Re: Translation question: words numbers in different languages?

["Cassandra Greer" <cassandra -at- greer -dot- de>]

HI Simon

I'm not sure where you live but in Europe one comes across this quite often and in some areas used to be quite standard. There was even a DIN for translation services in development that recently got iced (as I understand) that had charging for the target translation product as standard. I personally have never had a customer require that of me nor have I charged anyone that way. I also find charging based on the source text much more transparent and most translators and agencies (that I know of) do this here in Europe too but you still have old-school translators who insist on charging based on target product.

for Susan
Anyway, you as the customer should be able to request a quote based on on the source text - you are the customer and should be able to request a quote that you can relate to. Plus I might add that I think that .16-.17 cents for French target is pretty high unless this is an agency doing this for you - if the agency/translator is in France, though, the exchange rate is pretty brutal right now and the word price may just look high to me right now (since I haven't gone and calculated it out).

Good luck!

Cass :)

> 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.   

-- 
Cassandra Greer
Technical Translation and Documentation
Spilhofstr. 16
81927 München
+49 (089) 94004794
cassandra (at) greer.de
cassandragreer (at) mac.com

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