| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] > | Rates when using CAT tools Thread poster: Rachel E
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Nicole Schnell 
United States
Local time: 23:09
English to German
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In memoriam | Designers? :-) | Sep 25, 2012 |
LilianBoland wrote:
Do designers lower their rates because they just bought a surprisingly good computer, which will make their life easier?
Designers need a pencil and a napkin or some nearby wallpaper when they have an idea. What does design have to do with computers?
| | | | Neil Coffey
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:09
French to English
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| Doesn't it depend on the text/client/field? | Sep 25, 2012 |
Firstly, I should say that I don't generally go in for the fluffy matching malarkey as luckily for the particular types of client I tend to work with, it's not a primary concern.
However, for those that do, I wonder why this doesn't depend on the particular text? The whole point of the exercise is to shave money off by pretending you're dealing with an exact science when you're not. So why not go that one step of false precision further and establish different repetition rates depen... See more Firstly, I should say that I don't generally go in for the fluffy matching malarkey as luckily for the particular types of client I tend to work with, it's not a primary concern.
However, for those that do, I wonder why this doesn't depend on the particular text? The whole point of the exercise is to shave money off by pretending you're dealing with an exact science when you're not. So why not go that one step of false precision further and establish different repetition rates depending on the material?
Despite my cynicism, I do actually mean that as a serious question. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | People have many beliefs | Sep 25, 2012 |
I don't care what others believe, but I find it always a bit offensive when they take the right to judge what is professional and what is not.
LilianBoland wrote:
Professional translators use the same rates, exactly the same, or even
slightly higher, when they use CAT tools. I believe, you should use exactly the same rates, CAT, tools or not.
Neither on your profile nor in your CV/resume you are mentioning the use of a CAT tool. Is it possible that you are just not using one?
They do not really make that much difference, in the long run, and even if they save some people time to a certain extent -- they are just for the translators to benefit from them, not to make their rates lower. I am not really sure what they mean by "a match" here -- words acquire particular meanings only in a context.
I actually don't care a lot about match rates, I am more interested, in the amount I earn per hour. Let me try to explain it:
I have one client, who regularly (1-2 times a week) sends me a text of about 5000 word 100% matches (from my own TM that I created over the years for them) and about 20-30 words no match.
I only get $0.02 cent for the 100% matches, (which makes it a nice $100.- plus my rate for the 20 to 30 words no match) and I normally manage to handle such a project in less than 30 min. And you might not believe it, but this has been ongoing for several hundred projects.
In this context "match" means real money easily earned - even if you don't consider it professional.
| | | | LEXpert
United States
Local time: 01:09
Member (2008)
Croatian to English
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| My rule of thumb | Sep 25, 2012 |
Whether you decide to offer CAT discounts is up to you.
If you are tempted to do so because CAT tools will allow you to work substantially faster, my experience has been that processing repetitions will indeed save you time, while leveraging *your own* very high TM matches (95-100%) *might* save you time, depending on the circumstances.
All other matches are, on balance, worthless in terms of time savings. They might be helpful for the job at hand, or not, and there is no way to accu... See more Whether you decide to offer CAT discounts is up to you.
If you are tempted to do so because CAT tools will allow you to work substantially faster, my experience has been that processing repetitions will indeed save you time, while leveraging *your own* very high TM matches (95-100%) *might* save you time, depending on the circumstances.
All other matches are, on balance, worthless in terms of time savings. They might be helpful for the job at hand, or not, and there is no way to accurately gauge the potential savings before starting work.
Of course, there are other benefits to CAT tools besides sometimes being able to work faster.
Interestingly, hardly any customers seem interested in one application where a CAT tool would be ideal. 99% of the time, if a client updates a source file, I receive a source Word file with tracked changes, and am requested to update the original target with track changes on, laboriously searching through the target file to find 130 (or however many) spots where a change was made in order to insert/delete/change the text. Wouldn't it make more sense to align the original source and target, and then accept the changes in the updated source file and translate with the resulting TM?
[Edited at 2012-09-25 17:05 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Nicole Schnell
United States
Local time: 23:09
English to German
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In memoriam | Not sure if you are sending the right message here. | Sep 25, 2012 |
Siegfried Armbruster wrote:
I actually don't care a lot about match rates, I am more interested, in the amount I earn per hour. Let me try to explain it:
I have one client, who regularly (1-2 times a week) sends me a text of about 5000 word 100% matches (from my own TM that I created over the years for them) and about 20-30 words no match.
I only get $0.02 cent for the 100% matches, (which makes it a nice $100.- plus my rate for the 20 to 30 words no match) and I normally manage to handle such a project in less than 30 min. And you might not believe it, but this has been ongoing for several hundred projects.
In this context "match" means real money easily earned - even if you don't consider it professional.
