先日アメリカの方から翻訳に関する問い合わせが来た。全く知らない人が初めての頼り次の如く始める：
Hi Tom,
I have a small bit of text in my Japanese page that needs real translation.
それに対して私は全く知らない相手からこのような突然、条件もはっきりしないで商売するのは遠慮すると答えた：
"Good evening, thank you for your mail, but I believe this is not really a proper way to "do business". (assuming that you want to do business)
そして私の名前は "Tom" ではないことを指摘し：
Probably I am too old(-fashioned) for this world, but I DO have a name:
Blasejewicz, or Thomas Blasejewicz, either of which is usually preceded by "Mr." Not "Tom".
それに対して相手は：
Also in the digital world people do talk quickly and not as formal. That is how business is done, people can get to know each other later。
これが現在のディジタルワールドの「常識 / 礼儀」であれば、私はその世界に余り住みたくないと思います。
Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts
3/05/2015
5/31/2014
Do it!
A message receive the other dayä
"Dear Translator
Please translate the sentence below into Japanese
What do you approx. spend on bras in a year (in Yen)?
Regards"
Is it only me?
I get this message from an Indian company (EZEE NURSING SOLUTION PVT. LTD.) asking me (probably a lot of other people too) to translate something, but DOES NOT indicate, that it is willing to pay for this. If so, how much etc.
Just this "demand": translate the following ...
Since I consider translation a "business", this strikes ME as odd ...
Or am I just crazy?
"Dear Translator
Please translate the sentence below into Japanese
What do you approx. spend on bras in a year (in Yen)?
Regards"
Is it only me?
I get this message from an Indian company (EZEE NURSING SOLUTION PVT. LTD.) asking me (probably a lot of other people too) to translate something, but DOES NOT indicate, that it is willing to pay for this. If so, how much etc.
Just this "demand": translate the following ...
Since I consider translation a "business", this strikes ME as odd ...
Or am I just crazy?
4/02/2013
Select your sex?
No, just the result of using a cheap translator.
Yesteday I got a call from a translation agency about an "urgent cross-checking job". The original translation was a questionnaire (to be conducted in Germany) from Japanese into German. (for those of you who read German, the above phrase was: "Bitte wählen Sie Ihr Geschlecht.")
Naturally it should have been "indicate your sex".
And there were literally millions of similar strange expressions.
I told the agency: this cannot have been done by a German translator. When I asked them, what kind of person did this translation (I suspected a Chinese of Indian (cheap) translator), I was told, this was done by a Japanese, who considers himself good at German and teaches German at a university!
Well done indeed.
Academic!
"Bitte wählen Sie Ihr Geschlecht." Does neither contain any misspelled words nor is the grammar wrong. The only thing that is wrong is the meaning! But that is probably something an academic is not capable of detecting. In particular since a "direct" translation of the Japanese would result in precisely the above sentence.
Well, the translation agency that assigened the job to that particular person has lost a lot of money (and possibly also a client).
The client (likely a camera maker) on the other hand, that presented said questionnaire to the general audience in Germany and got apparently lots of claims, because ordinary people could not understand the text of it, may have suffered a severe blow to its image. The damage done may have been very costly and may require some time to "heal".
Maybe ... MAYBE ... both client and translation agency do learn little lesson: DO NOT hire cheap translators for important work.
If you pay specialists peanuts for their work, you may expect to get some foul smelling s**t ... if you pardon my French.
http://nopeanuts.wordpress.com/
11/12/2012
Me and you - thats different.
Today a "job offer" was posted on multiple sites:
"This is the first project on a long list of documents to be translated.
It has two parts, 18,000 words in each.
We will accept a flat rate of no more than 400 USD for each part, no more than 800 USD for the entire project.
(-> 400 / 18000 = 0.022 USD/word ; this is my calculation)
Requirements:
1. Must be a native German speaker with excellent writing skills
2. Must be near-native fluent in English and have experience translating philosophical, spiritual, and religious documents.
Please contact me only if you're serious about the job ... Payment will be made through paypal immediately upon delivery.
