How fast can you create a glossary Thread poster: Ines Burrell
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Ines Burrell 
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:29
Member (2004)
English to Latvian
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Dear colleagues,
First of all - apologies, if this is not the right forum. I could not think where else to post it. Feel free to relocate it to the right place.
I have been asked to make a glossary of technical, industry specific terms. I am supplied with a list of terms in English and a TM. The deadline and the fee offered where totally unrealistic and I informed the client about it. There are 1600 terms, and having populated the largest part of the TM myself I know th... See more Dear colleagues,
First of all - apologies, if this is not the right forum. I could not think where else to post it. Feel free to relocate it to the right place.
I have been asked to make a glossary of technical, industry specific terms. I am supplied with a list of terms in English and a TM. The deadline and the fee offered where totally unrealistic and I informed the client about it. There are 1600 terms, and having populated the largest part of the TM myself I know that most of the terms are not there. Although the subject is very well known to me, these are really specific terms.
The client offered 50 pounds (yes, I am not making this up) and gave me one working day. Obviously I said it was not possible and gave my own estimate. I calculated that if I was a superwoman, I could fill an entry per minute and it would take me roughly 27 hours. Unfortunately I do not possess super powers even though I am very fast. Simple entries could indeed take a minute (but I still have to check each of them, right?), whereas more complex - 5 minutes, sometimes 10. If I am extremely optimistic I would think it would take on average 3-4 minutes per term. In which case we are talking of 80 hours +. I bet the client is not going to like that since I do not exactly charge a tenner an hour so in all honestly I do not think I will get the job (or rather will not take it as they will not want to pay the real price for it), but I would still like to know, if I am being realistic here. Is it possible to populate this glossary much faster? Or am I overly optimistic in my time estimation?
Does anybody have any experience making glossaries for a client and what was your speed? Any other considerations to offer?
Ines ▲ Collapse
| | | | Edward Vreeburg
Netherlands
Local time: 15:29
Member (2008)
English to Dutch
+ ...
| hmmm superspeed vs client expectation | Apr 21, 2010 |
OK the client is willing to spend a whole 50 pounds on this for 1600 terms...!
and they need it fast...
That sounds like a job for clickworker or humangrid or some kind of free / low fee crowd sourcing.
Realistically you are never going to agree on the difference of 50 vs (27 x 30-50), so just gently direct them towards that kind of solution and see if they like the results..
(you can offer to proofread 5 terms for free when it comes back)
No ne... See more OK the client is willing to spend a whole 50 pounds on this for 1600 terms...!
and they need it fast...
That sounds like a job for clickworker or humangrid or some kind of free / low fee crowd sourcing.
Realistically you are never going to agree on the difference of 50 vs (27 x 30-50), so just gently direct them towards that kind of solution and see if they like the results..
(you can offer to proofread 5 terms for free when it comes back)
No need to waste much time on this I suppose - where is your profit margin, if you spend an hour looking for a solution for this client???
Ed ▲ Collapse
| | | | | How fast can you create a glossary | Apr 21, 2010 |
Burrell wrote:
Dear colleagues,
First of all - apologies, if this is not the right forum. I could not think where else to post it. Feel free to relocate it to the right place.
I have been asked to make a glossary of technical, industry specific terms. I am supplied with a list of terms in English and a TM. The deadline and the fee offered where totally unrealistic and I informed the client about it. There are 1600 terms, and having populated the largest part of the TM myself I know that most of the terms are not there. Although the subject is very well known to me, these are really specific terms.
The client offered 50 pounds (yes, I am not making this up) and gave me one working day. Obviously I said it was not possible and gave my own estimate. I calculated that if I was a superwoman, I could fill an entry per minute and it would take me roughly 27 hours. Unfortunately I do not possess super powers even though I am very fast. Simple entries could indeed take a minute (but I still have to check each of them, right?), whereas more complex - 5 minutes, sometimes 10. If I am extremely optimistic I would think it would take on average 3-4 minutes per term. In which case we are talking of 80 hours +. I bet the client is not going to like that since I do not exactly charge a tenner an hour so in all honestly I do not think I will get the job (or rather will not take it as they will not want to pay the real price for it), but I would still like to know, if I am being realistic here. Is it possible to populate this glossary much faster? Or am I overly optimistic in my time estimation?
Does anybody have any experience making glossaries for a client and what was your speed? Any other considerations to offer?
Ines
As Edward has already said: Do not waste your time with this. To this price, this is just to do a copy and paste from some already created public avalaible internet technical glossaries, filter duplicates with Excel and go.