Why are you working at less than 2 Euro cents per word? What if you have to finish the work manually due to a power outage or because your harddisks/server/whatever decided to keel over?
| | | | Jaroslaw Michalak
Poland
Local time: 08:09
Member (2004)
English to Polish
SITE LOCALIZER | That's funny... | Sep 25, 2012 |
Neil Coffey wrote:
The whole point of the exercise is to shave money off by pretending you're dealing with an exact science when you're not.
I fully agree with the second part of the sentence and completely disagree with the first one...
The first part is a misconception which always drives discussions like these off the rails very quickly. It is not a way to "shave money off"... The translator is still in control of his rates, if he wants two hundred for the job, he will just do a quick math and he will charge that, right? Discounts and matches will not change that, how could they?
The agencies want to keep the larger share, that's obvious, but they do not need such sophisticated mechanisms for this - if they want more money, they just ask for lower rates - it is that simple. No, the match rate matrix is something else about...
What agencies find so mesmerizingly fascinating about fuzzies is that they give them the pretence of metrics. They actually believe that it will make the untangible tangible, that they will finally be able to measure the effort of the translator and to put it into nice columns of numbers. Or, more practically, it allows them, - when the client calls - to reply "That will be two hundred and will be done by Wednesday" instead of "We will contact the translator, send him the files, ask him how much he will charge and how long he will take, and probably he will respond (when he responds) 'Umm, I don't know, one hundred fifty for two days? But it might be, wait, maybe three hundred for four days? Let me think...' ". Metrics, that's what it is all about - have in mind that both the end client and the agency contact might be, ehem, actually... (suspense music) managers!
Of course this is an illusion - the matches might give a rough estimate of the effort needed, but then again they might not. Which, by the way, is exactly the same with wordcounts. Are those so offended by the concept of the discount rates equally riled up about being paid by a word? After all, it is just as an imperfect tool - one hunder words can take fifteen minutes or it can take five hours...
That is why I acknowledge that I must apply the law of big numbers - some jobs are quick, some are tedious, you just have to make sure they even out eventually and that you are meeting (or exceeding) your income goals. Personally, I do not care if I get paid 100% of the .10 rate or 50% of the .20 rate, whether the client wants to pay only for words with the letter A in them, or only those without - I indulge them as long as the transfer amount checks out.
| | | | | I am not working at 2 cent a word but for $200/per hour | Sep 25, 2012 |
Nicole Schnell wrote:
Why are you working at less than 2 Euro cents per word? What if you have to finish the work manually due to a power outage or because your harddisks/server/whatever decided to keel over?
These projects are making me $200/hour.
Power outage? My system works long enough on backup power to finish it.
Harddisk/server failure? Data and system are regularly backed up on various systems and I always have an up to date backup production system.
And before you ask, I also have triple Internet connection using different providers and cable and wireless connections.
What is wrong with making $200/hour? The TM was created by me, has been checked various times by me and the content was approved by the client.
My message is - it might make sense to apply a discount if this allows you to resell your own work multiple times to the same client for the same document that is regularly updated.
I am not talking about using an unknown TM.
I am not talking about applying any "match" rates for a new project/new customer.
.
[Edited at 2012-09-25 17:36 GMT]
| | | | | Have you ever considered how much this is costing you timewise? | Sep 25, 2012 |
(I refer to those who apply this fuzzy match thing)
I imagine you have first to check the agency's analysis, then maybe you might run your own one and if they differ, you have to discuss with the agency. If you find an agreement, which cost you other time, when you're ready to send your invoice, it will take you five times the time of a normal invoice, with all the different fuzzies I guess you'll have to state one by one.
And after all this you earn half of your "no... See more (I refer to those who apply this fuzzy match thing)
I imagine you have first to check the agency's analysis, then maybe you might run your own one and if they differ, you have to discuss with the agency. If you find an agreement, which cost you other time, when you're ready to send your invoice, it will take you five times the time of a normal invoice, with all the different fuzzies I guess you'll have to state one by one.
And after all this you earn half of your "normal" price or maybe less and you still had to purchase your CAT by your own.
This is really crazy! ▲ Collapse
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John Fossey
Canada
Local time: 02:09
Member (2008)
French to English
+ ...
| Some discount, where warranted | Sep 25, 2012 |
I will give a reasonable discount (-60%) on repetitions for larger documents, if insisted on by the client and if it makes sense (such as an Excel spreadsheet full of identical cells). No discount on "fuzzy" matches which often end up taking longer trying to make use of the sugested match than just translating it from scratch. And no discount on smaller documents (
| | | | Vladimír Hoffman
Slovakia
Local time: 08:09
Member (2009)
English to Slovak
+ ...
If both you and agency use same CAT tool (also same version), there should be no or negligible differences in wordcount. THe chcek can be performed at the beginning of cooperation, but I have never ever encountered to bigger problems in this matter. As for invoice, it is also very simple - clients sends me PO before start of a job and I refer to the PO number in invoice. I don't mention numbers of words, only final amount. Effective and functional.