(From the poster's (Qiangwei Wang) profile:)
Preferred currency: USD
Min. rate per word per hour
Chinese > English 0.12 USD 45.00 USD
English > Chinese 0.10 USD 40.00 USD
German > Chinese 0.15 USD 50.00 USD
German > English 0.15 USD 50.00 USD"
So this person works for 0.12-0.15 USD/word. Understandable.
How come everybody else has to work for 18.5%-14.6% of the payment this person considers appropriate for himself?
Apparently the poster assumes, that other translators work purely for fun (translation of philosophical material is definitely not easy) and don't have to pay the rent or buy food.
This is not "An American in Paris" but rather
"A Chinese in America".
"This is the first project on a long list of documents to be translated.
It has two parts, 18,000 words in each.
We will accept a flat rate of no more than 400 USD for each part, no more than 800 USD for the entire project.
(-> 400 / 18000 = 0.022 USD/word ; this is my calculation)
Requirements:
1. Must be a native German speaker with excellent writing skills
2. Must be near-native fluent in English and have experience translating philosophical, spiritual, and religious documents.
Please contact me only if you're serious about the job ... Payment will be made through paypal immediately upon delivery.
(From the poster's (Qiangwei Wang) profile:)
Preferred currency: USD
Min. rate per word per hour
Chinese > English 0.12 USD 45.00 USD
English > Chinese 0.10 USD 40.00 USD
German > Chinese 0.15 USD 50.00 USD
German > English 0.15 USD 50.00 USD"
So this person works for 0.12-0.15 USD/word. Understandable.
How come everybody else has to work for 18.5%-14.6% of the payment this person considers appropriate for himself?
Apparently the poster assumes, that other translators work purely for fun (translation of philosophical material is definitely not easy) and don't have to pay the rent or buy food.
This is not "An American in Paris" but rather
"A Chinese in America".
10/28/2012
China - "cheap is best" ...
 |
| English: Rolex Oyster Perpetual Sea-Dweller DEEPSEA (Ref. 116660) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
"Do you have time to help me proofreading the job?
Our client is not satisfied with the translator's quality, and unfortunately, the translator is not responding on the feedback since last night, we are facing to lose this client now."
Well, there is really not much to say.
First of all the original client is at fault, because they were looking for translations that are above everything else CHEAP. And China provides that kind of service.
And the translation agency is at fault, because they were using a translator (I got the impression from the text they sent me, that this person is first of all NOT a native German), who agrees to provide CHEAP (= this is usually called "reasonably priced", "best rate", or something like that) work.
Is it then any wonder, when the client (apparently requiring some official documents for the export of cars) complains, that the quality of the translation is not the "Ferrari" or "Rolex" quality they have been expecting?
I really do not understand these people.
If you buy cheap products, you get cheap quality.
It is part of the deal.
And it applies to ALL fields of business.
(you cannot buy a real Rolex watch for 59 USD ...)
10/15/2012
Translator as "Bookfinder"
 |
| English: Štefan Konzul, croatian translator. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Translator as "Bookfinder"
(This article has been published in Japanese in the March 2003 issue of "e-Trans" and posted as a "contribution" at "www.gotranslators.com")
Not to far in the past there was time, when the military used scouts,
sometimes also called "pathfinders" (Merriam Webster:
path.find.er n (1840): one that discovers a way; esp: one that explores
untraversed regions to mark out a new route -- path.find.ing n or adj.),
to find their way through unknown country. Literally, these were people that
could find a path not visible to anybody else. During a recent conference on
translation, a certain question appeared in several different sessions: what
actually is the job and/or function of a translator?
The answer to this question appears on first sight very simple and
obvious, but many of the attending translators and agencies presented widely
varying definitions and concepts. This motivated me to write this little article
and express an idea, I did have for quite a while now, but that so far failed to
find any resonance. I.e., translators should also (or maybe predominantly) be
"bookfinders" in analogy to the above mentioned pathfinders. Below I
will try to explain why.
I have been a translator for about 18 years and during this time spent
nearly 100% of my time with activities, involving rendition of a certain meaning
in one language into another. At times, in particular when the source text is of
rather poor quality and/or ambiguous, this also involves a more less significant
portion of re-writing or copy writing. Nevertheless, the basic idea is always
the same: change A into B. In my memory very few, if any, people I happened to
work with have ever questioned or even challenged this view. This is simply the
job and function of a translator.
