| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Would you complete a less-than-one-minute survey about résumés? :) Thread poster: Juan Manuel Macarlupu Peña
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Tim Drayton 
Cyprus
Local time: 14:45
Turkish to English
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| source or target? | Apr 5, 2013 |
There are language pairs in which source and target word rates vary greatly (such as translating from an agglutinating language like Turkish into an isolating language like English, where the rate of expansion exceeds 50%). Unless you specify whether the rate is per source or target word, the question about rates is pretty meaningless.
Also, I think the premise that if one translator charges rate X per word in one language, and another translator also charges the same rate X in anot... See more There are language pairs in which source and target word rates vary greatly (such as translating from an agglutinating language like Turkish into an isolating language like English, where the rate of expansion exceeds 50%). Unless you specify whether the rate is per source or target word, the question about rates is pretty meaningless.
Also, I think the premise that if one translator charges rate X per word in one language, and another translator also charges the same rate X in another language, they are charging the same rate, is questionable. One thousand words of French is very different from one thousand words of Turkish, the latter language having much longer words in which concepts expressed by separate words in isolating languages are instead expressed by adding a string of suffixes to the end of the word. Compare 'On my desk' (English), 'auf meinem Schreibtisch' (German), 'sur mon pupitre' (French) - all three words - with 'masamda' (one word in Turkish) where 'masa' means 'desk or table', '-m' means 'my' and '-da' means on. Does translating the latter really involve one third of the work, as your hypothesis would imply? ▲ Collapse
| | | | laure claesen
France
Local time: 13:45
Member (2005)
English to French
| Did it too... | Apr 5, 2013 |
To be honest, there has not been many opportunities to send CVs for me in the last few months. Which was kind of a relief because updating my CVs are kind of a chore.
Either I was too busy or there aren't many requests from agencies looking for new freelancers...
The offer seems to be dwindling down.
Don't you think so? But that's another story I suppose
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Yeah, it's a quite interesting survey, exhibiting some points that we should note while preparing our resumes.
| | | | Shai Navé
Israel
Local time: 14:45
English to Hebrew
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| Sheila is absolutley right. B2B services and seeking employment are two different worlds | Apr 7, 2013 |
Sheila Wilson wrote:
These are, or in some cases were, relevant for CVs in various cultures. But only for job-seekers CVs. I'm assuming that the OP is principally looking at freelancers' CVs, seeing as he asks for our rates per word. I don't believe these items have ever been valid for freelancers anywhere in the world who work from home,...
I couldn't agree more, and would even add that where you work from is irrelevant, may it be from home, a home office, an office, the field or a combination of those, one is a business owner and a service provider.
We provide B2B services, we are not, except for the case of interviewing for an in-house job, seeking employment. As the common example that many like to give goes, do you ask your lawyer/CPA/Doctor/etc. for their CV?
There is a lot of confusion in the translation marketplace. Too many fail to grasp the fact that they are in fact business owners and not a temporary workforce for hire. Many of the agencies and resellers/brokers/intermediates fail to understand that too. Some because they live in the corporate world and don't know any better, and some by design to take advantage of that freelancers' business naiveness. The result is that a lot of the terminology and practices from the employment world (some are even questionable there) found their way into our B2B environment.
In my opinion a self-employed translator should not use the terms CV/Resume nor provide that kind of document (and certainly not references or any other type of information about his/hers business activity, including rates). A self-employed translator should have a business profile (some may even call it a brochure) presenting one's services, experience and, in some cases, value. This information could be customized to serve certain purposes and to address different types of clients, but the basic structure and information remains the same.
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| Thanks everyone!!! | Apr 7, 2013 |
Your comments here (apart from your answers on the survey) are very useful. Let's see: As regards the cultural differences, I appreciate your remarks, one cannot always be aware of the different realities in SO MANY different countries. As regards the rates, I didn't receive many answers for the "above 0.13" option so far, but of course that is highly conditioned by the language pair, I will make sure to add higher options.
... See more Your comments here (apart from your answers on the survey) are very useful. Let's see: As regards the cultural differences, I appreciate your remarks, one cannot always be aware of the different realities in SO MANY different countries. As regards the rates, I didn't receive many answers for the "above 0.13" option so far, but of course that is highly conditioned by the language pair, I will make sure to add higher options.
I understand that some fields may be culture-bound, and inclusion on those on the CV may depend on the translators country of origin or residence. However, as I am researching the freelancer market, which tends to be globalized, I would like to find out which are the standard fields that are expected (and the ones that are not) in the international market of translations, with clients and agencies from all over the world, and without regard of where the translator works from. After all, if clients perceive a particular piece of information to be irrelevant, they are not likely to stop to consider whether that is customary for the particular country of the translator (especially y they work with many different countries and language pairs, and with the regular time pressures of our business).
I expect to include this information as part of a paper I am writing (unfortunately, for some of you, in Spanish) on how to prepare a good CV. However I can share with you the results of the survey in English, and we’ll see if there are such CV-fields/rates correlations.
Again, thanks for all your comments and thoughts!!!
Regards, ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Sharing results | May 1, 2013 |
Hi everyone!
As I promised, I am coming back with some results. Although I mentioned that my work was being written in Spanish I wanted to share with you a brief summary of my findings on this issue. I received answers from almost 150 linguists working on some 30 language pairs. I conducted this survey in order to establish whether there is a correlation between the fields, format and organization of the CV and the rates the translator usually charges. In order to establish this correlatio... See more Hi everyone!
As I promised, I am coming back with some results. Although I mentioned that my work was being written in Spanish I wanted to share with you a brief summary of my findings on this issue. I received answers from almost 150 linguists working on some 30 language pairs. I conducted this survey in order to establish whether there is a correlation between the fields, format and organization of the CV and the rates the translator usually charges. In order to establish this correlation, I grouped answer according to the language pairs, so that the rates could be compared fairly. Although a great number of tendencies were found in each language pair, the same tendency seemed to be true for a pair but false for another. As I was trying to establish general principles that would be true for most translators regardless of the language pair they work on, I only concentrated on those tendencies that were true in and applicable to more than half of the pairs studied. And they were the following:
a) Linguists who use PDF format for their CVS charge on average 11% more than their colleagues who use Word. (Only one answer was received for a format other than Word or PDF so it couldn't be compared).
b) Linguists who specify their specialty fields, charge on average 30% more for their services than those who don't.
c) Linguists who avoid mentioning their hobbies make 14% more than those who mention them.
It is important to mention that I do not intend to suggest that making those changes will directly lead to an increase in your rates, since they are under your sole control, but it is always good to identify the behavior of those who charge more for their services.
Thanks everyone for your help and if someday I have the time to translate the whole article I would love to share it with you.
Warm regards,
Juan M. ▲ Collapse
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