how many words do you translate?

[Sneha Bhave]

Hello!

I would like to know how many average Japanese characters is one expected to translate in day?
I have heard figures ranging from 2000 to 4000.
Is it really possible to translate more than 5000 charactersper day, because 5000 Japanese characters would almost amount to 2500 English words.

Neha

[John Burton]

Hello Sneha,

 

The ancient rule of thumb is that 400 Japanese characters is equivalent to 200 English words.

 

Most agencies expect a translator to produce around 2,000 English words of output (I shall assume that most agencies are wanting English output, as opposed to some other language.) That means that you are expected to chew through 4,000 Japanese characters (hiragana, katakana, romaji, the lot) per day.

 

(I am sure that some crusty old translators will jump in at this stage and explain that 4,000 characters per day is for newbies and that they use the latest speech-recognition software that enables them to process many times that amount per day, all at exceedingly handsome rates of remuneration....)

 

........In 3, 2, 1............

 

 

;-)

 

Cheers,

 

John Burton

 

---

From: Sneha Bhave <sneha...@gmail.com>
To: honyaku <hon...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Monday, 26 October, 2009 7:12:37 PM
Subject: how many words do you translate?

[Warren Smith]

Not this crusty old translator -- at least not today while I am looking at a patent from the Taisho era! (Supposed to produce 8,000 words by noon today, but it ain't gonna happen!)

 

W

---

From: hon...@googlegroups.com [mailto:hon...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of John Burton
Sent: Monday, October 26, 2009 2:35 AM
To: hon...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: how many words do you translate?

[martha mcclintock]

Once i was "up to speed" as a translator, I set my daily quota for myself at 10 pages (2000 English words off of approximately 4000 Japanese source characters) a day. 

That is rough drafting, NOT completely finished text. Then you put the draft aside, rework it later, or have it worked over by an editor and then rework it. 

SO, the question is, do i produce "10 pages" a day? More or less.... My drafting days prodoce anywhere from 10 t0 15 or 16 pages of first draft. If i have only done 10 pages of rough draft, there is time in the day (on not so hideous texts) to do the previous day's clean up etc.....

And yes, i am not up to speed on my speech recognition software, but gods willing, someday that will allow me to do even more.....

And yes, there have been those 20 page days, but me and my arms try not to think about them too much...

SO yes, i would say, as a "professional" translator, working to speed in my field, 10 pages a day of English output would seem a minimum full day standard....

my own two cents worth

Martha McClintock (who considers buddhist art texts to be the patent texts of the art world).....

[Jacob Dunlap]

As Warren hints at above, it depends so much on the content. Recently
I finished a 8,000-word-long patent in a day because the Japanese was
very well-written and I was well-versed in the content. On other
occasions I've struggled to get through just a couple of pages due to
terrible writing and mistakes in the original, unfamiliar subject
matter, or a dreaded combination of both.

Either way, I aim for 4,000 - 5,000 words of output a day; sometimes I
get it, and sometimes I don't. The important thing is to set
reasonable goals for yourself and try to be consistent in achieving
them -- and never sacrifice quality for output, of course.

Jacob Dunlap (not yet crusty, but a loyal voice recognition software user)

[Warren Smith]

Us crusties can tell stories about days before the Internet -- when we
received faxes of faxes of small-type originals. Legibility used to be a
huge issue for patent translators and used to be a prime determinant of
throughout. Blessedly, this is not so much the case anymore.

W

[Sneha Bhave]

Thanks guys!!

This now gives me a better idea.

2009/10/26 Warren Smith <warren...@comcast.net>

[Jeremy Angel]

2009/10/26 Sneha Bhave <sneha...@gmail.com>

Thanks guys!!

This now gives me a better idea.

A rush rate of, say, 50% over standard rate also does wonders to my output:-)

--
Jeremy Angel
Nagano, Japan

[Nora Stevens Heath]

Neha wrote:

> Is it really possible to translate more than 5000 charactersper day, because
> 5000 Japanese characters would almost amount to 2500 English words.

