> The problem is that I know little about Japanese. So could anyone tell
> me some websites in English on which I can post our position vacancy?
> Or could anyone give me some other advice?
This mailing list has 1435 subscribers and you are already a subscriber so
why not post your ad here?
Michael Hendry, in Newcastle Australia
> A reasonable rate is around 10 yen per Japanese character.
For what kind of work? I'm not saying that I disagree, but I know of
fields where this is high and others where it is low.
That said, I agree that this list is a good place to start looking when
you need translators. It is also a good resource in this respect because
by observing how translators contribute can give you insights into how
good they are in certain areas, what kind of English they write, and how
easy they might be to work with, as well as on their concerns (knowing
which can also be beneficial for building long-term relationships).
HTH,
--Jim Lockhart
Hachioji, Tokyo, JPN
> I know good rates can attract more freelancers especially more
> excellent ones, I may work easily if we offer much higher. However I
> understand that my company must strive to survive, the boss must
> consider the running expenses.
When you can't offer high rates, sometimes you have to ask what you can
offer translators that will make up (or help make up) for the difference.
Of course, what this is will depend on the translator.
> Frankly speaking, many clients don’t know much about how to judge
> translation quality and many agencies are accepting lower rates to get
> projects. These days the clients ask for more discounts in excuse of
> recession. This industry isn’t well development and we are in the same
> boat to some degree.
This has always been true to some extent, though I imagine the current
economic situation is going to make things worse for a while. Clients
learn about translation quality when they need to--i.e., when the
affects of poor translation start to bite; one problem is that not all
client get into that situation. And for many clients, there is a level
of translation that is "good enough," and that's all they will be
willing to pay for. In those instances, you can only offer them that
level of translation, and you need only translators who deliver at that
level.
> So maybe this group isn’t suitable for my post, could someone let me
> know some other websites?
I can't recommend other Web sites because I don't know any; but I would
recommend giving Honyaku a try: Some people here may be able to meet
your needs, and you theirs as well. The only way to find out is to give
it a try.
Good luck,
As Michael Hendry pointed out, there are 1435 subscribers on this list. Not
ALL of them consider 10 yen their least acceptable rate.
Give it a shot!
Joji
One solution is to pay for a small job with good lead time, and use that as
the test. If the translator "fails," you redo it and you're out a few
dollars for the translation. Probably cheaper than the opportunity cost of
losing potential translators over unpaid trials.
In the case you mentioned, your company made the huge but common mistake of
trusting a new translator with a very important job. Even if the translator
passes your test, I would be wary about trusting them with an important job
right away, unless you have a very good safety net (quality control and
enough time to completely redo the translation if necessary).
This is also why once you get good translators, you've got to do some work
to keep them. The cost of replacing them will be very high.
Regards,
Ryan
--
Ryan Ginstrom
trans...@ginstrom.com
http://ginstrom.com/
> Besides, I received some emails from candidates in my email box
> liuwei...@126.come which is my personal email address and I am not
> allowed to contact freelancers with it.
Contact them from your work mail then...
Jean-Christophe Helary
------------------------------------
http://mac4translators.blogspot.com/
Hi,
Ryan's suggestion sounds very good to me - it allows you to start new
relationships with translators in an amicable manner and saves you a lot
of time and effort, and the risk you take in return is rather small.
> Besides, I received some emails from candidates in my email box
> liuwei...@126.come which is my personal email address and I am not
> allowed to contact freelancers with it. Sorry!
Sounds like you want to let list other subscribers know that they should
not contact you via the address you use for posting to this list. You
could use the automatic signature function of your e-mail software and
have it place a comment like, for example, "for work related
correspondence, please use the following address:" in the signature
text, followed by your work address... :-)
Regards: Hendrik
--
--------------------------------------
Power up the Internet with Yahoo! Toolbar.
http://pr.mail.yahoo.co.jp/toolbar/
Hello All,
Max represents a company called Golden View (China) Technologies Inc. http://www.gvlocalization.com.
