieu
Ukrainian to English
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| At least one order of magnitude higher | Jan 15, 2023 |
10-15x more.
Also, this is NOT proofreading.
"Proper" MTPE has a a second proofreading stage. 8 cents first stage, 4 cents second stage would be okayish.
Although, for literature, this is really not a proper technology. It works well for technical bureaucratic crap, not artistic language.
[Edited at 2023-01-15 06:32 GMT]
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