In my heyday (BC: before child), I often translated as many as (if not
more than) 10 thousand moji in a day. Not every day, and not for
extended periods, and not without detriment to my physical and mental
state, but it is (was) possible--though not recommended.

Nora

--
Nora Stevens Heath <no...@fumizuki.com>
J-E translations: http://www.fumizuki.com/

[Matt Stanton]

I'd say 2,500 English words a day was probably a realistic level of
output in the past, but with the addition of Facebook to the
translator's toolbox, most of us are probably only managing a third or
half of that nowadays ;-)

Matt Stanton

[Laurie Berman]

On Oct 26, 2009, at 3:51 AM, Sneha Bhave wrote:

> Thanks guys!!
>
> This now gives me a better idea.

Of course, you should probably consider the possibility that those
who produce less are not quite as eager to contribute such a
discussion, thus skewing your sample. ;-)

Laurie Berman

[Marc Adler]

On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 9:33 AM, Laurie Berman <berma...@verizon.net> wrote:

Of course, you should probably consider the possibility that those
who produce less are not quite as eager to contribute such a
discussion, thus skewing your sample.  ;-)

Good point. I know there are people on the list who don't exclusively translate, but also teach on the side. Then there's the interpreters to consider. There's the retirees who want to keep their minds active and don't need the income. Etc., etc., etc.

The most important thing to remember if you want to achieve a high daily output is that nothing speeds a translation like familiarity with the material. That's why specialization is important.

--
Marc Adler
www.adlerpacific.com
nirebloga.wordpress.com
mudawwanatii.wordpress.com
blogsheli.wordpress.com

[R. South McCreery]

Marc Adler said,

> The most important thing to remember if you want to achieve a high daily
> output is that nothing speeds a translation like familiarity with the
> material. That's why specialization is important.

Yes. My personal record is 250 pages in five days--but that was the
last dregs of a project that had consumed more than a year, and by
then I could translate that material as fast as I can type (not very).
I expect I've done 50 pages in one day at other times, with very
familiar material, but not on a sustained basis.

ruth

Ruth S. McCreery r...@wordworks.jp
The Word Works, Ltd. www.WordWorks.jp
+81(0)45-314-9324 fax +81(0)45-316-4409

[John Burton]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

 

We have a winner!

 

Now, what your word/day output on the slowest, hardest, gnarliest job you have completed and been paid for to date. (Trials and abandoned projects do not count.)

Was this when you ventured into a new field? took on a new client? 

 

Cheers,

 

John

---

From: R. South McCreery <rsmwor...@gmail.com>
To: hon...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, 27 October, 2009 7:33:02 AM

Subject: Re: how many words do you translate?

[Jeremy Whipple]

On 09/10/26 23:33 +0900 (JST), Laurie Berman wrote:
>
> Of course, you should probably consider the possibility that those
> who produce less are not quite as eager to contribute such a
> discussion, thus skewing your sample. ;-)

Indeed!

Particularly in the context of the discussion so far, I for one would be
embarrassed to admit how little I generally translate per day -- even when
I'm putatively translating for an entire working day. (But just for the
record, I'm not in the market for advice on how to translate more.)

--
Jeremy Whipple <jwhi...@gol.com>
Setagaya-ku, Tokyo

[Hanae]

Too tired to make sense, but when did that stop me...

I do think that if you *can't* (that isn't *don't*) crank out 2,000
words per day, you shouldn't quit the bunny-suit bar.

My output (never exactly full-on) has varied from 1,000 to 10,000 words
per day, but those are NOT the same words, as others have pointed out.

Further, if you work from home and have young children who are unable to
switch on the rice cooker and get natto out of the fridge for
themselves, the number of extra hours you can force into your working
day is necessarily limited.

Regards
Helen H, just plain lazy

[Uwe Hirayama]

Hello Sneha (is it Sneha or Neha?)

> I would like to know how many average Japanese
> characters is one expected to translate in day?

