Hi all, I'm hoping someone here can shed some light for me. I was just offered some work to translate a 500 page document from English to French...some sort of policy document or other. Does anyone know how much the average translator charges? I've researched a little bit, just quickly, and it seems to be anywhere from 0.10 - 0.30 cents/word. Just wondering if anyone does this type of work or has any insight into the profession. I had never really thought of doing this, but it seems like a great opportunity.
i suggest you do more in depth research, check out the going rates of professional translators with good reputations in a google search and then, as you're a beginner at this, fix your fee for now somewhere in the lower half of the fee range... as you gain clients and good reviews of your work, you can work your way up to the upper levels... i do editing and rewriting for clients whose english isn't all that good, though i don't do full translations, not being fluent enough in other languages... good luck with your new career! love and hugs, maia
Thanks mammamaia -- always can depend on you for a useful answer It's for a major corporation and I found their listed rates for their contract workers. I think the guy is trying to save money in his department by sourcing outside. Their going rates are $0.30/word and $75/hr. So I was going to propose $0.18/word and $32/hr (and then negotiate to my bottom line of $0.15/word and $30/hr).
sounds like a good break for the client... but are you sure you can do the work for the bottom line amount?... how many pages [or what percentage of a page] can you translate per hour?
Well I haven't confirmed it yet because I wanted to see the document first. And I also have to make sure they will give me a reasonable deadline. I'm not really sure how many pages I can do per hour to be honest. I'm guessing about half a page to a page an hour (again depending on the difficulty), which is why I want to see the document first.
after you do a test run, to determine what to charge, it would be a good idea to give them a sample, along with your fee quote... at an average of 250 words per double-spaced page, with a 500 page ms, you've got a word count of 125,000 words... times 15 cents = $18,750 and at a page per hour, it comes out to $15,000, at your bottom line fees... if only 1/2 page per hour, it'll be twice that, $30,000... so you really need to figure your asked-for fee carefully, to make this monumental task worthwhile... if the ms is single-spaced, figures could be doubled...