> Sometimes we can offer a rate around 10 yen per Japanese character, but many more times we can not offer that rate even much lower than that.
I doubt if you are getting 10 yen / character even from your customers. I will be very happy if you prove me wrong by posting few jobs on this forum offering 10 yen / character. Or for that matter, post whatever rates you want to offer with payment terms etc. I am really eager to see your actual job offers. I have been contacted by a few Chinese translation agencies in the past with offers like 0.03 - 0.06 $ / english word!!!
> So maybe this group isnt suitable for my post, could someone let me know some other websites?
If your company wants to genuinely do business, this group is definitely one of the best places for you to find good translators for long term relationship. As far as other websites are concerned, I think you have exhausted almost all the options available.
> "But," you say, "we can't afford to do a good job because they're paying for
> crap?" So start doing a good job anyway and pitch to people who can tell the
> difference and who are willing to pay a little more for a quality product.
> The crappy rates = crappy work equation is unlikely to be broken on the
> rates side. People are unlikely to pay top-grade rates for garbage. Which
> means you have to break it on your side -- on the work quality side.
OK, I'll buy this.
But what should those of us do who do quality work but are facing
pressure to lower our rates? My old formula was too tell them: If you go
where the rates are lower, you will get what you pay for. And in the
past, sometimes I'd see customers do just that, and come back a few
months or a year later. But more recently, that's been happening less:
They've been happy with the crap, or say there's nothing they can do
because they can't get more budget themselves. And with all the scare
mongering about the current economic situation, some translators seem to
be so spooked that they more concerned about getting work than how well
in will pay.
> But what should those of us do who do quality work but are facing
> pressure to lower our rates?
Move to a place where the rent is cheaper ?
But what should those of us do who do quality work but are facing
pressure to lower our rates?
> But what should those of us do who do quality work but are facing
> pressure to lower our rates? My old formula was too tell them: If
> you go
> where the rates are lower, you will get what you pay for. And in the
> past, sometimes I'd see customers do just that, and come back a few
> months or a year later. But more recently, that's been happening less:
> They've been happy with the crap, or say there's nothing they can do
> because they can't get more budget themselves.
I became a translator shortly before Japan's bubble burst, so I've
seen this pressure pretty much my whole career. I don't claim to have
the answer, and I don't claim to be a good salesman (I'd be busier if
I were), but here is an approach one might try with a client
complaining about a reduced translation budget: warn of the downward
spiral.
Assume that your client has previously paid well for top-quality
translations, but because of lean times, is now poor-mouthing you and
saying its translation budget has been cut in half. You get them to
agree that with translations (as with almost everything else) you get
what you pay for. You then point out that if they lower their
translation quality, they are *ratcheting down* their maximum
potential for success. And after a quarter of two of even worse-than-
expected results, they'll have to cut their translation budget again,
further ratcheting down their potential.
They might say they'd start paying full rates again once things pick
up (they might even mean it). You would counter that things will not
return to where they once were because they are downgrading their
business.
Obviously, quality translations are not the key to business success
for every widget-maker, but they are a factor. Just yesterday I was
doing research for a job, and I found an English product manual from a
Japanese company. Big, bold lettering on its cover read "Blushless DC
Motor." I would argue that hard times are the worst time to risk the
customer derision and mistrust that gaffes like this provoke.
Adam Rice :: Austin TX USA :: adam...@8stars.org :: http://8stars.org
As strange as it may sound, I think that writing a blog helps with this.
Since I started blogging a bit over a year ago, about half of my new clients
have told me that they read my blog. This apparently was a good thing,
because they sent me work. <g> One of them has since turned into my single
best client.
I think that some of these requests for (to me) ridiculously low rates come
from what I term the "China Frenzy." Companies move operations to China, and
are able to hire workers for a fifth or less what they were paying in Japan.