Yet, if you are a translator in any specialized field, show a
professional interest in extending your horizons, or conduct a little research
in your own or other fields of expertise, then you will certainly do some
reading.
This puts the translator in a unique position. He or she is not only
capable of professionally handle and evaluate two or more languages, but will be
reading reference books on certain topics in these languages. Sometimes there
are equivalents or even translations of certain valuable references, but most
often not. Under these circumstances the translator is put in a position where
he or she can evaluate several books that might be worth translating from both a
linguistic and a technical point of view.
I believe that a look at the currently available selection of translated
books shows clearly, that the choices are certainly not always professional.
They are made by publishers based on information and recommendations of not
always certain origin. This provides the general population with a selection of
translated books influenced by a possibly one-sided and - naturally - profit
orientated choice made by the publishers. But this could also mean, that the
average man has access only to a distorted view of the world.
Today, the internet provides the so-called information highway, which
offers users so much information with an incredibly short turnover time that
nobody can ever handle. Yet, fast access to a terrifying amount of information
could also block the view for the more distinct, practical, comprehensive and
interesting information a book can provide. After all, reading should also be
fun.
Often access to the information highway is highly appreciated, but who
would like to live in a house with the front door opening right onto the
highway? I would prefer a little distance from it and like the quiet small back
roads. This is, where books come in. It takes much longer to publish a book than
to publish and then update a web site. Naturally this means, that books are
always somewhat "behind their time", but that does not reduce their
value.
For example, I am a native German living in Japan. I know of literally
"uncountable" translations of German literature, science etc.
available in Japanese bookstores. Yet, conversely, whenever I visit Germany and
look through large bookstores, I can find at best a handful translations of
Japanese books. A very illustrative little episode happened, when I visited the
annual Tokyo International Book Fair a few years ago. There I asked a German
publisher if they might be interested in the publication of translated Japanese
books. The representative at that booth said: "No, why? Publisher XXX
already has published two books." Of course, this is hardly any kind of
representation of a nation that publishes several tens of thousands of new books
every year!
Thus, in spite of the information highway and Japan being an economic
superpower with a major impact on the entire world, it still remains largely
uncharted territory (a sort of a black hole), because there is so little real
information about it available.
Now, here is a field, in which the translator can offer a real
contribution to international understanding: by selecting and recommending books
worth of translation. The translator who recommends certain books might even do
the entire translation. In many cases this would be not only be good for the
translator, but also the translation itself and the final reader.
6/26/2012
Rates ... fees ...
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| English: title page of the catholic bible translation into German from Hieronymus Emser, an opponent of Martin Luther; published 1527 in Dresden, Saxony Español: pagina principal de la traducción católica de la biblia en alemán de Hieronymus Emser, un adversario de Martin Luther, publicado 1527 en Dresden, Saxonia (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
 |
| Saint Jerome in his Study, fresco by Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1480 (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
I don't know about everybody else, but whereever I look, whoever I ask - it is always "lower your rates", "sell your product (=translation) cheaper", "give us your "best" = cheapest rate" .......
Well, maybe nobody has noticed, but the costs for our daily living has and is constantly INCREASING. Right now, they decided in Japan to raise taxes. One of those taxes that applies to everything -> thus making EVERYTHING more expensive.
If somebody asked me to name a product or service that has actually become cheaper over the last 10 years ..... I would have a really(!!) hard time to think of something.
The funny thing is, that the market(s) for cheap translation labor (like Proz.com) are INCREASING their fees too.
Somehow this does not match.
We (translators) as service providers are forced to constantly lower our rates, while the agencies (I am rather sure they do) and the websites all raise their prices / fees.
This will very soon lead to translators falling below the "break even" point, where they just cannot to "afford" working as translators any longer.
What remains in the translation industry? Google translate??????
I pity the customers ........
6/17/2012
Transperfect - "only" 40 USD ......
This just will not end.
The other day I was asked by mail, whether I could do a small (700 word) job, upon which I answered:
"Well, considering that I will be fined (TP calls that "handling fee") about 20 USD AND the bank will charge me 15 USD for putting the money into my account AND another fee for converting the funny printed paper called USD into YEN ... amounting to something like 40 USD ... I do not think there is much incentive for me to do your work."
