| Pages in topic: [1 2 3] > | New to working as a translator professionally and asking for your advice Thread poster: Mo Conrady C
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Mo Conrady C 
United States
Local time: 05:34
English to German
I am a native German, who has lived in the US for 21 years. In the past I have only translated small projects, anything from paragraphs to a few pages, some emails, letters, etc. These translations were done from English into German and vice versa.
Often they were just friendship gestures for little or no pay, some were paid with a flat fee according to what the person wanting the translation was willing to pay. But still very little.
After some consideration I would like to... See more I am a native German, who has lived in the US for 21 years. In the past I have only translated small projects, anything from paragraphs to a few pages, some emails, letters, etc. These translations were done from English into German and vice versa.
Often they were just friendship gestures for little or no pay, some were paid with a flat fee according to what the person wanting the translation was willing to pay. But still very little.
After some consideration I would like to get into the professional aspect of translating, but I do not have any degree in languages like so many of you.
I wanted to take a little time to educate myself a bit more about it, but yesterday I was contacted by a doctor who wants a manual for one of his alternative treatment methods translated from English into German. It is about 80 pages with roughly 25K words.
This is undoubtedly the biggest project I would have ever translated so far.
What would you advise me to do? I assume that most of you would even recommend I don't touch it because of its volume and because I lack the experience as a newbie in comparison to everyone here.
I have browsed the forum for info on what to charge, because I am completely unfamiliar with calculating a fair price. I have seen such a huge span of fee recommendations that I am only further confused what I should charge for this endeavour, should I go ahead and take it on.
Can someone give me a more narrow range for a starting freelancer?
Any feedback will be greatly appreciated. This is a wonderful community to get good and honest answers and recommendations, and I am looking forward to getting replies from you. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 10:34
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
| Subject matter specialist? | Apr 16, 2015 |
Mo Conrady C wrote:
I wanted to take a little time to educate myself a bit more about it, but yesterday I was contacted by a doctor who wants a manual for one of his alternative treatment methods translated from English into German. It is about 80 pages with roughly 25K words.
I'm wondering to start with how this doctor knew to get in touch with you. Did he know that you have no training and no experience? If so, I wonder why he wants to trust you with such an important job. I'm not meaning to put you down - you may be perfectly capable of doing it - I'm just wondering if he's set to take advantage of you and get $3,000 of work for nothing or next to nothing. Call me cynical, but I've seen it done .
$3,000 is what you should be quoting for this job, more or less. Look here: http://search.proz.com/employers/rates Those rates seem representative to me, neither way too low nor too high, although of course there will be people around doing translations for very different amounts.
But another consideration is whether you are able to handle this subject area. Have you been working in the medical area to build up experience of the terminology? If so, do you have that knowledge in German too? If you've been living in the USA for most of your working life, maybe you didn't know much about medical matters when you left. These are questions only you can answer.
Life experience counts a lot in this industry. Although it's always best to have qualifications, and young people certainly need them, older people without a translation background do often come in as a second career - there are loads of us here to prove that . But it's normal to start small, working with agencies who will proofread your work. It isn't normal to extend thousands of dollars of credit to a direct client (I'm assuming here that he wouldn't be paying in advance).
| | | | LEXpert
United States
Local time: 04:34
Member (2008)
Croatian to English
+ ...
Does this doctor actually exist? A private party entrusting a large, specialized job to a beginner and asking them to pretty much name their price is a big red flag. I would ask for a substantial deposit (50%) up front, payable by bank transfer only, and no other method. If they mention any unusual payment arrangements (via a third party, bank cheque, accidental overpayment you need to return...), walk away... fast.
[Edited at 2015-04-16 14:06 GMT]
[Edit... See more Does this doctor actually exist? A private party entrusting a large, specialized job to a beginner and asking them to pretty much name their price is a big red flag. I would ask for a substantial deposit (50%) up front, payable by bank transfer only, and no other method. If they mention any unusual payment arrangements (via a third party, bank cheque, accidental overpayment you need to return...), walk away... fast.
[Edited at 2015-04-16 14:06 GMT]
[Edited at 2015-04-16 14:07 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Mo Conrady C
United States
Local time: 05:34
English to German
TOPIC STARTER | Subject matter specialist? | Apr 16, 2015 |
Sheila Wilson wrote:
I'm wondering to start with how this doctor knew to get in touch with you. Did he know that you have no training and no experience? If so, I wonder why he wants to trust you with such an important job. I'm not meaning to put you down - you may be perfectly capable of doing it - I'm just wondering if he's set to take advantage of you and get $3,000 of work for nothing or next to nothing. Call me cynical, but I've seen it done.......
