Re: ソレックス: 一文字：5円
Alfred S Chamass
>
> A mass mail has been sent out to what seems all JAT members by a
> company called ソレックス
> According to some postings on the JAT list the rate offered is:一文字：5円
> You've been warned.
>
> Regards,
> William Taylor
My reply was as follows;
========================================
Mr. Benjamin Henry
Solex Inc.,
Dear Mr. Henry
Thank you for your kind offer.
Unfortunately, at such low rates, I would prefer to flip burgers at MCDonald's.
It will be much easier and more fun.
======================================
Regards
--
Alfred Salib Chamass
scha...@gmail.com
Matt Stanton
Alfred.
I reckon most translators can get through 800 J chars. an hour (even
after allowing for a final line-by-line check) and still produce a
reasonable level of quality (I know I can). At 5 yen per character,
that's 4,000 yen per hour, which, while not spectacular, is four or
five times more than they'd get flipping burgers.
Matt
On 12月8日, 午後5:20, "Alfred S Chamass" <scham...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2008/12/8 William Taylor <williamtaylo...@gmail.com>:
Alfred S Chamass
>
> You must be one of the slowest translators I've ever come across,
> Alfred.
>
> I reckon most translators can get through 800 J chars. an hour (even
> after allowing for a final line-by-line check) and still produce a
> reasonable level of quality (I know I can). At 5 yen per character,
> that's 4,000 yen per hour, which, while not spectacular, is four or
> five times more than they'd get flipping burgers.
>
> Matt
I can chew eight to thriteen pages (1 page=400 J chars) a day,
depending on the subject at hand. However, one thing I can not stomach
is excessive low rates.
Still, I must admit flipping burgers was a very poor example.
Regards
--
Alfred Salib Chamass
scha...@gmail.com
Marc Adler
> Still, I must admit flipping burgers was a very poor example.
I think most people understood your comment as exaggeration to make a
point. It was well put, too.
--
Marc Adler
www.adlerpacific.com
William Taylor
flipped burgers before. It is undoubtedly more enjoyable and better
for one's mental health than translating dry technical manuals.
McDonalds provides their workers with free meals as well. Solex does
not.
Regards,
William Taylor
Matt Stanton
week with four weeks holiday per year that still works out at
5,000,000+ yen per year, which would be quite attractive to a youngish
translator wanting to quit an in-house position paying in the region
of 4,000,000 yen.
And 21,000 yen for a days a work would even be attractive to me if,
say, I hadn't had any work for a week.
I don't think there's any sense in being sarcastic when potential work
comes your way. If you don't like the rates, then just ignore the
offer, or better still, contact them and tell them what rate you would
be prepared to work for.
All you've done is made sure that you never work for this company,
even if they end of becoming the world's top player in the translation
business.
I remember being offered 4 yen a char by one company about five years
ago. Despite several years experience, I just would not have been able
to translate fast enough to earn my minimum hourly rate (which is all
that matters to me) at the time. I said I could try, but that the
translations would be very rough, and probably include omissions and
obvious mistakes (their would have no time for any afterchecking). In
the end they offered my 6 yen, which I accepted. They have now upped
that to 7.5 yen (without being asked), and provide me with a lot of
work.
Matt
On 12月9日, 午後12:30, "Alfred S Chamass" <scham...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2008/12/9 Matt Stanton <mattst...@gmail.com>:
William Taylor
> even if they end of becoming the world's top player in the translation
> business.
domestica allowing them to develop aeronautical capabilities.
> I remember being offered 4 yen a char by one company about five years
> ago. Despite several years experience, I just would not have been able
> to translate fast enough to earn my minimum hourly rate (which is all
> that matters to me) at the time. I said I could try, but that the
> translations would be very rough, and probably include omissions and
> obvious mistakes (their would have no time for any afterchecking). In
> the end they offered my 6 yen, which I accepted. They have now upped
> that to 7.5 yen (without being asked), and provide me with a lot of
> work.