Response from TP:
"I understand, I can give you 60 USD if you can make it now. It is a short file, is it fine?"
My response:
"YOU give me 60 USD and I have to pay you+Bank = 40 USD.
That leaves me with 20 USD.
For - calculate generously - 3.5 pages. That is 5.7 USD per page.
Would/could YOU work for that kind of money and still pay your rent???????"
Response from TP:
"Ah, sorry, I misunderstood that.
It is fine, I understand now.
Anyway, you don´t have to invoice every PO individually.
In other words, the best thing to do, in my opinion, is to get several POs, and when the amount is high enough you invoice all of them together, so you only lose 20 or 40 dollars for all of them together."
Isn't that wonderful! If I work for a Japanese company - they too are impertinent enough to bill me for the bank transfer! - I have to pay something between 1 and 5 USD. If I work for Transperfect I have to pay ***** ONLY ***** 10 times as much -> about 40 USD. Since they have a minimum for bank transfer of about 100 USD, that is I have to PAY them 40% of what should be the money I get for my work.
The percentage would change, if I would get let's say 10,000 USD (VERY!! unlikely), but even then would the bank fees be still 10 times as high as in Japan. Or when working for other companies anywhere in the world for that matter.
This strikes me as odd.
Is it only me?
The other day I was asked by mail, whether I could do a small (700 word) job, upon which I answered:
"Well, considering that I will be fined (TP calls that "handling fee") about 20 USD AND the bank will charge me 15 USD for putting the money into my account AND another fee for converting the funny printed paper called USD into YEN ... amounting to something like 40 USD ... I do not think there is much incentive for me to do your work."
Response from TP:
"I understand, I can give you 60 USD if you can make it now. It is a short file, is it fine?"
My response:
"YOU give me 60 USD and I have to pay you+Bank = 40 USD.
That leaves me with 20 USD.
For - calculate generously - 3.5 pages. That is 5.7 USD per page.
Would/could YOU work for that kind of money and still pay your rent???????"
Response from TP:
"Ah, sorry, I misunderstood that.
It is fine, I understand now.
Anyway, you don´t have to invoice every PO individually.
In other words, the best thing to do, in my opinion, is to get several POs, and when the amount is high enough you invoice all of them together, so you only lose 20 or 40 dollars for all of them together."
Isn't that wonderful! If I work for a Japanese company - they too are impertinent enough to bill me for the bank transfer! - I have to pay something between 1 and 5 USD. If I work for Transperfect I have to pay ***** ONLY ***** 10 times as much -> about 40 USD. Since they have a minimum for bank transfer of about 100 USD, that is I have to PAY them 40% of what should be the money I get for my work.
The percentage would change, if I would get let's say 10,000 USD (VERY!! unlikely), but even then would the bank fees be still 10 times as high as in Japan. Or when working for other companies anywhere in the world for that matter.
This strikes me as odd.
Is it only me?
6/11/2012
To be a professional ... you have to pay.
 |
| Benjamin Franklin 1767 (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
But I cannot afford to give donations to people who most likely already have a 100 times more than I do. And since there is practically 0% "return on investment", spending money to get NOTHING = is to my mind a donation.
The regular, automated mail inevitably coming from Proz at theses times reads (partially) :
"Thank you for being a member of ProZ.com. As a full member of the web's largest translator community, you are part of the network of translators that is changing the industry.
Your ProZ.com membership subscription is also a personal investment that provides powerful ways to meet new clients and expand your business, to improve your work, to network and to have fun."
Well ... I have been a Proz member for something like +12 years. This includes a total of about 20 months paid membership AND recently even a few months as a "Certified Pro". Here I checked my "peers" -> apparently I was the one and only such Pro on the entire network in the language pair Japanese-German.
BUT ... during this entire time I got exactly ONE job = worth about 36.2 Euro.
If I would have paid the membership fee all the time, I would have PAID 1,440 USD in order to get 36 USD back.
Not counting all the time (there is this very strange notion that "time is money" -> The phrase was coined by Benjamin Franklin in his Advice to a Young Tradesman (1748)) and effort invested, which did not produce any results either.
According to a personal communication I had several years ago with the founder of Proz, the membership is supposed to pay for itself very soon. Appears like wishful thinking to me.
