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"Underdeveloped marketing and negotiating skills of freelance translators are leading them to substantially undercut the prices translation companies are able to offer and this is in all probability exerting a downward pressure on rates overall" - ITI Bulletin, April 2001. |
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Once you've made the decision to work as a freelance translator, you're faced with a number of challenges: $ What qualifications do you need to become a successful freelance translator? $ Where do you find translation work or translator jobs? $ How much do you charge for your translation work? The answer to the first question is actually not as straight-forward as it may seem. If this is where you're at in the process, you should benefit greatly from our free guide on freelance translation. Register elsewhere on this web site and read the translation guide that we're giving you for free. For the remaining two questions, this is the place where you find the answers! Our web site offers separate translation databases for translation agency rates and contact information for translation agencies. The first translation database contains the rates that actual translators are being paid by the different translation agencies. You can search through this translation database by the name of the translation agencies you want to investigate, by language combinations, by preferred price, by your preferred currency, or even according to level of translation experience. The second translation database is a worksheet containing the names, e-mail addresses, countries of residence, and URLs for MORE THAN 6500 TRANSLATION AGENCIES. Click here to read more about this feature. These translation agency databases are separately of great use to any translator, experienced or not, but when combined, they become an invaluable tool for those who are serious about making translation work a profitable business or landing a full-time translator job! If you're just starting out in the freelance translation business, this is your one-stop shop to become a successful translation professional! Read the free translation guide, purchase the translation databases and off you go - things don't get any simpler! If you're already a seasoned translator, you should still benefit from browsing through other translators' rates to find out where you're at. If you want to give your rates a much deserved bump, now is your chance! In short : If you're a translator in spe - you want to become one, but haven't figured out all the kinks yet - we offer you a completely FREE Starter's Guide to Translation that gives you all the info you need to kick start your translation career! When you're ready for the next level, come back and get your access to the translation databases. You'll hit the ground running and never be looking back - it's a guarantee! For those of you who are already wise to the game, I suggest you waste no more time and go to the Sign Up page to start finding out how you can increase your rates - NOW!
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New Trados Studio to be launched According to SDL's own website, the launch of their new Trados Studio will take place in June 2009. It seems that we will see a move towards SDLX in terms of UI, while a shift to XLIFF, instead of the all-to-familiar TTX format, could see some interesting changes in the compatibility to other CAT tools. Maybe it'll be possible to use any CAT tool that supports the XLIFF format? Wordfast Pro is also rumoured to handle XLIFF by the end of the 3rd quarter of this year. If so, this might be an interesting year for Mac based translators indeed! |
Rates & Salaries according to the ITI This survey was conducted in 2001, but there is one quote in the report (freely available here) which is maybe even more relevant in today's market: "Underdeveloped marketing and negotiating skills of freelance translators are leading them to substantially undercut the prices translation companies are able to offer and this is in all probability exerting a downward pressure on rates overall". |
A General Take on Translation Rates Surveys Type in the phrase "translation rates survey" in one form or another, and Google will hand you a large number of surveys that have been conducted by many translators' associations, organizations, web sites, etc. While they all serve a purpose, and usually include a lot of useful information, the part where they present the average translation rates always leave you with more questions than answers. Why? Because, for the most part, the respondent rate is too low to generate a good statistic generalization, and in addition, a survey, by nature, cannot include very many language pairs. The only way of finding out what the going rate is for translators, is by registrating every single rate, and then making this information available to others - hence www.TheRateIsRight.com. Join the movement and gain inside information on what you can charge your clients. |
Finnish Translators in Recession According to a survey performed by the Finnish Association of Translators and Interpreters, Finnish translators have suffered a serious drop in their real disposable income over the last years. While rates have improved somewhat, the increase of prices (inflation), and the general, average growth in income in Finland as a whole, have all contributed to the factual income of translators being lower than before. Sad as it is, this is not just a Finnnish phenomenon, but rather a world-wide trend that needs to stop. This ties in nicely with the purpose of this website, namely making people aware of their rates and thereby bumping them up to a reasonable level again. In a similar move, the Swedish Association of Professional Translators performed a survey of rates a couple of years back. They made some interesting finds, among them the fact that almost one third of its members made $17,000 or less per year! Another interesting fact was that translators charge 33 per cent higher rates to direct clients than to translation agencies - an interesting fact that all translators should bear in mind when seeking out new clients, and also when negotiating rates. |
Speech Recognition Increases ProductivityIf you are one of the stubborn translators out there who insists on using a Mac, you can now utilize the premium speech recognition tool out there for the OS X platform - the MacSpeech Dictate . The software is fuelled by the Dragon NaturallySpeaking technology, meaning that you get a very accurate transcription of your translation/speaking voice. From personal experience, my estimate is that it's 85-90 per cent correct after you have taught it properly how to recognize your own voice. Check out the software by clicking the image below - it's highly recommended for those of you who use a Mac and translate into English! |
Have the Software Do the Work for You Systran uses an automated translation technology that is very effective for some language pairs. In fact, it is so effective that the U.S. government is among its many users. If you're a translator in the language pairs English>Spanish, English>French or English>Arabic, I really suggest you test this piece of software. Insert the text, and Systran will come up with a suggested translation for you to edit - it's fast, surprisingly fluent, and slashes hours off the turnaround time. |