"Per Page" Rate Recommendations for Beginner Japanese > English Translator ?
Thread poster: Sam Bett
Sam Bett
Sam Bett
United States
Local time: 04:37
Japanese to English
Mar 10, 2010

Hi Everyone,
After working as a Japanese to English translator for 5 months at an Environmental Due Dilligence company, I made the move to translate freelance part-time while working a non-language related part-time job.

I have arranged with my former employer to work on an as-needed basis, providing mostly document review and summary services with little word-for-word translation.

My former employer has asked me to come up with rates for a service contract, but
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Hi Everyone,
After working as a Japanese to English translator for 5 months at an Environmental Due Dilligence company, I made the move to translate freelance part-time while working a non-language related part-time job.

I have arranged with my former employer to work on an as-needed basis, providing mostly document review and summary services with little word-for-word translation.

My former employer has asked me to come up with rates for a service contract, but I'm not really sure where to start. I have a BA in Japanese and English, have been studying for four and a half years, and hold a Level 1 certification from the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (highest level). I have lived in Japan for nearly two years, including two semesters studying abroad taking classes conducted in Japanese at a university. As stated above, I have 5-months professional translation experience, along with limited professional interpreting experience for my alma mater in the US.

The contract my employer has in mind would include a per-page rate, since most language work would be more of a scavenger hunt for particular details than pure translation. I am a bit wary of this, because many of the technical documents I've translated and reviewed up till now occasionally contain very dense "single pages."

Since part of my reason for leaving this company was the pay, I want to make sure I don't inadvertantly sell myself short. The duration of the contract is up to me, so I am planning on setting it for 6 months so I can increase my rates as necessary.

My last day at this company is Friday 3/12, and I would like to have the contract settled by the end of the following week.

Any advice from anybody on this topic would be greatly appreciated!

[Edited at 2010-03-10 16:03 GMT]
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Yasutomo Kanazawa
Yasutomo Kanazawa  Identity Verified
Japan
Local time: 17:37
Member (2005)
English to Japanese
+ ...
How about charging per target word? Mar 10, 2010

Hello Sam,

When I'm inquired for a Japanese to English translation, I offer them a rate of xx.xx USD or Euro or whatever their currency is for TARGET word, i.e. English. If the situation was way around, as a standard, one would be paid XX.XX USD or Euro per source word. Since it's difficult to count the Japanese characters which are totally different from English words, I suggest the above. Why don't you ask you client about this, and tell them that the global standard is directing
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Hello Sam,

When I'm inquired for a Japanese to English translation, I offer them a rate of xx.xx USD or Euro or whatever their currency is for TARGET word, i.e. English. If the situation was way around, as a standard, one would be paid XX.XX USD or Euro per source word. Since it's difficult to count the Japanese characters which are totally different from English words, I suggest the above. Why don't you ask you client about this, and tell them that the global standard is directing towards per Target word for Jap-Eng pair?
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Katalin Horváth McClure
Katalin Horváth McClure  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 04:37
Member (2002)
English to Hungarian
+ ...
Charge by the hour Mar 11, 2010

If I understand your description correctly the work is not really translation, but more of reading the source materials, finding particular information in them, and then translating/ summarizing only those pieces of information.

In this case it does not make sense to charge by the page, because the amount of source text per page can vary greatly, and even if the pages contained the exact same amount of words, the targeted information may be a different volume on each page.
The
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If I understand your description correctly the work is not really translation, but more of reading the source materials, finding particular information in them, and then translating/ summarizing only those pieces of information.

In this case it does not make sense to charge by the page, because the amount of source text per page can vary greatly, and even if the pages contained the exact same amount of words, the targeted information may be a different volume on each page.
The only sensible way of charging for such work is per hour.
If there is more text to read, or more text to translate, you will need more time. (It is logical.)

Charging based on wordcount is common in straight translation, but if you think of it, the purpose of counting the words in the source document is really to estimate the amount of time we need to translate it. The relationship between the wordcount and the time needed is pretty linear, that's why we could use it most of the time, but in essence, what we are charging for is our time.

So, when wordcounts don't make sense, you simply measure and charge the time you used.

Katalin
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Sam Bett
Sam Bett
United States
Local time: 04:37
Japanese to English
TOPIC STARTER
Thank You for the Sound Advice Mar 11, 2010

Hi Katalin,
Thank you very much for your sound advice. I agree that charging per hour is the most sensible way to ensure that I am compensated fairly for my services. I appreciate your help at this early stage in my translation career!