Regards,
William Taylor
Jean-Christophe Helary
On mardi 09 déc. 08, at 13:17, Matt Stanton wrote:
> So at 5 yen per hour, you'd average 21,000 yen per day. At five days a
> week with four weeks holiday per year that still works out at
> 5,000,000+ yen per year,
That's assuming that you get work everyday of the week. Of each months.
This is not the case for a lot of translators. There are times when
you don't work and times when you work, sometimes a lot, but it is not
5 days a week, 48 weeks a year.
Balance all that and working for ¥5 a character is not so attractive
anymore.
Jean-Christophe Helary
------------------------------------
http://mac4translators.blogspot.com/
AlanDavid
4.000.000 a year in-house. Youngish as in just starting out? How is
this being classified?
Just to put this out there- what do you guys consider to be a
reasonable salary for someone working in-house, 5 days a week?
On Dec 9, 1:26 pm, Jean-Christophe Helary <fus...@mx6.tiki.ne.jp>
wrote:
Jean-Christophe Helary
On mardi 09 déc. 08, at 13:45, AlanDavid wrote:
>
> An earleir post stated that a youngish translator can expect to make
> 4.000.000 a year in-house. Youngish as in just starting out? How is
> this being classified?
>
> Just to put this out there- what do you guys consider to be a
> reasonable salary for someone working in-house, 5 days a week?
A salary that pays the bills, school for the kids and leaves a little
extra for 6 plane tickets whenever time can be taken.
Matt Stanton
>
> This is not the case for a lot of translators. There are times when
> you don't work and times when you work, sometimes a lot, but it is not
> 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year.
>
> Balance all that and working for ¥5 a character is not so attractive
> anymore.
>
> Jean-Christophe Helary
>
> ------------------------------------http://mac4translators.blogspot.com/
without work, and I don't normally work for less than 7 yen a
character. At 5 yen per character, the offers will be flying in.
And even if you do have a few off days, you just make up for them by
working a bit extra each day (or on Saturdays) when the next big job
comes in.
Matt
Peter Durfee
> Just to put this out there- what do you guys consider to be a
> reasonable salary for someone working in-house, 5 days a week?
I don't know. What's a reasonable price for a vehicle?
By which I mean, there are far too many variables involved to give a
concrete answer to your question. The 23-year-old working in the academic
publishing house makes around 3 million yen, and the 40-year-old who leads a
team of translators at the investment bank makes at least six times as much,
and both of those salaries are "reasonable" for what they do and which
industry they're in.
--
Peter Durfee
du...@gol.com
Tokyo
Joji Matsuo
Just one example:
Some people working for agencies leave and start their own company.
They may have the ability to pay higher rates. And if they need a good
translator, they will come knocking on your door, sometimes with a higher
rate. This assumes you have done work for them of course.
It happens...but in any event, it doesn't pay to be sarcastic whether you
accept their work or not because there is always someone willing to do it at
those rates.
Besides, you never know where you name will come up. Isn't it more sensible
to hope it comes up in a favorable context.
Seriously though, 5 yen a character for someone who doesn't have work or
needs more work is not a bad deal compared to someone working in the 10+
yen/character range, which, if you are earning that much, sounds like enough
to simply (and politely) ignore the offer.
Matt Stanton wrote:
> I don't think there's any sense in being sarcastic when potential work
> comes your way. If you don't like the rates, then just ignore the
> offer, or better still, contact them and tell them what rate you would
> be prepared to work for.
>
> All you've done is made sure that you never work for this company,
> even if they end of becoming the world's top player in the translation
> business.
Joji
BJ Beauchamp
-- BJ
--
BJ Beauchamp
University at Buffalo
Hadley Village Council Treasurer
/ Linguistics Major / Japanese Major /
---
この生が残してくれたものから、けして目をそらさない
それが、君の知る世界の終わり
僕は一人で、立ち向かう
砂となりて降りつむ
光の向こう
for what life has left for me, never will I look away
this is the end of all you know
i'll have to stand alone
words fall to become the sand
see beyond the light
---
Michael Smith
There is an agency for which I do patent translation will only pay 15
yen per target English word. Way, way, way below the market rate.