Thank you for your reply, Sheila!
You are actually quite correct in your assumption that the premise is to get the work done for less than a professional, experienced translator would charge. At least that is part of it, I think. He has had bad experiences with translations where the person doing the job was not a native of the target language.
How he found me? One of my relatives in Germany is working in the same field as this doctor and recommended me to him after asking me if I was interested at all in doing "some translating work for a doctor".
As for my knowledge in the medical field, I have always been quite well read (if that accounts for anything) in medical news, some specialty fields, modern Western as well as alternative medicine while living in Germany and since moving to the USA, all due to a long history of family illnesses. Does that make me a professional in medical terminology? No, absolutely not. I am not kidding myself there. And I would certainly have to look up some of the terms in this particular handbook, but I would consider that normal. Correct me, if I am wrong.
No, I doubt that he would pay in advance. Since I am no spring chicken any longer, I do have work experience in general, just not in this particular field of translating. I am sure that he will NOT pay me $3,000. Is that really what I should charge as a newbie? It sounds wonderful to me, and I completely understand the problem of people undercutting the prices and therefore causing problems for others. But I won't have a proof-reader at hand other than me, which is a downfall and additional cost for him.
Please comment further.
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Mo Conrady C
United States
Local time: 05:34
English to German
TOPIC STARTER
Rudolf Vedo CT wrote:
Does this doctor actually exist? A private party entrusting a large, specialized job to a beginner and asking them to pretty much name their price is a big red flag. I would ask for a substantial deposit (50%) up front, payable by bank transfer only, and no other method. If they mention any unusual payment arrangements (via a third party, bank cheque, accidental overpayment you need to return...), walk away... fast.
[Edited at 2015-04-16 14:06 GMT]
[Edited at 2015-04-16 14:07 GMT]
Rudolf,
Yes, he exists.
I talked with him on the phone and I have his manual already in my hands, because I asked to look at it first. I don't think that he would not pay me, as his reputation is on the line here. But I understand your concern about giving such a work to a beginner. That does not seem to bother him too much. I don't know.
| | | | Diana Obermeyer
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:34
Member (2013)
German to English
+ ...
| Why not hire one? | Apr 16, 2015 |
Mo Conrady C wrote:
But I won't have a proof-reader at hand other than me, which is a downfall and additional cost for him.
Please comment further.
Why not hire one?
I often work with a monolingual proofreader. Not only will they find those typos much faster than me when I tend to read what I think I've written, but they will also comment if something appears strange to a reader who is unfamiliar with the subject, or offer alternative formulations. I can highlight passages that I'm still unsure about and invite suggestions which I can then weigh up against the source text.
I really enjoy these collaborations.
Proofreaders generally charge by the hour, so it will push you to "get it right first time".
It will reduce your overall earnings slightly, but you are better off charging a decent rate and making that investment in the quality of the translation, then to charge a rate for which you could be flipping burgers.
Think very carefully about how long this assignment will take you and remember that it requires skill.
| | | | Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 10:34
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
| The sticking point? | Apr 16, 2015 |
OK. It seems you're happy about your ability to do the job, though I would strongly advise you to get it proofread - this is normal anyway as we're always likely to miss our own typos and it's also all too easy to suffer from intrusion from the source language, even when the target is your native language.
Mo Conrady C wrote:
I am sure that he will NOT pay me $3,000. Is that really what I should charge as a newbie? It sounds wonderful to me, and I completely understand the problem of people undercutting the prices and therefore causing problems for others.
Those rates quoted in the link are for agency clients, hence we're expecting the work to be proofread by them. Even though we know that doesn't always happen, it's ultimately the agency's responsibility if the odd typo creeps through into the delivered text. As you don't have experience you wouldn't perhaps want to charge the "standard" rate. But neither should you be charging the "minimum" rate - your life experience and subject matter interest over many years counts for something. But that block capital "NOT" implies that even $2,000 may be vastly over his budget. Have you discussed terms at all?
