| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4] > | The harsh reality of translation in 2016 Thread poster: Bruno Depascale
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Jeff Whittaker 
United States
Local time: 08:52
Member (2002)
Spanish to English
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| Thanks for doing this.... | Jun 13, 2016 |
I'm anxious to see the results.
I suspect that he will put the whole thing through GT and just edit the first few sentences.
At first I thought that these people were just offering "loss leaders" - in other words, they would view this as a test to prove themselves and then they would charge you more for the next project, but even if this were true, nothing is to prevent the client from creating another username.
I had thought about doing this too, only I w... See more I'm anxious to see the results.
I suspect that he will put the whole thing through GT and just edit the first few sentences.
At first I thought that these people were just offering "loss leaders" - in other words, they would view this as a test to prove themselves and then they would charge you more for the next project, but even if this were true, nothing is to prevent the client from creating another username.
I had thought about doing this too, only I was going to be meaner. I was going to create a short paragraph full of translation "traps" and make sure that the GT translation is meaningless, send it to 10 different translators and compare the results.
Michael J.W. Beijer wrote:
Since it's only a fiver, I think I might try out a few of these so-called professional translators for a joke. I'll basically send them a Dutch contract, or a corporate website and see what they make of it.
[Edited at 2016-06-13 04:50 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Nice life, indeed | Jun 13, 2016 |
Mirja Maletzki wrote:
But here in Thailand, you could still have a decent life with the rates shown in your example. An even better one with regular rates.
...provided one doesn´t care for pension payments or savings, I assume. Germans (with a German passport) will (still...) always have the possibility to claim for social benefits by the state when coming back...
| | | | Bruno Depascale
Italy
Local time: 14:52
Member (2009)
English to Italian
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TOPIC STARTER | What a great outlook for translation! | Jun 13, 2016 |
Mirja Maletzki wrote:
While I’m writing this, I’m literally sitting in a beach restaurant on a tropical island, looking out on the ocean, having an ice-cold coke (I don’t drink coffee… also, it’s 30 degrees outside).
(...)
But here in Thailand, you could still have a decent life with the rates shown in your example. An even better one with regular rates. I pay about 15 Euro a night for a good, clean hotel (the room is bigger than the one I’m renting in Korea even), swimming pool, breakfast included, business center with fax, scanner, printer), 5 minutes to the beach.
(...)
Got myself a SIM card for 5 bucks that includes unlimited internet. Tourist visas can be extended in-country, pretty much as often as you like. There’s a reason why a lot of budding entrepreneurs come here and manage their business from here. You just pay so much less for life here than in Europe or North America.
(...)
Our profession is actually perfectly suited for that life style.
Also, “the translator who works when he/she pleases…”
Are you suggesting that we all move to Thailand or developing countries and to accept lower rates in order to make a living? I suppose that if all translators do this, then rates will continue to go down to 0,0000001, because there will still be a poorer countries where life costs less. What a great outlook for our profession!
| | | | | There is more than one market | Jun 13, 2016 |
John Fossey wrote:
I'm afraid I have been too busy translating and marketing my services to notice any harsh realities. I certainly don't have time to do anything with these ultralow offers other than quickly hit the delete button and move on.
Running a freelance business is hard work. But it can be done, and can be very profitable, if you do it right. There are good clients out there, willing to pay the price you ask. But you need to do more than simply build a baseball field. You need to have skills they are interested in and that will benefit them. Sitting around bemoaning the "state of our profession" will not improve your prospects any, and it is false in any case, as it assumes that there is only one translation market.
You are not a doctor. But maybe you should start acting like one.
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:52
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| My baby don't care for...hot dumb places | Jun 13, 2016 |
Mirja Maletzki wrote:
You just pay so much less for life here than in Europe or North America.
Presumably the German/Thai tax authorities are aware of your sybaritic lifestyle in Thailand ?