The reason that I (and another translator I know who does work for
them) would never drop them as a client is that every specification
they send is so flawless and well written that I can site-translate
them. The throughput is so high that I earn more in a day doing their
stuff than I do with certain higher paying large and well-known patent
offices that who send crappily written Japanese, and I have to sit
pondering a broken sentence after broken sentence wondering what they
were trying to say. No it is not me (usually) because the client
usually has no answer to my questions and they have to contact the
inventor to find out what something means. I once complained here
that some of the stuff that crosses my desk seems to need a pair of
magic spectacles or a daVinci decoding device to figure out, but I
don't have them. Well, maybe I am just unlucky.
Well, I don't know what role the agency has in drafting the
specifications, if any (if none, I'd like to know who the client is).
Just another thought. I think more in terms of through-put than just
rate. Ideally, of course, both are high.
Michael
(logon name changed due to incident)
On 12月8日, 午後5:20, "Alfred S Chamass" <scham...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2008/12/8 William Taylor <williamtaylo...@gmail.com>:
William Taylor
out everyone the same 5 yen offer regardless of their experience
level, background, and does not even bother to check specialties,
presumably to save time. This in turn wasted a whole lot of other
people's time, including yours truly.
I reserve the right to be sarcastic.
William Taylor
Joji Matsuo
How could it possibly waste your time to receive an email that you can
ignore compared to, shall we say, posting about it on the ML?
It doesn't sound like you had to go through the ritual of sending in a
resume, doing a trial, waiting for the results, and then find out they guy
could only offer 5 yen a kanji. Now that would be a waste of time (if you
are not inclined to work at those rates).
Joji
Alfred S Chamass
>
> I remember being offered 4 yen a char by one company about five years
> ago. Despite several years experience, I just would not have been able
> to translate fast enough to earn my minimum hourly rate (which is all
> that matters to me) at the time. I said I could try, but that the
> translations would be very rough, and probably include omissions and
> obvious mistakes (their would have no time for any afterchecking). In
> the end they offered my 6 yen, which I accepted. They have now upped
> that to 7.5 yen (without being asked), and provide me with a lot of
> work.
>
> Matt
Matt,
You are very lucky and I wish you the very best.
From my experience (take my word of an aging man), lower rates means
more pain for the following reasons:
1) Opportunity cost: Assuming that I am getting on average 7 yen per J
chrs, why should I bother to get 5 yen per J chrs?
2) From experience, agencies offering lower rates are generally not
very professional and cannot afford to have in-house specialist
checkers or editors, which means that the work is often outsourced to
a third party with little experience, which can be bewildering.
3) Another opportunity cost: Working extra hours for less money, means
losing the opportunity to read more books to improve my translation
skills, or simply to reinvigorate to take the next job.
However, this is said, I sympathize with my regular agents, who are
going through very hard times in this serious economic depression, and
when they come to me saying that they can only afford 4 yen per J
chrs, because their regular client is going through hard times, I
share the burden with joy knowing that I have a friend.
Regards
--
Alfred Salib Chamass
William Taylor
>How could it possibly waste your time to receive an email that you can
>ignore compared to, shall we say, posting about it on the ML?
recreation.
This scenario never is ↓
could only offer 5 yen a kanji.
Regards,
William Taylor
Matt Stanton
> 1) Opportunity cost: Assuming that I am getting on average 7 yen per J
> chrs, why should I bother to get 5 yen per J chrs?
about your hourly rates. That is all that is important. Decide how
much you think you're worth per hour and how many hours a year you
need to work to get the income you want.
Then all you do is adjust the time you spend on a translation to
reflect the rate you're getting. Suppose you think you're worth 5,500
yen per hour. At 7 yen a character, you need to get through 786 chars
per hour; at 5 yen, 1,100 chars. (At 4 yen, you'd have to get through
1,375 chars, which you might decide is unfeasible, in which case you
would set 5 yen as your absolute minimum rate.)
