Unpaid repetitions .....

This morning there was a job offer on one of those translator sites.
It says there:
"There are 2866 words of which 1526 unpaid repetitions."
Yet, I suppose, those "unpaid repetitions" will need to be worked into some sort of file or delt otherwise with in a fashion, that requires human time and effort. Then "unpaid repetitions" means "unpaid work".

Naturally, the job offer continues:
"Payment is made within 60 days via Bank transfer for EU accounts or Paypal for non EU accounts (company located in France).
Please note we do not pay Paypal fees."

It takes half an eternity to get paid AND the translator has to bear all the burden of transfer fees.
Funny, if I as a customer order something over the net etc. *** I = the customer *** have to pay postage, handling and bank fees. Naturally.

So, why for heavens sake do I as a service provider have to cover all those expenses for the client; who is not even my direct client ?????

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Rate? --- No problem!

Patent drawing of flight simulator by Rougerie (France - 1928) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Japanese Language Book (Photo credit: born1945)

The other day I was asked, whether I can translate FOUR related patent specifications, 2 from Japanese and 2 from English, into German. The Italian company (CAESAR SRL) wrote in its mail:
"We evaluated this job as:
- 5055 words from English / - 4000 words from Japanese
approx. qty: 9055 words / fixed price: € 780,00 --> 0.086 Euro/Word"

0.08 Euro/word for a patent specification from Japanese to German???

A few days after I reclined the offer, I got a mail from "wagner-international", asking me, whether I can do PRECISELY the same job (J-G portion only).
That made me celebrate. WONDERFUL!!!
Apparently nobody else is working for so low rates (for material of this complexity). And I told Wagner so.

That company says of itself: "We specialize in cost–effective, expert communication and media solutions ..."
Meaning: we squeeze every last drop of sweat and tear out of the translator to provide clients with CHEAP (the magic word of our time) product.
If it kills a few (thousand) translators ... well, that is their problem.

On the other hand ...
I got an inquiry --- by telephone! --- about a patent translation from France.
Once I had a look at the text, got a better readable PDF file here in Japan and told them my rate (the due date was fixed up front), the person at the other end of the line said: Rate? -- No problem!
That was not a translation agency, it was a patent office:
International Patent-Translation Bureau (IPTB)

On the one hand you have the agencies (sounds like "agent" from the movie "Matrix") that try to cheat and possibly kill translators,
and on the other hand you have companies knowing that some things simply have their price.

Opting for "cheapest is best" will run people/companies into trouble sooner or later. I have seen it many times ... those companies for which I was too expensive receive claims from their customers and then ask me (or anybody else) to have a look at the tranlation and "brush it up a little" ...

Oh, how stupid!

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Rates ... fees ...

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 ........

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Transperfect - the umbrella organization

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)

Today I received a mail from one Japanese translation agency, that informed me, that they will next be operating "under the umbrella" of Transperfect. That makes them a:
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!

Why do I still do this?

Keyboard-of-Japanese-language (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today - again - I got an inquiry from a German company about a medical translation from German into Japanese. Naturally(!), as a native German I am NOT SUPPOSED to translate into Japanese.
In the mail I was asked, whether I can do it, of if not, maybe recommend someone who can. The rate offered was about 25% of what Japanese companies usually pay me for a Japanese-German translation.

Since I do not translate into Japanese, I offered to asked someone else.
Response: "YES. Please do."

So, I actually contact a colleague, write some mails, even get on the phone.
Naturally, even for a Japanese translator in Japan working in the German-Japanese language pair (which is cheaper than the other way round), the offered rate was still well below 50% of the "normal" rate.
And that from a rich country like Germany!

My colleague recline the offer. No wonder.
And I communicated these things to the company in Germany.


I ***DO NOT*** mind referring jobs to colleagues at all.
What I ***DO MIND*** is the fact, that the company in questions did not even say thank you.
I spend "considerable" time and effort - even phone costs - to find THEM(!), not me or my colleague, someone who can help out and do not even get this little "thank you".

I should probably stop being so nice ...

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 .....

