| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | Absurd Pricing Thread poster: riceyboy
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riceyboy
Local time: 14:29
Japanese to English
Hello Proz People!
I have a question about pricing. I am giving a quote to a potential client for a transcription and translation of a documentary. I've never done a foreign language transcription before (I've done plenty in my English, though). This client has 10 hours of footage (only 3 need to be properly transcribed). That is... a lot, to say the least.
I've been reading all of the details on per word rates, and transcription rates, etc... but based on everything I... See more Hello Proz People!
I have a question about pricing. I am giving a quote to a potential client for a transcription and translation of a documentary. I've never done a foreign language transcription before (I've done plenty in my English, though). This client has 10 hours of footage (only 3 need to be properly transcribed). That is... a lot, to say the least.
I've been reading all of the details on per word rates, and transcription rates, etc... but based on everything I've read, it basically sounds like it's going to cost him an arm and a leg to get this done. And before I send any quote out, I want to know how ridiculous these prices sound...
Here is what I have written in my draft, and this is all based on the audio sample he sent me: "It will take about 5 hours per hour of audio to transcribe the Japanese, so 15 hours at $30/hr is $450. I'm doing it first in Japanese so I can get the proper times. Then, I will translate it. The interviewee spoke about 400 Japanese characters in a minute (but there's also a lot of downtime, so I'd average it at 300 a minute). That's 18000 character/hr, and thus 54,000 character in 3 hours. The rate would be $.08/character which is $4320. So, total $4770 for the interview."
All that is going through my head is "who is going to spend almost 5000 dollars for a translation of some audio?" Is this insane? That's just 3 hours of the total 10. I also wonder how to price the rest of it, being that it's SO much. I read that the transcription and the translation should be separate charges, btw.
I really have no interest in destroying someone's bank account and thus losing a customer, so I want to know what is reasonable... The transcription is $450 and the translation is over $4000. That sounds crazy to me! What am I doing wrong?
Thanks in advance for all of your help! ▲ Collapse
| | | | TvNellen (X)
United States
Local time: 13:29
English to Dutch
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| Don't underprice yourself | Sep 27, 2010 |
You have a university degree and you charge $30 per hour. That is not much. Do you know how much a lawyer charges per hour? Do you know how much a PLUMBER charges per hour? You translate from Japanese, one of the most expensive languages, and rightly so. $0.08 per character, is that kanji? That should be roughly equivalent to $0.08 per word for other languages. Again, not much at all.
It's a lot of work, so of course it will cost a l... See more You have a university degree and you charge $30 per hour. That is not much. Do you know how much a lawyer charges per hour? Do you know how much a PLUMBER charges per hour? You translate from Japanese, one of the most expensive languages, and rightly so. $0.08 per character, is that kanji? That should be roughly equivalent to $0.08 per word for other languages. Again, not much at all.
It's a lot of work, so of course it will cost a lot of money! In our business, volume discounts do not make much sense, so don't offer them. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Edward Vreeburg 
Netherlands
Local time: 20:29
Member (2008)
English to Dutch
+ ...
| dont know about talking speed vs number of words... | Sep 27, 2010 |
... but if the customer already has a script of the questions, that will speed things up...
And if he has 2 hours of television and sells it to an important network, the 5000 is pocket money...
Why would you sell yourself short, just to keep / get a client, because the amount is large? If you spend the time, you need to get paid - we don't work for free !
===
Ed
| | | | Ines Burrell
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:29
Member (2004)
English to Latvian
+ ...
| Not much wrong really | Sep 27, 2010 |
It is just a very expensive thing to do. I think your maths are roughly right (not for the transcript, the basic rate seems to be USD 3 per audio minute) because I just did a 100 minute transcript and a translation and was paid a bit less than half of the amount you have come up with and that was plain English.
Wheather or not your client has any idea how many words people tend to speak per minute, that's another matter. I ended up with 18k words. I guess nobody expected that, not ... See more It is just a very expensive thing to do. I think your maths are roughly right (not for the transcript, the basic rate seems to be USD 3 per audio minute) because I just did a 100 minute transcript and a translation and was paid a bit less than half of the amount you have come up with and that was plain English.
Wheather or not your client has any idea how many words people tend to speak per minute, that's another matter. I ended up with 18k words. I guess nobody expected that, not even I.
I would tell the client what I would charge per audio minute and a character or word and give him a roughly estimated word count. He can choose to order a translation of a smaller portion.
As to the other 7 hours - you can charge by hour. The client can either tell you to spend x number or hours on it or tell you what parts to translate.
Either way it is going to cost him a small fortune. The job is actually time consuming, you spend a lot of time checkign simple words over and over again. Reducing rates does not really make much sense.