The 5 yen version is not going to be very well written, there might be
a few chokuyakus in there, some of the terminology might be a bit off,
etc. - but so what? As long is there are no serious mistranslations or
omissions of key material, you've provided a reasonable product at the
price. If the client wants better quality, they can either pay you
more or find someone who's prepared to work for 4,500 yen an hour.
If all goes well with this approach, you should have earned your
target income at the end of the year. If you have, then you can raise
your hourly rate a bit. If you haven't, you just drop it a bit.
> 2) From experience, agencies offering lower rates are generally not
> very professional and cannot afford to have in-house specialist
> checkers or editors, which means that the work is often outsourced to
> a third party with little experience, which can be bewildering.
the hours you spend on the job. I include all the time I spend in
conjunction with the job concerned.
> 3) Another opportunity cost: Working extra hours for less money, means
> losing the opportunity to read more books to improve my translation
> skills, or simply to reinvigorate to take the next job.
hours for the same money. All that happens is that the quality of your
translations goes down. The customer suffers, not you.
It works for me.
Matt
Cary Strunk
Jean-Christophe Helary
On mardi 09 déc. 08, at 16:18, Matt Stanton wrote:
> It works for me.
Thank you for the lesson in money/time management.
Roland Hechtenberg
> So at 5 yen per hour, you'd average 21,000 yen per day.
Must be a very long day! <g>
Have fun,
Roland
Jean-Christophe Helary
On mardi 09 déc. 08, at 16:23, Cary Strunk wrote:
> @Mr. Helary:
>
> Exactly.
I was just mentioning that because with 3 kids, including a 1 year old
baby at home and a 4 years old day-care goer, and a 13 years old JHS
student who eats twice what I eat, me and my wife (who both pretend to
make a living with translation) barely manage to work 6-7h a day
_combined_.
And that is for the days when we don't have a kid with fever etc or
when we don't have 振替休日 or other school activities. And the
lucky thing is that when you have the school thing a week day then you
have the furikae thing also a week day so that makes -2 days in the
work week etc... And the days when we take vacations...
So, puleeeeze Matt, give us a break with your multiplications and your
phony rates. What works for _you_ may not work at all for an arbitrary
member of this list.
Kirill Sereda
k
Matt Stanton
The 21,000 yen figure was based on how much work Alfred can get
through per day. He said he can do 8-13 x 400 chars per day. On
average that's 10.5 x 400 chars per day, which at 5 yen a char, is
21,000 yen. You'll have to ask Alfred how many hours this involves.
Kirill,
You've lost me. 21,000 yen x 5 days per week x 48 weeks a year is
5,040,000 yen per year.
Jean-Christophe,
I'm a married father, too, which is why I work out how much money I'm
going to earn in a year and how many hours I'm going to spend earning
it in advance. How else can you budget and manage your time? I work
out how many hours I have to spend translating per day in advance and
I keep a book to make sure I stick to it - on average. It's not rocket
science. I work more hours, the book balance goes up. For example, if
I work an extra hour on the first day of the year, the book reads +1.
If I work 15 minutes less the next day, it reads +0.75. This way I
always know where I am.
If you don't want to plan and keep track of things like annual income,
hourly rates, hours worked, etc., that's fine. But don't criticize me
for sharing my suggestions (just ignore them if you don't like them).
And puleeeeze don't accuse me of lying (phony rates). What exactly is
"phony" about anything I've said?
Matt
Joji Matsuo
Understandably, since you're not earning a penny to post here, you must not
be applying your usual read-over to what you write...
You wrote "5 yen an hour" where I'm sure you meant "5 yen a character".
Kirill and Roland were just having fun with your typo.
Joji
> -----Original Message-----
> From: hon...@googlegroups.com
> [mailto:hon...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Matt Stanton
> Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2008 5:43 PM
> To: Honyaku E<>J translation list
> Subject: Re: ソレックス: 一文字：5円
>
>
Matt Stanton
bug in the server program. ;-)
Matt
>
> - Show quoted text -
Jim Lockhart
Well put. This applies to rates as well.
