Re: Translation question: words numbers in different languages?

["Simon North" <Simon -dot- North -at- quintiq -dot- com>]

Susan, 

I have been a freelance translator (German/French/Dutch to English)
since 1976 and I have never heard 
of anyone charging according to the target language. If for no other
reason, it would make price 
estimation damn near impossible and time planning more like guesswork.
I can estimate fairly 
accurately according to the source language, subject matter, input and
output media, and tool 
requirements how long a particular job will take me. You cannot
sensibly make even a rough estimate 
based on the target language, there are just too many variable
involved. 

However, based on a volume count, French text is approximately 30%
longer than an equivalent 
English text (semi-technical, formal article level); or at least this
was the rough guide we used 
when I worked at the European Space Agency. The volume increase does
not necessarily reflect 
an analogous increase in the word count. Your counts could be waaaaay
off. The only useful 
suggestion I could make would be to try and take a representative text
sample and push it 
through an online/machine translator (Prompt, Babylon, Pragma or
similar). The result will 
be pretty awful, but the word count will be closer than guessing.  

Good luck! 

Simon.   


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