All best
Sam Bett


 
Katalin Horváth McClure
Katalin Horváth McClure  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 04:37
Member (2002)
English to Hungarian
+ ...
Not "global standard" at all Mar 12, 2010

Hi Yasutomo,
Yasutomo Kanazawa wrote:
Since it's difficult to count the Japanese characters which are totally different from English words


I am sorry, but I have to disagree.
Why would it be any more difficult counting the characters in a Japanese source text than counting the words in an English source? You can use the exact same methods (in Word, use the wordcount function the same way, and any CAT tool would count the characters as well).


Why don't you ask you client about this, and tell them that the global standard is directing towards per Target word for Jap-Eng pair?


I have to disagree again. It is simply not true. The "global standard" - if there is such a thing at all - is to quote/bill based on source count, simply because the exact price is known at the beginning (helps with budgeting), and there is no incentive for the translator to be overly wordy (helps with editing).

All of my clients ask for quotes and bills based on source count.

Katalin


Glenn Patteson
 
Natalie McCormack
Natalie McCormack
Local time: 09:37
German to English
+ ...
Japanese > English rates Mar 18, 2010

I have to say I also charge "per translated english word"...it's just the way these things are done, in my experience. I think that's the way japanese companies/agencies prefer it. Everyone I know who translate japanese >eng all charge the same way. I usually charge 0,15€ per translated english word (IT, technical documents etc, not everyday language...)

ok, just read one of the other answers a little more closely - if you are not actually translating, but researching/summarising
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I have to say I also charge "per translated english word"...it's just the way these things are done, in my experience. I think that's the way japanese companies/agencies prefer it. Everyone I know who translate japanese >eng all charge the same way. I usually charge 0,15€ per translated english word (IT, technical documents etc, not everyday language...)

ok, just read one of the other answers a little more closely - if you are not actually translating, but researching/summarising then it would make more sense to charge per hour - I suppose I'd charge around 40€/50€ an hour...depending on the topic and how long it might take to research.

[Edited at 2010-03-18 19:05 GMT]
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Villő Ujvári
Villő Ujvári
Hungary
Local time: 09:37
English to Hungarian
+ ...
Methods of tracking your hours Aug 11, 2020

Hi everyone,

I just received an inquiry for a (JPN-ENG) project that seems much too complicated to charge my usual rate per word / characters. I have responded to this inquiry saying I would prefer to work with an hourly rate for a project this size.

Reading this thread only reassured me about my decision.

However, I realized that I do not have any tools to keep track of my working hours.
How do you guys track your working hours when working on a big
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Hi everyone,

I just received an inquiry for a (JPN-ENG) project that seems much too complicated to charge my usual rate per word / characters. I have responded to this inquiry saying I would prefer to work with an hourly rate for a project this size.

Reading this thread only reassured me about my decision.

However, I realized that I do not have any tools to keep track of my working hours.
How do you guys track your working hours when working on a big project? What kind of tools do you use?

Or is this a trust thing?
Can you count working hours as you usually attend to your work (eg. 9 to 5)?

Sorry if this question sounds silly. I am genuinely curious.

Thank you!
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Sam Bett
Sam Bett
United States
Local time: 04:37
Japanese to English
TOPIC STARTER
Tracking hours in spreadsheet Aug 11, 2020

Hi Villő,

Not a silly question at all! It's fun to revisit this thread ten years later...

In my case, though I only charge an hourly rate in special cases (such as the one you mentioned), I track my hours for all projects. This can help with gauging how much time will be required in the future for comparable projects.

You could track yours hours with a fairly simple spreadsheet. This could be used to track all kinds of things, but in its simplest form, it
... See more
Hi Villő,

Not a silly question at all! It's fun to revisit this thread ten years later...

In my case, though I only charge an hourly rate in special cases (such as the one you mentioned), I track my hours for all projects. This can help with gauging how much time will be required in the future for comparable projects.

You could track yours hours with a fairly simple spreadsheet. This could be used to track all kinds of things, but in its simplest form, it would look something like this:

Column headers:
Date - Project - Task - Start - Finish - Hours

For "Start" and "Finish," you can automatically enter a timestamp using the keyboard shortcut CTRL+COLON.

The only tricky part is you'll need to enter a formula to calculate the "Hours" column (in this case, Column F). One way is to use the following formula, for each cell in the Hours column:

=((E2-D2)-INT(E2-D2))*24

This is how the formula would look in the first "Hours" cell (F2). This formula calculates "Finish Time - Start Time" and converts the result into an integer, so that you can easily count up hours per project.

There are surely many other ways to do this, but I hope this provides a helpful starting point.

Best,
Sam
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"Per Page" Rate Recommendations for Beginner Japanese > English Translator ?







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