Rates for single-stage transcription services Thread poster: Noelia Hubert
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Hi everyone,
I've received a couple of requests from some LSPs to provide single-stage transcription services, which I wasn't familiar with.
Basically, it involves translating audio or video content directly into another language in the written form (I'm guessing that to cut costs).
Does anyone know what the standard rates are for this type of service?
Thank you very much for your help.
Noelia
| | | | | | Barbara Carrara 
Italy
Local time: 09:04
Member (2008)
English to Italian
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| Calling a spade a spade | Jul 25, 2022 |
Agree with Teresa and what's been written in the linked thread.
Noelia,
Using a ludicrous moniker like 'single-stage transcription' (are your contacts from the US, by any chance?), is just another way to fool you into believing that it is perfectly all right to complete what's in fact a 'two-stage assignment, including a) monolingual transcription and b) translation into your native language'. Fee-wise, I bet that would be calculated on the latter only and maybe with a prior flat-rate agreement as the cherry on the cake, which would no doubt turn out to be a nightmare, time- and ultimately money-wise.
And once you'll realise that you would be working your socks off for a pittance, there is no way you will be in a position to renegotiate a very - very - bad deal.
Just think about it - would you call that a service (from your potential agency client's perspective), or a disservice (from your own perspective)?
Hardly a hard call, wouldn't you say?
| | | | | Welcome (back) to proz.com, Noelia :) | Jul 25, 2022 |
Have you tried the "single-stage transcription" yet? What do you think of the results?
I work as both an interpreter and a translator. Like everyone before me said, what they're asking you to do isn't a legitimate service to ask for or offer. Interpreting is in every way different to translation. The very aim isn't to produce a good translation but to convey the meaning accurately enough to provide good communication between the audience who will listen to the target and the speaker... See more Have you tried the "single-stage transcription" yet? What do you think of the results?
I work as both an interpreter and a translator. Like everyone before me said, what they're asking you to do isn't a legitimate service to ask for or offer. Interpreting is in every way different to translation. The very aim isn't to produce a good translation but to convey the meaning accurately enough to provide good communication between the audience who will listen to the target and the speaker who is speaking in the source language. Translation is all about nuance and taking the time to perfect the text and interpretation is about honing a skill to very quickly convey the gist of what is being said, as accurately as possible, so the communication is flawless.
If you attempt to write interpretation down you will get something that isn't an accurate transcript or an accurate translation.
What needs to be done is to transcribe the videos and then translate the transcript. Transcription does not require as many skills as translation and can be done by anyone who speaks the language of the video content well enough with basic grammar skills, so it's usually paid much less than translation. For this reason, what people I work with do is provide the transcripts and pay my translation rate. For best results I also get the videos but I watch them once at 1.25-1.5 or even 1.75 speed to make sure I understand the context properly.
I've no idea how much I would be able to get, given the fact that any secondary school pupil or university student native can do a great job transcribing, but I would not transcribe anything for less than my per hour editing rate. So, the hours I've spent transcribing times my per hour editing rate. Then I would translate the transcript applying my usual translation rate.
If for some reason I cannot imagine right now, they still want you to simply write down your interpretation of the video content, you should charge them per interpretation hour. My interpretation hour is 60 GBP and I would call myself a budget interpreter since people who only do interpretation, and therefore are far more experienced at it than I am, charge 100-150 an hour. You can find the details by looking for interpreters on proz.com
What you should do is ignore that agency, but if you still want to try and work for them they need to pay either per interpretation hour (you write down the gist of the videos content), or per editing hour + your normal translation rate (you produce a proper translation).
There are still many great translation agencies out there that are worth collaborating with and then there are also people whose emails is best to just ignore. Please do not sell yourself short thinking that every agency will be as bad as the lower end ones. ▲ Collapse
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| Thank you everyone for clearing my doubts. 😊 | Jul 27, 2022 |
I thought the whole idea behind this was a bit dodgy, but I wanted to give the recruiter the benefit of the doubt. (My bad!)
Thank you everyone for your comments.
Take care. 😊
Noelia
| | | | | No worries, darling | Jul 27, 2022 |
Noelia Hubert wrote:
I thought the whole idea behind this was a bit dodgy, but I wanted to give the recruiter the benefit of the doubt. (My bad!)
Thank you everyone for your comments.
Take care. 😊
Noelia
No harm in having an open mind. There's even no reason not to give them exactly the service they want, if they pay you well. So, you can always use lower-end agencies to practice your negotiation skills. You ask for a good rate knowing that if they say no, you didn't lose much as they aren't the best agency anyway or at least cannot afford you, and if they say yes, you've got yourself some paid work.
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Noelia Hubert wrote:
Thank you everyone for your comments.
Take care. 😊
Noelia
Thank you for taking the time to thank us! There are so many posters here who start a thread asking for help and then vanish into thin air after getting what they wanted that I must congratulate you for taking the time to thank us.
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