There is a broad range between "highs" and "lows"
of daily output depending on

- familiarity with the subject
- readability of the original (quality or writing and "physical appearance")
- text types
- concentration
- external factors
- usage of "little helpers" as translation memories, typing aids
(automatic extension software as "let me type")

etc. pp.

As for me, the figure of 4000 to 5000 JP chars/day formatted and revised
text appears quite realistic.

Kind regards,

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

[Warren Smith]

There is also the learning curve.

The "Crusties" referred to earlier often have a couple of decades of
experience under their belts. When I first started translating it might have
not been financially adventitious vis-à-vis other options at the time. I
spent a lot of time in dictionaries, and sweating over how to render certain
words in certain contexts. This made the process very slow -- at least at
the beginning. But by the time you have typed "Japanese Unexamined Patent
Application Publication" for the thousandth time (and programmed an
autoreplace text for it), you don't have to think about some aspects of word
choice quite so hard, and time spent in dictionaries (or just worrying about
the best word choices) is replaced by time churning out billable words.

What I am trying to say is that even if the money doesn't make sense NOW,
you can anticipate much better compensation in a year or two, and I think
the "raises" a translator gets (as s/he establishes a reputation so can
demand better per-word rates multiplied by throughput increases resulting
from experience) are much more than one would see in other industries.

There are also the benefits of flexibility and freedom to deal with family
issues, other interests, etc., and the control over one's own schedule
enjoyed by freelancers is a benefit virtually unknown to an "employee."

FWIW

Warren

[Warren Smith]

Ummmm.. Make that "financially *advantageous*." <sheepish grin in front of
my colleagues....., who have just seen how dependant should still be on my
dictionaries!>


W

-----Original Message-----
From: hon...@googlegroups.com [mailto:hon...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf

[R. South McCreery]

On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 3:30 PM, John Burton <jebu...@xtra.co.nz> wrote:
>
> Now, what your word/day output on the slowest, hardest, gnarliest job you
> have completed and been paid for to date. (Trials and abandoned projects do
> not count.)
> Was this when you ventured into a new field? took on a new client?

On the excruciatingly slow end, probably not the slowest and gnarliest
(I repress a lot) but the slowest recently was about 50 ji a day, on
the worst days, for a familiar client and field.

I'd done other jobs for them that involved translating descriptions of
objects and their historical contexts, so when the client asked if I
could do about 130 genkoyoshi worth of stuff for them in about 3
weeks, I figured it was doable, at my usual about 10 genkoyoshi a day
pace. Short articles are slower than longer texts--it takes me a while
to get in gear with the right vocabulary etc.--but what I'd done for
them before was pretty interesting, and they'd been good about
providing pix and answering questions.

The problem was my assumption that this was like the earlier
stuff--which, when I looked carefully at what the client had said, was
very much my mistake. Instead of short articles, I had a database of
longish titles, for nearly 6000 objects. And when I called to ask
where the pix were, I was told, oh, sending them all to me would be
just too much, but here's how to find them on the website. Which was
just great except that a) even with a fast connection, searching their
site took a lot of my time and b) there was enough inconsistency
between the titles in the file they'd sent me and what was listed on
the website that finding the right pix also took some ingenuity, and
additional time.

I realize now that I should have said, sorry, this is not doable if I
cannot see the things painlessly. The client had actually anticipated
that to some extent, at least my pathetic English-speaker need to know
about singulars and plurals, and had, rather randomly, indicated
quantity for some of the objects. (Someone had also provided readings,
often incorrect, for what they thought were the difficult terms in the
titles.)

Instead, I slaved on, unwilling to admit what an idiot I am.
Mercifully, there was a lot of repetition--large sets of things where
all I had to change was widget a to widget b. And large groups of
similar objects for which, once I had nailed the basic description,
all I had to do was add a variation. Still, it was very tiring,
inefficient, and tedious.

I did learn a lot.

Including a refresher course in not making assumptions.

But I did not get it done in 3 weeks.

ruth

p.s. The same client has since sent some much pleasanter (less
headbanging, faster progress) work since, so it was not a total
disaster.