Trends in translation rates in recent years [Q]
Tom Gally
English-to-Japanese translation, particularly how they have changed,
if at all, over the past five or ten years.
As some of you might recall from the days when I was active on
Honyaku, I worked as a freelance J-to-E translator in Japan from 1986
to 2005, when I took a full-time university position. Now, in addition
to my university work, I write a monthly essay for the magazine 『英語青年』
published by Kenkyusha. The series began in April with the title
「言葉の蹉跌」, but beginning with the September issue I plan to change the
title for a while to 「言葉の価値」. Among the various types of 価値 I plan to
discuss is monetary value, specifically the rates paid to writers and
translators.
Here are my questions:
1. Has anybody noticed downward pressure on J/E translation rates in
Japan or other developed countries due to the appearance of
translation services in India and other low-wage countries? Or have
differences in quality, increasing demand, or the advantages of
supplying clients from within the same country kept rates up?
2. I heard a few years ago that some translators felt that translation
memory tools were driving down rates. Does that seem to have been
true? Have other technologies that might speed up the translation
process, such as voice recognition, had a similar affect? (I assume
that machine translation is still not a threat to human translators'
income, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)
3. At IJET-15, held in Yokohama in 2004, there was a panel discussion
on "Climbing the Income Ladder." As both the speakers and the audience
members seemed hesitant to mention their actual rates, Robert Bailey
and I prepared an impromptu anonymous questionnaire about how much
attendees charge and posted the results that evening at the convention
site. As I recall, the highest rate for J-to-E was 15,000 yen per page
and the lowest was around 2,500 yen, though there was much variation
in how the rates were calculated. When the conference ended, someone
from JAT--I forget who--took possession of the questionnaires. Was
that information ever compiled or made public?
All replies, comments, discussions, and disagreements would be most welcome.
Tom Gally
Yokohama (home) and Tokyo (work), Japan
P.S. In case anyone is wondering, I enjoy the variety and stimulation
of my current position and hope to stay in it until retirement, but I
earned significantly more as a freelance translator.
Edward Lipsett /t
Hi, Tom,
The below are my personal opinions, and are subject to change on whim.
on 08/06/17 11:25, Tom Gally wrote:
>
> 1. Has anybody noticed downward pressure on J/E translation rates in
> Japan or other developed countries due to the appearance of
> translation services in India and other low-wage countries? Or have
> differences in quality, increasing demand, or the advantages of
> supplying clients from within the same country kept rates up?
There is considerable pressure from clients who place maximum priority on
price. This is, unfortunately, pretty common in Japan, because most clients
cannot evaluate quality.
> 2. I heard a few years ago that some translators felt that translation
> memory tools were driving down rates. Does that seem to have been
> true? Have other technologies that might speed up the translation
> process, such as voice recognition, had a similar affect? (I assume
> that machine translation is still not a threat to human translators'
> income, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)
Not really. What they are doing is placing more time demands for a given
amount of money. To some extent there is a reduction in price, because some
clients demand lower fees for fuzzy matches, but in practice fuzzy matches
are essentially worthless, and if the client cares about quality can usually
be convinced of that without too much difficulty.
In general, while prices have not dropped in the last 20 years, clients
expect more and more service for the same pay. For example, instead of a
text file they may now demand a formatted file.
----------
Edward Lipsett, Intercom, Ltd.
translation @intercomltd.com
Publishing: http://www.kurodahan.com
Translation & layout: http://www.intercomltd.com
minoru
> 1. Has anybody noticed downward pressure on J/E translation rates in
> Japan or other developed countries due to the appearance of
> translation services in India and other low-wage countries? Or have
> differences in quality, increasing demand, or the advantages of
> supplying clients from within the same country kept rates up?
10 years ago an ex-pat living in Japan doing mainly
patent translation mentioned (or boasted 50 yen per
word). The most recent, he said 20-25 yen if one is
working for benrishi jimusho and 30 yen or more per
word if one is working directly for a manufacturing
concern. I don't know if there is any substantial change
has occurred in the last ten years but I can at least
say that I don't see the number 50.
Also, I haven't seen any one mention over 25 yen per
word except 30 yen per word lately.
If I do a business card, I still charge $25 per card and
there are only 25 words or so per card including the
person's name so that the rate is 100 cents per word <g>.
>
> 2. I heard a few years ago that some translators felt that translation
> memory tools were driving down rates. Does that seem to have been
> true? Have other technologies that might speed up the translation
> process, such as voice recognition, had a similar affect? (I assume
> that machine translation is still not a threat to human translators'
> income, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)
of works and I have changed the Japanese to English
unless clients asks to have a different scale for fuzzy
matched and 100% matched words or sentences.
Why not? After all I can finish the job faster in general
(sometimes not so much faster). Mind you Trados and
other translation memory programs are effective only
to certain types of documents.
On the other hand, pure machine translation definitely
beats human translators on costs. However, machine
translation is only good for certain types of documents
and for certain purposes.
It is amazing that 『英語青年』 is still around. I still
remember when a got a small award in English to
Japanese translation from the magazine, circa 1955.
I haven't read the magazine over 50 years now.
The magazine was, if I remember correctly, devoted
more to literature then.
Minoru Mochizuki
Tom Gally
interesting replies to my questions about trends in translation rates.
It sounds as though there might have been some downward movement in
rates due to competitive pressures and advances in technology and
communications but not enough to drive translators out of business. I
will try to work this information into my essays somehow.
As an aside, Minoru noted:
> It is amazing that 『英語青年』 is still around. I still
> remember when a got a small award in English to
> Japanese translation from the magazine, circa 1955.
> I haven't read the magazine over 50 years now.
> The magazine was, if I remember correctly, devoted
> more to literature then.
The magazine is still being published and probably doesn't look too
different from what you remember from the mid-1950s. It's still the
leading Japanese-language journal for English literature scholars,
though it also runs articles on linguistics, language education, and
other fields. The theme of the July issue is the Pre-Raphaelite
movement, the June issue had a group of articles on cognitive
linguistics, and the April issue had several papers devoted to
"Lolita" (as in Nabokov, not as in gothic). In my own writing for the
magazine, I'm taking to heart Samuel Johnson's definition of "essay"
as an "irregular undigested piece" and trying not to stick to any
identifiable field; a couple of months ago, I mentioned the past
debates on Honyaku between 意訳派 and 直訳派, but I'm planning to write next
about economics (sort of).
As noted in the Yomiuri Shimbun in March, the magazine has finally
stopped running its monthly translation contests:
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/book/news/20080318bk03.htm
Tom Gally
Fred Uleman
Thought you might be interested in this from Seth Godin:
<http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/06/no-such-thing-a.html>
--
Fred Uleman