They can also find Japanese-to-English translation for one yen per word, if
not in China then in India. Of course, the quality is garbage, but companies
get bitten by the cheap bug. They want in on this imaginary pool of ultra
cheap, talented translators. What they eventually realize (if they stay in
business) is that you can't pull some kid out of a Chinese village and set
him to translating. Well, you can, but the results may vary. <g>
Another factor is opportunism. I think some companies are taking advantage
of worries about the economy to try to force translators to lower their
rates. Kind of a game of economic chicken.
A final factor is that translators in Japan are a lot more expensive now,
thanks to the strong yen and weak dollar. This is good news for the
translators in America, but I don't begrudge them this, because back in the
90s translators in Japan benefitted from the opposite trend.
> I produce both top-notch translations
> (at high rates) and barely passable ones (at low rates)
I would hate to meet a doctor, for example, who did pro bono work under that
philosophy...
----------
Edward Lipsett, Intercom, Ltd.
translation€@intercomltd.com
Publishing: http://www.kurodahan.com
Translation & layout: http://www.intercomltd.com
> Why waste time finding new clients when you can just take a rate cut
> and drop the quality level accordingly?
How would you practically do that ? Not use the spellchecker before
delivering ? Drop a few words here and there ?
It seems to me "dropping the quality level" takes more energy than
_keeping_ the quality level (or even raising it).
So, what you propose is: waste energy on dropping consciously the
level to be less paid, or spend energy to find new clients to be more
paid...
In the end, your product will not be bought because you sell crap,
even cheap crap.
Interesting take on the production line of a translator.
If it works for you and your customers, what more to say?
A question though: how do you know your low rate work is really barely
passable? IOW, what is your mechanism for producing top-notch product and
low-end product?
Personally, I cannot differentiate. I do the same thing for every job,
regardless of what I'm paid.
That is, I read the source document, do the research (if required), draft up
a rough translation based on memory, go back to the original, edit, let it
sit, proofread it, and send it out the door. It's a cyclic approach that
follows the same process every time with repeated loops through the rough
and final translation process until satisfied. Not any one of those
processes can be ignored.
Do you have a way to spend less of your attention span on any of the
processes you peform? Or do you just skip proofreading as a single process
and do it as you go along?
Joji
How do you produce a "barely passable" translation? I find it difficult
to do poor work. I don't know, maybe I just take pride in what I do.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven H. Zaveloff gua...@gmail.com
P.O. Box 200203 Tel: (512)219-7142
Austin, Texas 78720-0203 Fax: (512)233-2770
http://members.capmac.org/~stevenzaveloff/
Not by harming life does one become noble.
One is termed noble for being gentle to all living things.
-Dhammapada
> A doctor doing pro bono work is paid by the hour. He provides a
> service, not a product.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_a_product_and_a_service
Translators are the battery installers, not the batteries. We provide a
service (translation) that produces a product (translated document).
Like most others here, I take pride in what I do regardless of my income on
that particular job. Sure I can leave out the checking process, but I won't.
Michael Hendry, in Newcastle Australia
> A doctor doing pro bono work is paid by the hour.
If I am not mistaken, "pro bono" work is done at no cost (for free) so
someone doing pro bono work is not paid at all.
Regards,
Alan Siegrist
Orinda, CA, USA
-------------------------------------------------
pro bono (Pro bono publico), Latin, for the good of the public adjective
Referring to a non-reimbursed service - health care, legal advice by an
attorney to those who cannot afford to pay professional fees.
http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Pro+Bono
-------------------------------------------------
- Dan in Yokohama
-----------------------
Dan Burgess
canuck....@gmail.com
Translators are the battery manufacturers and vendors. We produce
and sell a product - the translated document. There is no service
involved.
> If you haven't got the balls to do it, then
> fair enough, just stay out of this segment of the market.
Sorry, Matt, but I can't agree with you. If your only criterion is to take
work at any price, and adjust your quality downwards as needed to match the
price, eventually you will be working at the same rates as China and India,
but living (I assume) in a high-budget nation like Japan or the US.
I believe that translation is a profession that demands skill, and
standards. Different people have different positions on just what skill
levels or standards are appropriate, but removing translation from the realm
of a professional service and reducing it to a commodity goes against the
stance of every professional society in the world.
