Sharing TMs with end clients Thread poster: Thomas Johansson
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Hello,
I wonder how other translators would handle their TMs with respect to their company clients.
Suppose you've been working with a company client for a number of years, providing them with translations regularly, but they've never asked you for your TM (or TMs) yet, and one day they ask you to send them your TM. Would you send it to them just like that?
Thomas
| | | | | No unless there is an agreement stating that. | Nov 6, 2015 |
I share my TMs only if it originally belonged to the client or if we have previously agreed upon that.
Otherwise why should I?
| | | | Jean Lachaud 
United States
Local time: 14:44
English to French
+ ...
| Do they expect you to have a TM ? | Nov 6, 2015 |
Unless you are expected to use a TM, I wouldn't even acknowledge that there is such a thing.
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If they only asked later, and it wasn't part of what they initially asked for, I would most probably tell them that the administrative work required to provide this would be billed at my hourly rate.
In any case, I would only provide TMs and TBs strictly related to jobs completed for that client. If distinct TBs and TMs haven't been created for them, I'm not sure how easy it is to isolate just the contents relating to them.
I might also ask why they can't just generate ... See more If they only asked later, and it wasn't part of what they initially asked for, I would most probably tell them that the administrative work required to provide this would be billed at my hourly rate.
In any case, I would only provide TMs and TBs strictly related to jobs completed for that client. If distinct TBs and TMs haven't been created for them, I'm not sure how easy it is to isolate just the contents relating to them.
I might also ask why they can't just generate the TMs from the translated files themselves.
If it were a really good, regular client providing large volumes of work, I'd obviously be more flexible. ▲ Collapse
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| Just like that | Nov 6, 2015 |
Thomas Johansson wrote:
Suppose you've been working with a company client for a number of years, providing them with translations regularly, but they've never asked you for your TM (or TMs) yet, and one day they ask you to send them your TM. Would you send it to them just like that?
I came across this very issue some years ago: after translating a lot of texts for the same agency "account" without being instructed any specifics about CAT tools for one or two years, I was asked to provide a TM.
The agency had indeed realised that most translators used a CAT tool in most languages for these texts, and wanted to start building a repository.
As the TM I used for the agency's jobs was shared with other customers' work in a similar subject, the answer was a no-brainer: "No, I can't provide you the TM because it doesn't contains other projects than yours, and I have no way to discriminate between your texts and others'."
Had I been well organised, I could have set a field in the TM with the customer name or something to filter some TM export and manage to send only relevant "translation units".
However, as I've been using CAT tools since the beginning of the millenium, I have learned that ALWAYS saving a final bilingual file is of the essence.
So I offered to send all bilingual files through a search in a customer-specific folder. Needless to say, giving away those bilingual files didn't alter my income whatsoever as those translations involved urgent weekend work (news) charged 150% of my standard rate and weren't submitted to any kind of analysis before or after delivery.
Now, I am sure you know what risks you face when giving away your TM: a demand for discounts on subsequent repetitions or similarities, or an even more drastic move, like changing providers altogether. So if nothing was previously agreed as regards use and maintenance of TMs, use your own judgment as you have very valid excuses to decline this request in good faith.
You can also enquire about their intentions, it never hurts to show openness and goodwill while demonstrating that you were not born last spring. As Thomas also mentioned, you may have to spend quite a bit of time to extract the relevant info to make up the TM they want, and time is money.
Philippe
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