Translation Cleanup

[legilber]

I've been here since March teaching business english, and have dabbled with some translating, resumes/cover letters, and letters of intent for US universities, but I've been asked to do something new. One of my students is the director of a large multinational company and the other day we were looking at his website, when I noticed a multitude of errors. I jokingly said I should help him and he asked me to draft up a budget for how much it'll cost him. Now, the company is huge, and he's not hurting for cash. For instance, we once ordered something for him online via swiss bank account and he takes trips all over the world 2-3 times per year... Anyway, it's a somewhat complicated website, but nothing overwhelming.

So, what do I charge him? I don't want to charge an exorbitant fee but I also don't want to sell myself short.

What do you think?

 

[Roxana]

Most of the translators charge U$S 0,20 per word, few of them charge per hour of work. And if they are in a hurry, you charge a little more.

 

[marksoc]

I think that you can find translators that charge USD 0,15 or USD 0,12 per word also. But if the company did not did it in the first place, something is wrong with it, probably they don´t care too much and gave this job to the "cousin of..."

In short, with a small amount of dollars, your friend will be set. You can use local translators or find them through translation websites (Proz, Babylon Human Translation, etc).

 

[legilber]

I think that you can find translators that charge USD 0,15 or USD 0,12 per word also. But if the company did not did it in the first place, something is wrong with it, probably they don´t care too much and gave this job to the "cousin of..."

In short, with a small amount of dollars, your friend will be set. You can use local translators or find them through translation websites (Proz, Babylon Human Translation, etc).

Not sure if you're understanding the situation correctly. They had someone translate it, and it's crap, now they're furious as they're a multinational company (enter cash signs) and they want it fixed properly.

Either way, it's not unreasonable to charge 0.20 per word?

 

[Zissou]

You aren't translating the whole thing so you wouldn't charge 0.20 per word. Either way that may not add up to that much, translators are paid reasonably poorly.

I would assess an hourly fee and then estimate how many hours it will take you, then convert that into a round number to provide him. Realistically it sounds better to say: 2000 pesos for the whole thing than 8 hours at 250 pesos an hour ;-) It really depends on how elaborate the site is and how much content needs to be corrected.

 

[Uncle Dermot]

They had someone translate it, and it's crap, now they're furious as they're a multinational company (enter cash signs) and they want it fixed properly.

The level of English is somewhat crap here and the problem is that they usually use non native speakers to translate into English. I charge 0,15 ARG p/word from one European language to my mother-tongue (not sure how much they charge to translate into Spanish, I know that what I charge is way lower than suggested market prices - Colegio de traductores - , but the translation market is not very strong here, so you have to go with local prices), I would also opt for the hourly fee as you are basically proofreading and correcting, you are not translating from scratch.