I take the liberty of quoting:
"Japanese translators enjoy the most favorable ratio between clients and translators at ProZ.com. For 90 dollars (today it is 120 USD and scheduled to be increase on July 1) -- 10,000 yen! -- we offer preferential exposure. A single client was worth thousands of dollars to me as a translator. If I were to meet one client per year, or one client every ten years per ProZ.com, the membership would pay for itself several times over.
I am surprised that you see it differently."
Probably my calculation showing a 36 USD return on investment on 1,400 USD is wrong (I was never good at mathematics) and I am too stupid to market myself properly = so this is all my fault ...
still, I have the greatest difficulties in seeing that "membership subscription is also a personal investment that provides powerful ways to meet new clients and expand your business"
Naturally - at least in my experience - the same thing also applies to all other major "translator sites" I have tried over the past 15 years ......
5/29/2012
Transperfect - the umbrella organization
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| English: Graph showing U.S. dollar and Japanese yen exchange rate from January, 1990. 日本語: 1990年1月からのアメリカドルと日本円の為替レートのグラフ。 (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
affiliated business●affiliated enterprise●controlled company [corporation, firm]●subordinate business●subordinate company●subordinated firm
Wonderful. To me this looks like Transperfect "took then over" (more likely a "hostile takeover".
This means for translators working for that Japanese agency a 10-fold (!!!) increase in bank fees -> when working for a Japanese agency, they charge you the bank fees for the money transfer (which in itself is NOT very user-friendly), approximately 4-500 Yen. Working for Transperfect -> you are requested to set a minimum amount = default value 100 USD, for which Transperfect charges 20 USD. The bank here WILL (!) charge me at least another 15 USD for putting that money into your account AND another fee for converting USD into YEN.
So, let's say you do a 100-USD job. Then you will have to PAY 40 USD to get the 100 USD -> leaving you with 60 USD. For this job not less than 40% !!!!!!!!!! will be deducted from the value you have worked for.
Not to speak of the exchange rate. The mail said, the exchange rate valid on July 1 will be used for determining the "rates" and reviewed in case of "major fluctuations". No definition given for the latter concept.
Based on 27 years of experience (EXCLUSIVELY bad experiences working for Transperfect!) I am quite certain, that this means, the translator, the last and lowest part in this slave labor food chain, will have to bear ANY AND ALL extra costs arising from variations in the exchange rate. In the past I have NEVER (!) experienced, that those variations worked in my favor.
Isn't that nice.
Real incentive to work!
4/24/2012
Common sense not applicable to translators
Yesterday I got a mail from a coordinator I have not heard from before from a translation company for which I work more than 20 years ->
****************************************************************************
<<URGENT>> Request for translation work on U-STAR project
The localization project is a request from NICT, an Independent Administrative Institution in Japan. We ask you to translate common text which applies to speech translation system (U-STAR).
The target text is general, not specific, meanwhile the translations should be precise and easy-to-understand for anyone.
Wordcount: 477
Target document: Word file (doc)
Due to the budget from the clinet, we desire to define unit price for the operations below: Translation - 10 yen/w
Could you give me feedback ASAP?
****************************************************************************
It starts out with <<URGENT>> and closes with ASAP.
Yet, there is (naturally?) no mentioning of surplus fees for rush jobs.
Instead that person asks me to work for a rate which is LESS THAN HALF of the "usual rate" that very company has been paying me for over 20 years!
If I were to accept this job for this rate, it would be very hard to justify my "usual" rate for any future jobs ...
And ... this is something that keeps me always wondering ... if you go to a post office to mail a letter, that incurs a certain fee. If you ask for express delivery, that will AS A MATTER OF COURSE cost more.
If you call for a taxi in the middle of the night it will be more expensive than during the day.
If you order (a) certain product(s) AND ask for a gift wrapping or anything else "special", it goes without saying, that those extras will be billed IN ADDITION to the product price.
This is called "common sense"
How come then, that asking translators for "special delivery", "express delivery", "DTP finishing", "editing of the text" etc. IN ADDITION to the translation, seems always to be considered a "free service"???
I think, this would never happen in any other sort of business.
Apparently common sense is not applied to the work of translators ...
