22 The Linguist Vol/56 No/6 2017
www.ciol.org.uk
FEATURES
How to make a decent living from low rates. Michelle Deeter enters
the controversial market of quick 'overview'-style translations
I
work from Chinese into English and find
that my per-word rate is always being
pushed down. It's a race to the bottom,
especially when there are so many people
who can provide a translation for a little bit
less. But rather than sit and complain to
anyone who will listen, I'm starting to calculate
my rate on a per-hour basis. I always take a
look at the job first: if it seems straightforward
I can accept a lower rate; if it looks
challenging, I try to negotiate a better rate
or I walk away from the job.
I'm the kind of person who finishes her
exam ten minutes before time is up. I enjoy
the thrill of running my pencil across the page
and doing the briefest check that I didn't miss
anything. Being able to achieve a top score in
a timed environment improved my university
options, and I am using that skill now to meet
translation deadlines. In my experience, clients
expect you to answer emails within the hour
and to start on a job as soon as you accept it.
When the client has a contract or an
important document to translate, this model
spells disaster. Haste makes waste, and not
having time to do a careful review increases
the likelihood of errors large and small. But
not all jobs are important documents.
Sometimes the client needs a general
understanding of what's going on and doesn't
need every last detail. My example is
marketing surveys. While the client wants an
accurate translation, it does not have to be
laser-accurate. The document will be used for
one purpose, and it will not be published
externally. The client wants to check whether
the customer enjoyed their ice-cream and how
aware they are of other ice-cream brands.
Missing a comma, or even skipping an entire
word, is not going to cause problems.
I get these marketing survey jobs from an
online platform that pays poorly but works
efficiently. I get a chance to look at the jobs
before accepting them and the deadline is
automatically set by the website. I like these
jobs because I can finish them in under an
hour and earn a very good hourly rate. Since
I don't have to email a project manager back
and forth, I save a lot of administrative time.
And I don't have to worry about losing clients
if I turn work down, as I know someone else
in the pool of translators will take it if I don't.
Useful techniques
Using market research surveys as an example,
I will explain some of the techniques I use
to finish snippets of text as quickly as I can.
One of the key techniques is educated
guessing. In nearly five years of doing this
type of work, I have never been given the
original questions for the surveys, so when
the respondent gives a short answer I
don't always have sufficient context to
understand. However, because I have
completed such surveys before, I can
leverage that knowledge to translate well.
Speed translating
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