By the way, demanding an advance payment from a private individual is common practice. It's far more difficult to chase an individual through the courts and you really have to see proof of their willingness to pay. I think most of us would insist on at least 20% up front, and we'd make sure it was actually ours before starting work, i.e. not via PayPal where he can always demand a refund without real justification. Remember, you're risking over 150 hours of your time as a professional on this venture. There's no reason why he should bear some risk, too. The balance should be due within a month of delivery and if you've lost confidence in him by then you can arrange to send the file in a not-very usable format. For example, deliver a read-only PDF with a watermark, and only send the .doc version when his payment has cleared.
| | | | Angela Malik
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:34
German to English
+ ...
| Highly recommend a proofreader | Apr 16, 2015 |
Mo Conrady C wrote:
...yesterday I was contacted by a doctor who wants a manual for one of his alternative treatment methods translated from English into German.
A manual or a brochure? Who is the target readership? If it is a manual for other medical professionals, I would highly suggest having it proofread by a native German speaker with medical experience (either specialising in medical translation, or a medical professional).
Given that the text is quite long, it's your biggest project by far and you don't have a huge amount of experience, this will probably take you some time and you may not be able to build in extra time to proofread your own work at the end. Therefore, I would certainly recommend arranging for a proofreader even if the text is a brochure-type project with a layman target audience.
FYI an average proofreader would probably take about an hour to read 1000-2000 words, so you'd be looking at 25 hours or so of proofreading. I have no idea what the cost of that would be, but here in the UK you can find non-specialised proofreaders for anything from £15 to £30 per hour.
...or perhaps your relative in Germany who works in the same field as the doctor would be willing to proofread your work for an attractive price -- but for the sake of fairness I would warn them that they are committing themselves to about 25 hours of reading!
For what it's worth, in Germany translation between German and English tends to sell at about EUR 0.09 to EUR 0.13 per source word (those are freelancer rates for non-specialised translation, not agency rates). At least I would consider those to be representative, but those are rates for professionals with translation qualifications, many of whom are also members of the BDÜ or similar organisations and have let's say 3+ years of experience translating full-time. Of course, if someone else knows something different, feel free to correct me here!
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| Re: rates for experienced translators vs. less experienced | Apr 16, 2015 |
An experienced translator can work twice as fast as someone who is new and still wants to produce quality (which is a must - an inaccurate translation is no translation at all). So if both parties charge EUR 0.10/word, that still translates as half the amount per hour for the novice, or maybe even a third. On top of that, the novice should be hiring and paying an experienced translator who is an expert in the medical field to proofread the work. So don't by shy about charging what your work i... See more An experienced translator can work twice as fast as someone who is new and still wants to produce quality (which is a must - an inaccurate translation is no translation at all). So if both parties charge EUR 0.10/word, that still translates as half the amount per hour for the novice, or maybe even a third. On top of that, the novice should be hiring and paying an experienced translator who is an expert in the medical field to proofread the work. So don't by shy about charging what your work is worth. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Diana Obermeyer
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:34
Member (2013)
German to English
+ ...
| Monolingual proofreading rates | Apr 16, 2015 |
Angela Rimmer wrote:
I have no idea what the cost of that would be, but here in the UK you can find non-specialised proofreaders for anything from £15 to £30 per hour.
Going rates are at 30-40 Euros/hour for a good German proofreader without qualifications, 40-50 Euros with qualifications and 15-20 Euros/hour for hobbyists/students.
| | | | Mo Conrady C
United States
Local time: 05:34
English to German
TOPIC STARTER | Monolingual proofreading rates | Apr 16, 2015 |
Angela Rimmer wrote:
A manual or a brochure? Who is the target readership? If it is a manual for other medical professionals, I would highly suggest having it proofread by a native German speaker with medical experience (either specialising in medical translation, or a medical professional).
Given that the text is quite long, it's your biggest project by far and you don't have a huge amount of experience, this will probably take you some time and you may not be able to build in extra time to proofread your own work at the end. Therefore, I would certainly recommend arranging for a proofreader even if the text is a brochure-type project with a layman target audience.........
Angela,
Thank you for your reply. It is a training manual to be used by other professionals while applying this particular treatment method. However, it could also be used by patients/clients, who chose to treat themselves via this method.
It contains general text explaining the view and application of the method, process formulas (repetitive), usage notes, descriptions and lists, plus few diagrams.
As much as I see the need for proofreading, I don't think that I will be able to afford hiring such a professional and would leave that up to my customer. We have not spoken about any details as of yet, so all the important factors are not even in consideration on his part. All he wants to know right now is, will I do it and how much do I want for translating the document?!