Another aspect to consider, though, is that the guy at the publishing
house might have a job for life, whereas the fellow at the securities
house might be in and out of a job several times per decade. And the
fellow at the securities house is probably working under high pressure
while the other one has comparatively leisurely deadlines to work under.
--Jim
On Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:06:32 +0900
Peter Durfee wrote:
> > Just to put this out there- what do you guys consider to be a
> > reasonable salary for someone working in-house, 5 days a week?
>
> I don't know. What's a reasonable price for a vehicle?
>
> By which I mean, there are far too many variables involved to give a
> concrete answer to your question. The 23-year-old working in the academic
> publishing house makes around 3 million yen, and the 40-year-old who leads a
> team of translators at the investment bank makes at least six times as much,
> and both of those salaries are "reasonable" for what they do and which
> industry they're in.
--Jim Lockhart
Hachioji, Tokyo, JPN
Jim Lockhart
On Tue, 9 Dec 2008 00:28:03 -0500
BJ Beauchamp wrote:
> I wouldn't mind making that starting out. I am, after all, single and
> living on my own (albiet still in school, but nonetheless looking now). But
> the point to be made is "who'd hire a newbie" who only has, as some put it
> "suggestive and albeit 'illegal' translations" as a background? Heck, for a
> while, I wouldn't mind taking on any rate just until I establish myself, but
> that's just me... Finding a job after I come back from Japan isn't going to
> be fun. I guess I'll have to keep selling cheese to make a living (or open
> up a cheese shop in Japan perhaps?)
Which sounds like you could be a good match for Max Tung--why don't you
drop him a line and see how things pan out? And Matt Stanton and Joji
Matsumoto's advice about not being sarcastic is good, if you ask me.
They're right on the mark about how you can never know when someone is
going to recognize your name and give you a call (or walk away with a
clothespin on his nose) because of something you contributed here.
Sam Spiteri
jogged my memory about a completed translation I've done. I spent an
inordinate amount of time trying to parse it and I was never really sure
that the translation I came up with was 'good'. The agency provided
feedback to the effect that they were not exactly happy with my translation
but that it was acceptable.
I'm wondering though whether the problem is not my skill level but that the
original is no good. Would the 'average' generalist translator need 'magic
spectacles' to translate the following clause in a contract?
甲は、広告代理店がレップ事業者として運営し、配信する本件広告を組み込んだ、又
は本件広告と関連付けた本件XX情報を本サービスに掲載ものとする。乙は広告代理店
が広告主と締結した契約に基づき、広告主より現実に徴収した広告掲載料（以下、
「グロス売上」という）に、本件広告の種別（形態）に応じ以下の各号に規定する割
合を乗じて算定する金額を払い受け、別紙に定める乙の取得割合を差し引き、残額を
甲に支払うものとする。但し、第1号または第4号に該当するものについては、本項第
二文に基づき算定した金額に、更に指定割合を乗じて算定される。なお、「指定割
合」とは、本サービスでの本件広告（第1号または第4号に該当する広告に限る）の月
間クリック総数（ユーザーがかかる本件広告をクリックした回数をいい、本件広告の
種別ごとに測定する）が、すべての対象媒体内に掲載された本件広告（第1号または
第4号に該当する広告に限る）及びこれと同種の広告のユーザーによる月間クリック
総数（広告の種別ごとに測定する）に占める割合をいう。なお、以下の二以上の種別
に該当する広告商品（すなわち、期間契約広告であって、なおかつペイパークリック
広告でもある場合などをいう）については、かかる広告商品が該当する二以上の号の
うち、最も若い号数に規定された割合（すなわち、期間契約広告であって、なおかつ
ペイパークリック広告でもある場合においては、第1号にて規定された割合のみが適
用されるものである）が適用される。
Sam Spiteri
-----Original Message-----
From: hon...@googlegroups.com [mailto:hon...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf
Of Michael Smith
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2008 1:00 AM
To: Honyaku E<>J translation list
Subject: Re: ソレックス: 一文字：5円
Roland Hechtenberg
>
> The 21,000 yen figure was based on how much work Alfred can get
> through per day. He said he can do 8-13 x 400 chars per day. On
> average that's 10.5 x 400 chars per day, which at 5 yen a char, is
> 21,000 yen. You'll have to ask Alfred how many hours this involves.
