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Average rate for Post-Editing Machine Translation
Thread poster: Marie Arlette
Marie Arlette
Marie Arlette  Identity Verified
Cameroon
Local time: 18:21
English to French
+ ...
May 27, 2021

Dear All,
I've just been contacted for an MT Post-Editing job. Iwill be greatful if anyone could give me some tips as of the way to charge this exercise. When I started as an independent, it used to be per hour and this was more than ten years back. I am really far behind nowadays trends. I will appreciate any of your comments.
With Kindest regards
 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 19:21
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
@Marie May 27, 2021

Marie, what does your client offer? Then we can tell you whether it is fair.

Dalia Nour
 
Korana Lasić
Korana Lasić  Identity Verified
Member
Serbian to English
+ ...
Anything closer to translation rather than proofreading rates would be fair May 28, 2021

Ideally, your MTPE rate should be the same as your translation rate and, ideally, your translation rate should be more than double your proofreading rate. MTPE is fairly new and contentious and every translator has their own opinion of it and reasoning for how much they charge for it.

If I can get my translation rate for it, I will happily do it. Otherwise, if at all possible, I'll pass on jobs that require as much effort as any translation but pay less.

Adieu
Marie Arlette
 
Adieu
Adieu  Identity Verified
Ukrainian to English
+ ...
Beware of the devil in the details May 28, 2021

A reasonable expectation common among the MTPE uninitiated is that this lower rate is an alternative to / in lieu of fuzzy match and rep discounts.

Alas, clients tend to think otherwise. And since the whole point of MTPE is to build a TM in their field that has exact matches for just about everything... you will probably usually encounter job offers further discounted 2x on matches, with occasional memorable offenders going as far 3x, 4x, even 5-6x.
 
Tony Keily
Tony Keily
Local time: 19:21
Italian to English
+ ...
By the hour is safest... May 29, 2021

...but few agencies will accept that. So you really need to see the text first, then estimate how long the job will take you and charge on that basis.

One agency recently offered me about half my translation rate, and given that some MT apps can do a pretty good job on certain types of text, that could turn out OK in some cases. (I turned the job down.)

Pal Lederer
 
Jeff Whittaker
Jeff Whittaker  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 13:21
Spanish to English
+ ...
Machine translation should be the same rate as standard translation May 29, 2021

A State of Flux - The Difficult (and Controversial) Task of Integrating Machine "Translation" Tools into Professional Translation: http://www.languagecrawler.com/2021/04/a-state-of-flux-difficult-and.html
 


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Average rate for Post-Editing Machine Translation







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