Offering "starvation wages (rates)" will NATURALLY put be out of business due to death by starvation. Then the company will have maybe lost an important service provider, who can give them services/products elsewhere maybe not so readily available .....
****************************************************************************
<<URGENT>> Request for translation work on U-STAR project
The localization project is a request from NICT, an Independent Administrative Institution in Japan. We ask you to translate common text which applies to speech translation system (U-STAR).
The target text is general, not specific, meanwhile the translations should be precise and easy-to-understand for anyone.
Wordcount: 477
Target document: Word file (doc)
Due to the budget from the clinet, we desire to define unit price for the operations below: Translation - 10 yen/w
Could you give me feedback ASAP?
****************************************************************************
It starts out with <<URGENT>> and closes with ASAP.
Yet, there is (naturally?) no mentioning of surplus fees for rush jobs.
Instead that person asks me to work for a rate which is LESS THAN HALF of the "usual rate" that very company has been paying me for over 20 years!
If I were to accept this job for this rate, it would be very hard to justify my "usual" rate for any future jobs ...
And ... this is something that keeps me always wondering ... if you go to a post office to mail a letter, that incurs a certain fee. If you ask for express delivery, that will AS A MATTER OF COURSE cost more.
If you call for a taxi in the middle of the night it will be more expensive than during the day.
If you order (a) certain product(s) AND ask for a gift wrapping or anything else "special", it goes without saying, that those extras will be billed IN ADDITION to the product price.
This is called "common sense"
How come then, that asking translators for "special delivery", "express delivery", "DTP finishing", "editing of the text" etc. IN ADDITION to the translation, seems always to be considered a "free service"???
I think, this would never happen in any other sort of business.
Apparently common sense is not applied to the work of translators ...
Offering "starvation wages (rates)" will NATURALLY put be out of business due to death by starvation. Then the company will have maybe lost an important service provider, who can give them services/products elsewhere maybe not so readily available .....
2/29/2012
Transperfect - the rich giant -
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| Image via Wikipedia |
However, in the past I had mostly BAD experiences with this company and these experiences also showed, that it does not pay (literally!) to work for Transperfect. The current exchange rate also greatly contributes to this situation.
Transperfect apparently also a bad reputation as a non-payer.
Yet, the responses from the project managers force me to believe, that I am either dealing with DO NOT care (at all) about the people they are dealing with, or else are so rich, that they run this company purely for fun.
Below a few quotes from communications with PMs
Transperfect: (2012/02/24 8:50)
We have a new *English**into **German *Translation and Proofreading job we need your help with!
My response:
My experiences have shown that it does not pay (literally!) to work for Transperfect. But I have to survive too and therefore cannot afford to work for peanuts.
Transperfect: (2012/02/24 10:13)
> Would you be able to do the Proofreading for $25? It should only take about an hour to do.
My response:
Well, you should know that the funny payment practices of Transperfect inevitably lead to a situation where I have to PAY the bank -
one way or other - about 30 USD or more in bank fees to get your 25 USD!
I prefer to do work that actually pays ...
Transperfect:
We have a new English into German Translation job we need your help with!
This will be a flatrate of $10 to do this super small job!
My response:
NO thank you.
I believe I explained this before.
10 USD: the bank fees to get this would be about 30 USD!
Even if I would ask for PayPal (which does not give me any money at all; only some virtual nonsense that I can ONLY use to buy useless things on ebay), YOUR COMPANY applies a fine (they call it handling fee) of 10 USD for this "extraordinary difficult" transaction.
Funny, for everybody else on the planet that usually works fine and is free.
So, again and again, you ask me to work for free.
Having a family, I cannot afford to do that.
And I would like to believe that you couldn't afford it either.
Or do I have to assume, that I am dealing with people (Transperfect) that are so rich, they do not need to work at all and are engaged in these activities purely as a pasttime??????
Transperfect:
Sorry about that. Will keep that in mind
Transperfect: 2/29 (= next day!) 12:07
We have a new Egnlish into German Translation job we need your help with!
Stats are 78 new, 16 fuzzy, and 3 gold words.
DEADLINE: Translation 12pm EST 2/29 Wednesday. This will be a flatrate of $10
Just yesterday this very person said: "Sorry about that. Will keep that in mind."
Maybe there is not enough mind to hold this information ...
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