(for the whole song see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeHTsR5Y1bc)
[Edited at 2016-06-13 08:42 GMT]
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The Misha wrote:
worrying more about the state of your own business than "the status of our profession". All those terrible indignities you are so upset about (Man! They are looking for a cheaper supplier! Oh, the horror!) simply describe the workings of any business on the market. Yes, businesses always seek to maximize profits--otherwise, why would they be in business to begin with?
Nor is there anything unprofessional about it. They do not "use you for years" and then "throw you away". They simply stop using your services at exactly the point where continuing to do so no longer makes economic sense for them in the specific situation they find themselves in. They simply move on, and so should you--to other, hopefully, better clients. This is called change, and it is inevitable.
Harsh but true.
I think the problem faced by the high-end translator is not money-grubbing agencies or low-priced competition (they were always there) but end-clients who are less and less interested in paying for quality.
Why they are happy to buy translations riddled with errors I just don't know. I suppose we're all getting more exposed to global English through the Internet, and incomprehensible instructions never stopped me buying a Japanese VCR, but even so. Our whole "poor translations reflect badly on your brand" mantra seems to be flawed.
The pool of clients who care does seem to be dwindling.
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:52
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| Educating the end user | Jun 13, 2016 |
Chris S wrote:
.....
Why they are happy to buy translations riddled with errors I just don't know.....
It's up to us, as translators, to educate our agencies and end users about good-quality translation and its importance. Many of them don't know. If we don't take on that task - who will?
| | | | | The end-user just isn't listening | Jun 13, 2016 |
Tom in London wrote:
It's up to us, as translators, to educate our agencies and end users about good-quality translation and its importance. Many of them don't know.
Has there ever been a time when we haven't been banging that particular drum? They're just not listening.
So either (a) translation quality doesn't matter after all, or (b) most people in business are as unbelievably clueless as politicians (and, as I'm increasingly discovering, teachers).
I think I'm just going to stick my head back in the sand before I get upset.
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| Thanks, Bruno | Jun 13, 2016 |
Thanks, Bruno, for raising this.
Repliers can really leave out the default 'it's a free market' response that gets chucked at any discussion on conditions. We got that.
For me, it's basically an internet thing. There's currently a lot of attention being paid to the way the net has impacted negatively on whitecollar workers across the developed world. I think we're looking at an area of this problem. One poster pointed out that the net opened up translation for us for y... See more Thanks, Bruno, for raising this.
Repliers can really leave out the default 'it's a free market' response that gets chucked at any discussion on conditions. We got that.
For me, it's basically an internet thing. There's currently a lot of attention being paid to the way the net has impacted negatively on whitecollar workers across the developed world. I think we're looking at an area of this problem. One poster pointed out that the net opened up translation for us for years, which is also true, but now we're going to see the downside of that. Some of the work is relocating to cheaper parts of the world, to the benefit of white collar workers there. If you have the time, it's worth watching this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76FsIlO06Xs
I also signed contracts for 'the big agency', which seems to be gobbling up agencies across the world. My guess is that they're really building an operation they can sell off to a corporation or PEF at some stage.
A couple of other points.
- A good agency I work for recently contacted me asking whether I would be interested in post-editing MT texts. They say a lot of clients want a 'less than perfect' final product. I think it's a fair enough request and there will be a lot more demand for this fast-bad translation soon. I mentioned to the agency that I thought non-natives could probably post-edit and that this would lead to 'delocalisation' of a lot of post-editing to emerging economies.
- I've been offered a lot of revision work of badly done translations to English from Eastern European source languages where the translators are not natives in the target. It's European Commission work and it seems they're happy to have really awful translations 'polished up' by revisers who don't know the source language. The fact that the EC is adopting these practices is worthy of note.
This probably means a lot of work in the sector will be under pressure from new practices and lower pricing. I notice some posters say if things get worse, they'll get out. That's also what I'd do, as I can find alternative better-than-badly-paid work (that isn't in a hipster café). Unfortunately not everybody has that option, and the 'whitecollar malaise' scenario doesn't bode well option-wise.