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トライアル － お互いが見える

先日又ある会社（20年前に仕事した事ある会社）に頼まれ、新しいクライアントが仕事の打診しているからトライアルをしてください。

私はこの仕事をもう27年間をやっているから今更トライアルをやる必要ないはず。

そして、私のHPにもどっさりサンプルある：

http://www.einklang.com/Translation%20samples.htm 

頼まれた「トライアル」は3/26に送信しました。それから2週間以上も経ってなんの連絡もない。
現時点で恐らく一端相談した仕事はより能力のある、より安い翻訳者に依頼され
たに違いない。
それは仕方がないし、特別依存もない。

しかし、私の仕事振りを「判定」するには二週間も掛かるならば、判定する側に
問題あり、又は此方を無料で仕事をさせた後、一言もない（例えば「今回は残念でした」など）のは少なくとも昔の古き良き挨拶の好きな日本では通常の礼儀に反するものであった。

こう言う事は今風のディジタル時代で頻繁に起こるからこそ（PRECISELY
because of this situation)　依頼された時電話でも申し上げたように「トライアル」をやりたくない。

こうして私の仕事を判定しようとする会社の仕事振りを見せてもらっているから、その会社の信頼性（又は判定する能力）も此方に見せてもらった。翻訳者としてそのような無責任の対応する会社　-　翻訳会社であれ、クライアントであれ　-　に信用しないほうが無難でしょう。
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
ある意味すごい才能だって言われる才能があったとしても、続ける才能さえあれば、
他のどんな才能も凌駕する時が必ず来る。
山口千尋 (靴職人)

Transperfect - the rich giant -

Image via Wikipedia

I get in more or less regular intervals "job offers" form the translation giant Transperfect.
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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Transperfect - one of the nonsense giants!

Transperfect - I do not trust them any more ...
(a few pieces from their website ? and my comments)

"TransPerfect is headquartered in New York, with offices in over 50 cities on 4 continents."

"Commitment to Quality

"We have demonstrated our commitment to providing the highest quality language solutions, to achieving client satisfaction, and most important, to working to continually improve our processes and operations to exceed our clients' expectations,"


Well … if that is so, how come I continuously get mails like:

"SUPER URGENT JOB

Please excuse this blast email but this project requires some urgency. I have contacted many of you about this job already but we still have about 4700 words left to place. I am in desperate need of help for this one and I would really appreciate any help at all. Even if you could take a page or two that would be extremely helpful. … Quality is of utmost importance for this project as well as the client has already complained about the quality of previous translations."

→ If quality is of such importance, why then split a 20+ job among several translators. This will by necessity and assuredly result in a mixture of styles and probably also a "quality cocktail".

"For TransPerfect, achieving ISO 9001 certification is an honor: but it is simply not enough. We continue to innovate, to strive for excellence, evolving every day to take advantage of all that the emerging technologies have to offer, streamlining our processes, and meeting our clients' needs in the most effective manner possible."

→ As far as I know, they insist on using an outdated, not very reliable software that many translators DO NOT like. And the require translators to use this tool, which forces the translator to work with equipment s/he may not be familiar/efficient with. How can this then help to produce better results???

While Transperfect ALWAYS tries to cheat the translators and offers a pay that is significantly substandard, there are sometimes desparate situations:

"This job is still available and we need your help!!!?

Please let me know if you can take proofreading or translation and when is the soonest you can deliver the files."

A short while later:

"Hello again,

I can pay whatever is necessary to get this job completed for the deadlines below. Please let me know if you cn help.?

THANK YOU!!!"

In that case I would suggest, that they offer the translator a decent pay up front for work to be completed in reasonable time. THAT would help!


Or,

"I have 560 words of an urgent press release due in 3 hours. A great way to make some extra money for the weekend."

Since Transperfect offers mostly something between 0.04 ? 0.08 USD, assume they will pay 0.07 USD = 40 USD. Fine, but I would have to pay 30-40 USD in bank fees to get that money" = a "great way to make some extra money".


And the other day:

"Hi Thomas, you came highly recommended by my colleagues (==> that is something I doubt VERY much) and I was wondering if you could help me out with a small favor. I have a EN>DE translation that was done, the linguist is now offline but I just wanted to check that the translation of this one word is correct."

Stupid as I am, I DID answer.

"Hi Thomas! Thank you for that! I was actually wondering why the "of" is not translated. Should it be …."

My response (partially):
The choice depends on the clients expectations / preferences
**UNLESS** you leave all the decisions to the translator. But in that case you/the client should not afterwards come and complain about a million
unimportant and annoying details? .....
AND ask people basically NOT involved = me, to provide you with free services.
I would prefer, if you do not bother me with this any further.
=> which the manager did not. Neither did he ever offer **ANY** kind of favor in return for this favor/service he got through me.
A symbolic representation of the exploitation of translators by Transperfect.


My advice to translators: unless you can really good offer from Transperfect (unlikely!) - preferrably in writing! - you should for your own good think twice before working for that company.