More input on the span in fee structure for a beginner would be highly appreciated. I have seen very different numbers that some people have worked for in the beginning, and frankly I don't think anyone has to go to hell for not taking the top rate right away. But I also do not want to do it for a ridiculous amount, since I do not know upfront how long it will take me.
Thanks for everyone's frank feedback. Of course, I would like more positive input, but honesty and a reality check is what I need.
| | | | Mo Conrady C
United States
Local time: 05:34
English to German
TOPIC STARTER | More input on rates and time, please. | Apr 16, 2015 |
Please more input on rates and how to calculate this best. Circa 25K words and/or 79 pages.
How much time should I allocate for this work as a beginning translator, who doesn't spit it out like a machine, like someone with 10+ years might do?
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| More details please | Apr 16, 2015 |
However, it could also be used by patients/clients, who chose to treat themselves via this method.
Forgive me, but this sounds a little ominous -patients treating themselves using a translation by a translator so unsure of herself that she's posting on here to ask whether she should actually do the job (not that there's anything wrong with that, of course). Please reassure us that if we convince you to take it on there's no chance it'll end up with hundreds of Germans putting themselves in the Krankenhaus.
Obviously, you should discuss the terms with your client before committing yourself. Does he have a publisher, or is he self-publishing? How many copies would the translation be likely to sell? Time-wise, if you do 1500 words a day it'll take you 16-17 working days, so if you take weekends off you should complete it in 23 days or so. That's about 1/16 of a year (ignoring holidays) -something to think about when considering rates.
[Edited at 2015-04-16 22:06 GMT]
| | | | Mo Conrady C
United States
Local time: 05:34
English to German
TOPIC STARTER | More details please | Apr 16, 2015 |
Alistair Gainey wrote: However, it could also be used by patients/clients, who chose to treat themselves via this method.
Forgive me, but this sounds a little ominous -patients treating themselves using a translation by a translator so unsure of herself that she's posting on here to ask whether she should actually do the job (not that there's anything wrong with that, of course). Please reassure us that if we convince you to take it on there's no chance it'll end up with hundreds of Germans putting themselves in the Krankenhaus. Obviously, you should discuss the terms with your client before committing yourself. Does he have a publisher, or is he self-publishing? How many copies would the translation be likely to sell? Time-wise, if you do 1500 words a day it'll take you 16-17 working days, so if you take weekends off you should complete it in 23 days or so. That's about 1/16 of a year (ignoring holidays) -something to think about when considering rates. [Edited at 2015-04-16 22:06 GMT]
Now getting insulting feedback was not what I expected, but I guess that is fair game when putting oneself out here.
The manual is published on the doctor's website and from what I understand he offers it as a digital download. But frankly that is not my concern, Alistair! He can sell and publish it any way he wants to. That is his business not mine.
I assume that patients can treat themselves if applying the method by themselves. Good grief...is that really the focus of the question here? I would say NO!
And about being so unsure of myself that I have to post here - I thought that is what these forums are for...to seek advise. Others have done that before in a very similar manner.
You are plain rude in your approach and that is not helpful. I hope this is not your usual way of responding to people who look for help.
| | | | | Didn't mean to sound insulting -sorry | Apr 16, 2015 |
Now getting insulting feedback was not what I expected, but I guess that is fair game when putting oneself out here.
The manual is published on the doctor's website and from what I understand he offers it as a digital download. But frankly that is not my concern, Alistair! He can sell and publish it any way he wants to. That is his business not mine.
I assume that patients can treat themselves if applying the method by themselves. Good grief...is that really the focus of the question here? I would say NO!
And about being so unsure of myself that I have to post here - I thought that is what these forums are for...to seek advise. Others have done that before in a very similar manner.
You are plain rude in your approach and that is not helpful. I hope this is not your usual way of responding to people who look for help.
OK, I was too frivolous. Not the right tone for someone looking for assistance. I apologise. To be fair, I did point out that you were perfectly entitled (indeed, correct, I would add) to seek help here. That, as you say, is the point of these forums. And I didn't mean to imply that you wouldn't do a good job; I was just wondering about the risks involved. I would, however, suggest that the publication method/price your translation might sell at/number of copies it might sell is your concern, because it might affect how much you can expect to charge. For example, if your client is selling the book at a dollar a download and you charge 2000 dollars, he would need to sell 2000 copies to recoup his investment in your translation (and that's not taking into account any earnings the author himself might get). Is that realistic? Sorry if I'm stating the obvious here.
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