>
The problem was that you wrote "
So at 5 yen per hour, you'd average 21,000 yen per day.
Have fun (and many hours per day),
Roland
Wataru Tenga
> An earlier post stated that a youngish translator can expect to make
> 4.000.000 a year in-house. Youngish as in just starting out? How is
> this being classified?
>
> Just to put this out there- what do you guys consider to be a
> reasonable salary for someone working in-house, 5 days a week?
This isn't exactly comparable, and it's from a different era; but when I
entered the profession nearly 25 years ago*, I started out working in a
translation company (in Tokyo) that paid by the amount of work completed
per month. In my very first month as a full-time translator working only
for that company, my initial pay was more than 700,000 yen. As I recall,
it never dipped below that mark thereafter, and often far exceeded it.
(Of course things got much better after I left them and started a
company with some colleagues.)
That's not necessarily a typical in-house situation, and I don't know
what the situation is like today for such companies. Still, I would
posit that any native J-to-E translator working full time in Tokyo
should be able to make at least that much money right away (assuming
basic competence), and quite a bit more after gaining experience. If
not, you should consider whether you are selling yourself short.
Wataru Tenga, Tokyo
*That's so long ago that initially, the translations were handwritten
and then passed to a typist. After a month or so of that, I introduced
the company to the world of WordStar and PCs.
William Taylor
> per month. In my very first month as a full-time translator working only
> for that company, my initial pay was more than 700,000 yen. As I recall,
200,000 to 350,000 per month range would be more reasonable for
starting in-house positions.
Take a look at gaijin pot or エンジャパン and have a calculator ready
because there has been a big shift recently to positions paid by the
hour (派遣).
Regards,
William Taylor
AlanDavid
largely true.My first in-house position 6 years ago paid only 250,000
a month (I agreed to this because I wanted the job and experience
badly) and while this has steadily increased as I've got older and
moved on to different companies, is still fairly modest in comparison
to Mr Tengu's figure. While I think I could increase this by working
freelance full-time, for now I prefer the relative security of an in-
house position.
I am aware that there are some very well paying in-house gigs,
particularly those on the translation management side of things and in
the financial field. These seem to be comparatively few and far
between, however.
I guess my initial question was an attempt to gauge what all of us
would agree to be a "bottom line" figure for your average translator
with several years of experience. I understand that the many variables
involved make this a little difficult.
Wataru Tenga
> still fairly modest in comparison
> to Mr Tengu's figure
Tengu = 天狗
Tenga = 天河
I'm the latter. My nose is not particularly long.
AlanDavid
I seem to be still half asleep this morning. Your name is not one I've
come across before and I think unconsciously my brain latched onto the
closest recognizable word when typing it.
If I remember correctly the izakaya chain that goes by the same name
does great chicken wings :)
Jean-Christophe Helary
On mercredi 10 déc. 08, at 10:44, AlanDavid wrote:
> My first in-house position 6 years ago paid only 250,000
> a month (I agreed to this because I wanted the job and experience
> badly) and while this has steadily increased as I've got older and
> moved on to different companies, is still fairly modest in comparison
> to Mr Tengu's figure.
Think about ladies (and some gentlemen) "specialized in English" who
are hired as non-正社員 to do all the "good-enough" translations in
small-medium companies across Japan.
I think the yardstick for a proper measure of income is: does what you
get cover your needs and reasonably more ?
You can always earn more than the neighbor. And there will always be
someone who earns even more and many more people who make much less.
What matters is that you make a living without too many sacrifices
required, that the people who work with you are happy, and that the
people who live with you are happy too.
Try to put a figure on that now !