Finally, I do a lot of legal work and I notice this hasn't been so much impacted. (I guess you're not going to worry about a few thousand euro in a big patent litigation case which is costing millions in legal fees!)
[Modificato alle 2016-06-13 11:53 GMT]
[Modificato alle 2016-06-13 12:00 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Radian Yazynin
Local time: 15:52
Member (2004)
English to Russian
+ ...
| Until the grenade explodes | Jun 13, 2016 |
Chris S wrote:
but end-clients who are less and less interested in paying for quality.
and they get translation of a complicated legal text or medical equipment description with ambiguous meaning, right?
| | | | Jo Macdonald
Spain
Local time: 14:52
Italian to English
+ ...
| I sympathize but think things are starting to get better. | Jun 13, 2016 |
Hi Bruno,
I sympathize but think things are starting to get better.
A few years ago when the "crisis" hit Italy work really fell off and there was a big MT fad at the time too. Things got so bad I started looking for another job and began teaching kitesurfing again, basically doing 2 part time jobs. I'd even put a note in my diary that every end of month when I did my invoices I'd see if it was still worthwhile keeping a VAT position open. It was.
I got so down-heartened... See more Hi Bruno,
I sympathize but think things are starting to get better.
A few years ago when the "crisis" hit Italy work really fell off and there was a big MT fad at the time too. Things got so bad I started looking for another job and began teaching kitesurfing again, basically doing 2 part time jobs. I'd even put a note in my diary that every end of month when I did my invoices I'd see if it was still worthwhile keeping a VAT position open. It was.
I got so down-heartened I posted a message on here calling for Proz, SDL, translators and other interested parties to save the translation business from ruin, but not many people were interested. Not one answer from Proz or anyone like SDL promoting MT.
I really think that to a great extent we are the people to blame for situations such as good translators working for low rates, good translators proofing MT, but it's not something new. About 10 years ago I was horrified when a very popular moderator on here offered me a job for about €0,04/word saying that was what they paid each other in their team, so imo we've only ourselves to blame for the state of things.
This year though I've noticed much more work around, I've increased my rates for the first time in several years and by almost 8% too and not lost one customer.
I think there are and always will be 2 very different markets, cheap and expensive, reliable and unreliable. Unfortunately you can get a good translation cheap but it will never be worth what an expensive translation is.
If you want to stay out of the grey area between cheap n' nasty and expensive say no to cheap jobs, editing MT or proofing bad translations, unfair contractual clauses, online invoicing systems, and anything else that robs you of the certainty that you are producing pure gold with your work and that is what your old clients will come back to you for and new clients will look to you for.
[Edited at 2016-06-13 13:26 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Chris S wrote:
So either (a) translation quality doesn't matter after all, or (b) most people in business are as unbelievably clueless as politicians (and, as I'm increasingly discovering, teachers).
There you have it...
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:52
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| Quality isn't cheap | Jun 13, 2016 |
Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL wrote: Chris S wrote:
So either (a) translation quality doesn't matter after all, or (b) most people in business are as unbelievably clueless as politicians (and, as I'm increasingly discovering, teachers).
There you have it...
Quality matters. If for any reasons the quality of my translations were to drop off, my clients and agencies would soon notice and would stop giving me work !
| | | | | Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member for the following reason: Deleted at your request. | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:52
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Markets, markets everywhere | Jun 13, 2016 |
Jo Macdonald wrote:
I think there are and always will be 2 very different markets, cheap and expensive, reliable and unreliable.
I am glad to read your cautiously upbeat post. However, I would argue that there are not two, but dozens if not hundreds of markets in translation, at varying grades of cost and reliability. As in any market, the bulk of the business is at the low end, but there's plenty of business (certainly in my pair) outside that.
I suspect - in response to Chris' post earlier - that the amount of work from clients who care about quality is growing, not diminishing. However, even if that is the case, growth in low-end work is probably growing even more quickly and is very noticeable.
As for the OP: succeeding and making money is difficult in most professions, including translation. In that sense translation is neither an exception nor an outlier. The worthwhile clients are out there.
Regards
Dan
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