Perfect ...

On one of the many translator sites at which I am registered a job offer was posted.
It said there:

"We need someone who will translate, proofread, and edit all of your work into ... or from ... into English. Everything must be perfect every time. If you can provide a favorable rate, we can try to give a high volume of work."

This came from an American company.
Don't they say in ENGLISH (!): "Nobody is perfect"  ???
And, naturally, the "favorable rate" most likely means "peanuts" ...

So, who of the superhuman translator heroes out there wants to work for peanuts?
Please raise your hands.

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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