Rate for Japanese-English Transcription

[Alan David Collins]

Fellow translators,

Apologies in advance for posting a topic which has come up before.
Have searched the archives and the web for a concrete answer but have
had no luck so far. I worked in-house for eight years in Tokyo for a
variety of companies, engaged in both translation and transcription
projects at various times. Have been making the move into freelance
work this past year and had several issues with setting rates. While I
do not want to drive prices downwards, agencies seem unwilling to pay
more than the bare minimum to new freelance translators at the moment.
Have recently been asked to provide a rate per minute/hour for
transcription work, and would very much appreciate some advice on what
is regarded as standard (in USD). With regard to translation rates, I
found that some of the posts in the archives included rates that seem
frankly unrealistic in the current economic climate, and result in no
reply at all from the interested party.

Any help at all would be very much appreciated.

Thank you,

Alan

[Uwe Hirayama]

@Alan David Collins

Dear Alan,

seems there are not that many answers yet ... is it because it is
December?

Well, rates are an issue that cannot be discussed that easily as
vocabulary
questions. Please note that I am based in Germany and most of my
clients
have something to do with patent stuff. So, your and my market
segment
may be quite different.

Rates will depend on the country you are living in, or better, on the
country
where your clients are. It is a matter of fact that agencies pay less
than direct
clients, and I know that for somebody entering this market, it is also
important
to have a look at the rates others pay or receive.

However, did you ever calculate or estimate your average daily output?
Provided that you
will work 6 hrs/day, your average daily output is abc words/day and
you need
to earn xy USD/day, you can soon see what you must charge if you want
to
prevent yourself from getting into economical troubles.

Another aspect you may take into account is that low rates can make it
easier
to enter the market. However, it is hard work to increase rates once
set
together with a client (at least according to my experience). This
says that
I have still clients for which I work for rates set about 15 years
ago.

BTW what does transcription work mean in detail?

Best regards and bonne chance,

Uwe Hirayama
JP2GER TRSL
hira...@t-online.de

[Benjamin Boas]

I can't help you with translation rates, but I have done E->E video transcription work for a Japanese client whose standard rate was 350JPY/min.

Hope that helps.

Best,

Benjamin W. Boas

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[roy.b...@gmail.com]

I assume you mean per minute of video - 350jpy/minute of work would be
amazing!

On 12月9日, 午前1:13, Benjamin Boas <ben...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I can't help you with translation rates, but I have done E->E video
> transcription work for a Japanese client whose standard rate was 350JPY/min.
>
> Hope that helps.
>
> Best,
>
> Benjamin W. Boas
>

> On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 12:52 AM, Alan David Collins <alanda...@gmail.com>wrote:> Fellow translators,

[Duncan Adam]

As Uwe points out, it is hard to be specific on rates as they vary so
much depending on subject matter, among other things.

I have found, though, that it is hard to get a decent rate for
anything that is paid by the hour, rather than on volume. For anything
along the lines of editing/proofreading/transcription, agencies are
generally very stingy, and more often than not reject my (very
reasonable) minimum hourly rate, even though they are happy to pay me
twice that for a volume of translation that takes the same time. I
don't know if this has something to do with end clients undervaluing
the translator's skill, or if agencies have strange ideas about how
fast/slowly translators work.
In any case, as a result, I avoid quoting on time whenever possible.

Duncan

[Shane Jones]

Hi Alan,

I handled a transcription project for a client (albeit a direct client) not too long ago and faced the same question you have. If you do a Google search for "transcription services", you'll find a bunch of websites that list transcription rates, and this should give you a general idea of what you can charge.

In general, most services charge per minute of audio, and have different rates based on turnaround time, content, and audio quality. Make sure to consider all of these factors when setting your own rate, and be sure to allow for considerably more time than you initially think you'll require, as transcription jobs can easily turn into a nightmare. 

Shane Jones

[Keith Wilkinson]

If the intention of the transcription is to do an adequate English-
dubbed version of the video (or whatever), then surely the rate should
be greater than the cost of getting an English transcription done in
Japan (which you can find on the web). High-quality Japanese
transcriptions are quite cheap in Japan (compared with English
transcriptions, that is), so one option would be to outsource the
Japanese transcription and do the translation yourself.
If the customer just wants a verbatim translation and is prepared to
pay someone else to edit and copywrite the result so that it "lip-
syncs" (or matches the timing of) the original, then the rate might be
considerably lower than professional "ready-to-dub" copy.