| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Poll: Do you accept being paid less or nothing at all for repetitions? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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Some clients have contacted me in the past and wanted me to use their TM and told me that there was a part that had already been translated and so that was not paid. "Perfect" I said "in this case I am not even reading this part with 100% match. As for the rest, there is no table of discount that I can follow, because I do not know if that 82% match means that it is better to write the segment again than changing what needs to be changed.
So after a couple of jobs, it was clear to t... See more Some clients have contacted me in the past and wanted me to use their TM and told me that there was a part that had already been translated and so that was not paid. "Perfect" I said "in this case I am not even reading this part with 100% match. As for the rest, there is no table of discount that I can follow, because I do not know if that 82% match means that it is better to write the segment again than changing what needs to be changed.
So after a couple of jobs, it was clear to them that:
1) I did not even read the 100% match
2) I was noto going to follow their table of discount since every segment with a 75-90% match needs to be analyzed and therefore paid according to the real work involved. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Michael Harris 
Germany
Local time: 18:10
Member (2006)
German to English
In the technical side of translating this is completely normal, and understandable.
If you have a manual for 10 machines where only 10% has to be changed, then why should you pay for the other 90% to be translated / reviewed if it is already okay.
The line does stop when you actually have to check the text, then a fee will be charged.
As for other fields, no idea.
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Michael Harris wrote:
In the technical side of translating this is completely normal, and understandable.
If you have a manual for 10 machines where only 10% has to be changed, then why should you pay for the other 90% to be translated / reviewed if it is already okay.
The line does stop when you actually have to check the text, then a fee will be charged.
As for other fields, no idea.
I agree, the problem arises (and it happened to me) when clients ask for a complete revision of the text and would like to have it for free...
| | | | matt robinson
Spain
Local time: 18:10
Member (2010)
Spanish to English
| I suggest a simple solution | May 3, 2017 |
A discount for repetitions may be reasonable in some circumstances (when you agree to them, for example), but for clients that demand discounts for repetitions regardless, ask them to pay your research time at your normal hourly rate ( pro rata) for problematic words, and send them a huge table outlining the additional cost per word for periods of time from, let's say, 20 seconds to 2 hours, in 10 second increments. When they refuse to accept your terms, politely say goodbye!
Only joking..... See more A discount for repetitions may be reasonable in some circumstances (when you agree to them, for example), but for clients that demand discounts for repetitions regardless, ask them to pay your research time at your normal hourly rate ( pro rata) for problematic words, and send them a huge table outlining the additional cost per word for periods of time from, let's say, 20 seconds to 2 hours, in 10 second increments. When they refuse to accept your terms, politely say goodbye!
Only joking... or am I? ▲ Collapse
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| I have a very specific case | May 3, 2017 |
My major specialty is translating complete training courses. Let's leave video (yes, I do it for dubbing or subtitling) aside to avoid clouding the issue.
One typical training program would comprise three items: a) Course Instructor/Facilitator/Leader's Guide; b) Participants' workbooks & handouts; and c) PowerPoint presentations.
For course consistency, many phrases are repeated verbatim in all three. Also, to make the trainer's life easier, replicas of most (but not a... See more My major specialty is translating complete training courses. Let's leave video (yes, I do it for dubbing or subtitling) aside to avoid clouding the issue.
One typical training program would comprise three items: a) Course Instructor/Facilitator/Leader's Guide; b) Participants' workbooks & handouts; and c) PowerPoint presentations.
For course consistency, many phrases are repeated verbatim in all three. Also, to make the trainer's life easier, replicas of most (but not always all) the participants' materials and the PPT slides are found in the leader's guide.
CAT tools for translators came up about at the same time as cost cuts for clients.
Some clients chose to hire me to translate only the Leader's Guide to reduce costs. Later, they'd get some sesquilingual staff member to copy & paste snippets from my translation, one at a time, to the corresponding text. If any parts in the workbooks/PPTs were missing in the Guide, they'd either use machine translation or try their language skills.
The result was that participants, and possibly their managers, only saw the sesquilingual staffer's output. My pristine translation was privy to the instructor. Yet, if anyone asked "Who translated this @#$%&???", my name would be on the corresponding invoice! The staff member would remain uncredited.
To solve that problem, I began offering repeated segments completely free of charge. They'd spend a bit more with me, get a turn-key high quality translation of the whole thing, and their sesquilingual staffer would have more time to do what was actually written in his/her job description. A win-win!
[Edited at 2017-05-04 13:34 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | It is not a thing I ** offer ** | May 4, 2017 |
"Accept" suggests that your customer is imposing things for you to accept. Only an employer can impose things, and those are usually outlined in the employment contract. We have various ways of calculating our fee for a project, and various things go into it. "Repetitions" is a shortsighted and incomplete way of looking at translations.
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