I calculate average rate per word, but o... See more If both you and agency use same CAT tool (also same version), there should be no or negligible differences in wordcount. THe chcek can be performed at the beginning of cooperation, but I have never ever encountered to bigger problems in this matter. As for invoice, it is also very simple - clients sends me PO before start of a job and I refer to the PO number in invoice. I don't mention numbers of words, only final amount. Effective and functional.
I calculate average rate per word, but only for my own voluntary statistics.
Christel Zipfel wrote:
(I refer to those who apply this fuzzy match thing)
I imagine you have first to check the agency's analysis, then maybe you might run your own one and if they differ, you have to discuss with the agency. If you find an agreement, which cost you other time, when you're ready to send your invoice, it will take you five times the time of a normal invoice, with all the different fuzzies I guess you'll have to state one by one.
And after all this you earn half of your "normal" price or maybe less and you still had to purchase your CAT by your own.
This is really crazy! ▲ Collapse
| | | | Jaroslaw Michalak
Poland
Local time: 08:09
Member (2004)
English to Polish
SITE LOCALIZER
Rudolf Vedo CT wrote:
99% of the time, if a client updates a source file, I receive a source Word file with tracked changes, and am requested to update the original target with track changes on, laboriously searching through the target file to find 130 (or however many) spots where a change was made in order to insert/delete/change the text. Wouldn't it make more sense to align the original source and target, and then accept the changes in the updated source file and translate with the resulting TM?
Why don't you do it yourself? It still should be faster than dealing with the changes in Word...
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 08:09
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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| @Rachel (when you read this) | Sep 26, 2012 |
Nicole Schnell wrote:
100% matches = my proofreading rate (1/3 of translation rate)
99%-65% = my editing rate (2/3 of translation rate)
64-0% = my translation rate (3/3 of translation rate)
Clients for whom the discounts matter a lot often baulk at simple structures like the one Nicole has above, but in reality a simpler structure (as opposed to one with many categories) is no less fair to both parties. The rate should be related to the amount of time you need. Or, to put it differently, the discount should be related to the amount of time you save, thanks to the fuzzy match.
A common newbie mistake is to assume that the amount of time saved is the same as the match percentage. They think that a 70% match represents a 70% saving in time, and should qualify for a 70% discount, but that is bollocks. How much time you actually save is difficult to determine, and it differs for different languages and different subject fields and even different source texts. Sheila also said this in her post.
Nicole charges her editing rate for 65% matches, but to me a 65% match is often so useless that I spend more time fixing it than I would have spent translating it from scratch. Therefore my own default scheme looks somewhat different:
100%/repetitions = 1/4 of translation rate
75-99% = 1/2 of translation rate
0-74% = full translation rate
If a client wants to pay nothing for repetitions or 100% matches, then that is okay by me, but then I won't check those translations either. This often applies to large projects with small updates.
So, Rachel, we're on page 3 of the advice. Do you have any comments?
[Edited at 2012-09-26 13:41 GMT]
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LEXpert
United States
Local time: 01:09
Member (2008)
Croatian to English
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| @Jabberwock/DIY | Sep 26, 2012 |
Jabberwock wrote: Rudolf Vedo CT wrote:
99% of the time, if a client updates a source file, I receive a source Word file with tracked changes, and am requested to update the original target with track changes on, laboriously searching through the target file to find 130 (or however many) spots where a change was made in order to insert/delete/change the text. Wouldn't it make more sense to align the original source and target, and then accept the changes in the updated source file and translate with the resulting TM?
Why don't you do it yourself? It still should be faster than dealing with the changes in Word...
I guess I do have the unchanged source file (if I reject all the changes/updates), and, obviously, the original translation (to be updated), so I could do the alignment. If the client only wants an updated, clean translation, the DIY solution is easy enough. However they usually want the translated deliverable as a Word file with tracked changes. Can any CAT tools export a bilingual file to a Word file with tracked changes?
Sorry for getting OT, I should probably make a separate thread for that.
| | | | LEXpert
United States
Local time: 01:09
Member (2008)
Croatian to English
+ ...
| Rudi's 2nd rule of thumb | Sep 26, 2012 |
"A client's insistence on matches, discounts and CAT grids is inversely proportional to the base rate that they pay."
IMHE
| | | | Jaroslaw Michalak
Poland
Local time: 08:09
Member (2004)
English to Polish
SITE LOCALIZER
Rudolf Vedo CT wrote:
I guess I do have the unchanged source file (if I reject all the changes/updates), and, obviously, the original translation (to be updated), so I could do the alignment. If the client only wants an updated, clean translation, the DIY solution is easy enough. However they usually want the translated deliverable as a Word file with tracked changes. Can any CAT tools export a bilingual file to a Word file with tracked changes?
I hope this quick answer will not derail the thread even more...
Word has a "Compare document" function - if you compare the new target document with the old one, you should see all the differences as tracked changes. Some tuning might be required (e.g. if the formatting changed somewhat), but the options are rather transparent. If you like to discuss it more, just send me an email...
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