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I think I'll go with the per word/character route. The rates I found on
the websites you mentioned seem to vary quite a bit, anywhere between
0.10 and 0.50. I know 0.50 per word/character is way on the high end,
but 0.10 seems a little on the low side, especially with the complexity
and the urgency of this job.
Right. Double-spaced (ds English in my reply). Many times people say
250 words (of English). I say 200, which is also a standard. (It’s also
easier to use this number in calculations.) But the real, calculated
average # of English words on a ds page with 1 inch margins is probably
around 220 to 225.
If it is 500 English words, then it is probably going work out to be
somewhere from 2 to 2.5 pages. That is a standard thing. However, what
if they do not know or recognize the standards? Then what? I do not
think that you can is good conscience accept that 400 to 500 words is
one page.
If, instead of using page count, you use word count, then you are using
a more absolute measurement, as I see it.
Now, to help understand the thing about money ? I know of a statistic
that says that a ft translator can do 8 ? 10 good quality pages in a
day. If it is rough, first-time pass stuff, then perhaps 15 ? 20, but
the material’s complexity would also have to be considered.
Jim Jones Zxlat.TranslatorsCafe.com 章靖明
Chinese to English | German to English | Spanish to English
general and technical translation
other services include but are not limited to editing, technical
editing, illustration, and cartooning
-----Original Message-----
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 20089:28 PM
Thanks, Jim. That's tremendously helpful. I'll certainly look up those
websites you mentioned.
One quick question: you said 15000 to 16000 words translate into
roughly 75 to 80 pages. That would mean about 200 words per page. That's
more like a double spaced page. Is that a pretty standard way to
calculate the pages instead of 500 words for a single spaced page?..
An informal number that I have developed is 1.6. Absurdly simple but
it
helps me remember this stuff.
Let me explain - I calculate that there are about 1.6 Chinese
characters per
word, on average. You say that your original document had 20,000
characters.
So 20 k characters divided by 1.6 characters per word means that your
original document had about 12,500 words (Chinese words).
Also, I calculate that Chinese text is somewhat denser than English
text.
I.e., one 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of Chinese will result in about 1.25 (again,
this
is a rough estimate) pages of ds English (1 inch margins).
So your 12,500 words of Chinese text might be around 15,000 or 16,000
translated English words. Which works out to 75 to 80 pages.
Now for the money. Look at sites such as Translators Caf?and proz.com,
where translators list their rates (I am zxlat on TranslatorsCafe.com,
and I
have some free downloadable pdfs on my resume page).
Different translators do it differently -- most charge by the word, I
would
guess, but I am not sure. Some charge by the hour and many charge by
the
page…
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