It's not a question of balls, it's a recognition that a professional may
elect to provide his service pro bono (please look up the definition) for a
worthy cause, but normally demands reasonable recompense for the time,
effort and capital expended in achieving the skills needed as a
professional. Professional jobs demand a considerable investment, and later
charge to recover that investment. Society pays it because it recognizes the
fact that unless the investment is repaid, nobody will enter that
profession anymore...
Few people begrudge physicians their income once they look at how many years
they spend in school and what it costs them to do it.
> If you haven't got the balls to do it
I see that having a teaching position that provides you with a stable
income can greatly contribute to "having balls" when it come to
delivering crap translations.
Also, I'm worried for you hourly income. If you spend so much time
online to reply to obvious stuff, either you don't have much to do and
rely on your teaching, or you only accept higher rates.
In both cases, your advice is really "go fetch the low rates, I keep
the high ones for myself".
> > I produce both top-notch translations
> > (at high rates) and barely passable ones (at low rates)
>
> I would hate to meet a doctor, for example, who did pro bono work under that
> philosophy...
I was thinking the same thing, but if Matt's clients are happy...
Personally, I can only do one kind of work. It would be hard for me to
take Matt's approach. I can do quick-and-dirty when I have to, but I
avoid it because it bothers me. And then there's always the issues of
hurting your own reputation.
> My advice -- hold the line on your rates, even if it means finding new
> clients. (But make sure that your quality is better than that of the
> cut-rate translators!)
I agree on the rates part, but how do you ensure that your own quality
is better than that of the cut-raters--or any of your other competitors,
for that matter?
> I think offering clients a
> range of quality levels at a range of prices is going to stand me in
> better stead than offering only one level of quality at one price.
> When a client asks me what my rates are, I say, "How much do you want
> to pay?" "What kind of quality level do you need?" In my experience
> most clients prefer to be offered a choice.
I think this is reasonable enough, and as a company we do the same when
people ask for our price list--we call it 松竹梅 and ask them which
"course" best suits their needs. But given the choice, people usually
choose the one in the middle, which is perfect for us.
As Matt says above, I think offering different levels of quality is OK
so long as customers know about them and have made a conscious choice.
That said, I think offering this kind of choice would be difficult for
most owner-proprieter translators and freelancers, because--as Joji
Matsuo has aptly described--many people can do only their best. The
notion of taking shortcuts is alien to them, or at least they would feel
that they were acting unethically or immorally if they didn't do their
best.
The way we offer different levels of quality is in the checking and
rewriting/post-translation editing process, or with speed of turnaround.
> 1. You are selling a product - not a service.
> 2. The product is the translated document - not you.
>
>
> Matt
>
Tell this to the guys who have spent six years to graduate from
"L'Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales
(INALCO)", known as "Langues O", and who may have paid over at least
the equivalent of 10 million Yen to earn their doctorate in the hope
of being recognized as an official translator of the French
government or those professional translators who spent years studying
at a an elit university like MIT, Oxford, or an elite university in
whichever country. Of course, they are the elites of the profession,
However, I am sure that many people on this list, who have spent a lot
of money to earn a degree or worked long hours as an apprentice, with
sore eyes and fingers from the endless typing, at miserable wages in
the hope of becoming a freelance professional will obviously disagree
with you.
You must factor in your investment and all those years spent on
learning what you are doing now as a professional into your rates.
Otherwise one is better of flipping burgers.
In my case I would earn a fortune flipping burgers at a beautiful
beach of a luxury hotel for the super-rich from all over the world
since I can speak fluently five languages.
Regards
--
Alfred Salib Chamass@ flipping burgers for his dinner.
scha...@gmail.com
And, for that you earn all my respect.
As long we do our best in whatever we are doing and we enjoy it, it
will eventually add to something important.
Regards
--
Alfred Salib Chamass
scha...@gmail.com
> That's why I set a time limit for every job I do.
Usually, the client sets the time limit for you. It is called a
deadline.