[Editado a las 2010-04-21 10:11 GMT]
| | | | | Tell your client the truth | Apr 21, 2010 |
Since a technical glossary is for reference purposes it is only of any use if it is put together properly. Tell the client the truth, that it will take approximately 80 hours, and that you would require proper payment for that amount of time. You won't get the job, but at least your client might learn to be more realistic.
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| And what is exactly the problem? | Apr 21, 2010 |
a. You don;t like the price and you are not afraid to send them far away
b. You don't like the price but you are afraid to send them far away
c. You don't like the price but you are afraid to make a counteroffer
d. You don't like the price but...
??
==
edited - corrected errors
[Edited at 2010-04-21 12:38 GMT]
| | | | Ines Burrell
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:29
Member (2004)
English to Latvian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Right to the point Sergei | Apr 21, 2010 |
Sergei Tumanov wrote:
a. You don;t like the price and you don't afraid to send them far away
b. You don't like the price but you afraid to send them far away
c. You don't like the price but you afraid to make a counteroffer
d. You don't like the price but...
??
I do not like the price (and deadline obviously) and I have told the client this already. I have also told them my hourly fee and rough calculations (the unrealistic and realistic) of the time it would take. Basically I would like to know, if my calculations are right as I have not made a glossary before (that is, I have made my own, obviously, term by term, slowly, whenever I feel like it).
This is a multilingual on-going project and judging by the stunned silence from the client they have just realised what they have got themselves into - they probably just accepted this from the end client without thinking or checking, sent this job off to 20 something translators (representing 20 something languages) and now are getting the polite refusals. And they just have to get the thing done for a much larger project in a month time. Chances are they will come back saying that I am grossly exagerating the time needed for this and they are sure it can be done in, let's say, 10 hours max. and they are willing in this case only to pay me, let's say, 300 pounds as a gesture of good will. In which case I could politely redirect them to this forum and point out that it cannot be done in 10 hours.
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stick to my guns, if I were you.
I see here a very nice example of a 'translator's market' situation.
[Edited at 2010-04-21 12:51 GMT]
| | | | | At the very least, 3 days of work | Apr 21, 2010 |
I have done similarly-sized glossaries in the past with a minority of terms in the memory (which I had populared as well) and a very familiar topic. A glossary this size has taken me some 3 days of work, adding all the different moments spent.
This means about 1 entry per minute, which is not a lot I know, but is the average with entries that take 2 seconds because you know the right term by heart and entries that take 10, 15, 30 or more minutes to research.
This is qui... See more I have done similarly-sized glossaries in the past with a minority of terms in the memory (which I had populared as well) and a very familiar topic. A glossary this size has taken me some 3 days of work, adding all the different moments spent.
This means about 1 entry per minute, which is not a lot I know, but is the average with entries that take 2 seconds because you know the right term by heart and entries that take 10, 15, 30 or more minutes to research.
This is quite simple in my opinion: you would charge whatever you feel is right for this job, and if the customer does not want to pay that amount, you can easily encourage them to look for someone who is willing to accept their conditions. Let them come back to you within the next month to pay whatever you requested because another person has made a true mess of the job and has put them in "an inconvenient semantic field" with their customers. They will pay the other person and then you, but if this is what they want... let them have it!
[Edited at 2010-04-21 13:15 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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| How do they even justify 50 pounds? | Apr 21, 2010 |
It would cost at least 100 pounds just to translate 1,500 words, and established translators would probably charge 200+ pounds. 50 pounds is a joke.
At any rate (pun intended), I won't have work forced on me, especially at ludicrous fees like this one. You shouldn't either.
Time for some client education.
[Edited at 2010-04-21 13:37 GMT]
| | | | Ines Burrell
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:29
Member (2004)
English to Latvian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | The size has shrunk | Apr 21, 2010 |
Mikhail Kropotov wrote:
It would cost at least 100 pounds just to translate 1,500 words, and established translators would probably charge 200+ pounds. 50 pounds is a joke.
There are entries with a lot more than just one word
Anyhow, the client has come back with a new source glossary - just 280 entries. It seems the shock has worn off.. It is still going to cost them a lot more than 50 pounds but at least not a couple of K.
[Edited at 2010-04-21 15:52 GMT]
| | | | | Regarding speed | Apr 21, 2010 |
The last time I was asked to translate a glossary, I charged 1,5 hours for about 80 terms (no TM was provided). That was probably fast, but I'm not really sure because I don't do it all that often.
Another time I was asked to create a glossary from scratch, adding any relevant terms I could think of @ .15 EUR/term. I decided it wasn't really worth my time.
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