Good luck, if you can, let us know how your client reacted.
Cheers,
Ines ▲ Collapse
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Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 20:29
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
| Don't know about Japanese characters.. | Sep 27, 2010 |
but could it be that you should have multiplied the $ 0.08 rate with words, not with characters ( $0.08 x word)... maybe it works a different way in the Japanese language. Try this and see what amount you get. I understand this may be a small rate for your language pair, but I'm also sure there are people out there who work for it.
If this client is an agency/intermediary, and not the direct client, I doubt they will pay you almost 5k for that work.
| | | | JPW (X)
Local time: 19:29
Spanish to English
+ ...
| Quote or estimate? | Sep 27, 2010 |
I would give an estimate, which can be revised up or down, i.e. it may be turn out in your or your client's favour, to a certain degree.
If you give a quote (let's say the maths was wrongly worked out) and the client accepts, you'll be bound to that price.
There's nothing wrong per se with what you propose to write to the client, just make sure he, she or it knows that what you have supplied is your best estimate based ... See more I would give an estimate, which can be revised up or down, i.e. it may be turn out in your or your client's favour, to a certain degree.
If you give a quote (let's say the maths was wrongly worked out) and the client accepts, you'll be bound to that price.
There's nothing wrong per se with what you propose to write to the client, just make sure he, she or it knows that what you have supplied is your best estimate based on the info at hand. ▲ Collapse
| | | | mediamatrix (X)
Local time: 14:29
Spanish to English
+ ...
Edward Vreeburg wrote (with my emphasis):
... if he has 2 hours of television and sells it to an important network, the (USD) 5000 is pocket money...
I suggest you send a 'negotiable quote' for USD 10,000 and see what happens.
MediaMatrix
| | | | | A few comments | Sep 28, 2010 |
$30/hour is a very low rate - you live in the US, right?
$0.08/source character for translation is a good rate - for those not knowing the difference between rates based on source Japanese characters vs. target English words, a good ballpark estimation is using a 2.5 multiplier. In other words, $0.08 per source character corresponds to roughly $0.20 per target English word. That is not a cheap rate, it is within the rate-range of a good, experienced professional producing quality wo... See more $30/hour is a very low rate - you live in the US, right?
$0.08/source character for translation is a good rate - for those not knowing the difference between rates based on source Japanese characters vs. target English words, a good ballpark estimation is using a 2.5 multiplier. In other words, $0.08 per source character corresponds to roughly $0.20 per target English word. That is not a cheap rate, it is within the rate-range of a good, experienced professional producing quality work.
Going back to the hourly rate, calculating with 250 words translated per hour (which is quite average, or on the low side for an experienced translator), 250X$0.20 would immediately result in $50. It does not match with the $30/hour rate. Think about it.
Transcribing the Japanese text may be best left to a Japanese native - that way it may be much faster and more accurate. (You could recommend a colleague to your client for that, or maybe you can outsource it - but be aware of all the issues of outsourcing.)
Unfortunately I cannot comment with confidence on the amount of Japanese audio that can be transcribed in an hour - I know I would not do it at all, as I would not be productive enough, compared to a native.
As to the estimated total price of the project, yes, it is expensive, but it is a large project! 3 hours of documentary is a lot of text. As other said, producing such films is not cheap either, your project is probably a very small chunk.
54000 characters translated will end up around 22000 words (+-3000), that is almost a 100 pages. In other words, about 100 hours of work, just for the translation. You do the math. (But not with $30 per hour rate.)
All that said, if you have never done such work, wouldn't it be safer to try and start with a smaller size project? That way you could experience the possible pitfalls with a lot less risk.
Katalin ▲ Collapse
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Evans (X)
Local time: 19:29
Spanish to English
+ ...
| transcription by native speaker | Sep 28, 2010 |
I fully endorse Katalin's comment about the transcription being best done by a native speaker.
I have set up this type of collaboration when I worked within an agency and we always found transcribing was quicker, easier and more accurate when done by a native speaker of the source language, and the translation was then handled by a native speaker of the target language.
So it might be an idea to reconsider how you approach this job.
| | | | NMR (X)
France
Local time: 20:29
French to Dutch
+ ...
| Documentaries | Sep 28, 2010 |
Lots of documentary films are VERY slow. Maybe there is not much text, I suggest you to have a look at the original audio files before quoting. Just take five or ten minutes and look how many words there are, then multiply.
| | | | Parrot
Spain
Local time: 20:29
Spanish to English
+ ...
| Propose to maximize capabilities | Sep 28, 2010 |
A native Japanese speaker wouldn't take as much time and, I daresay, could do transcription more accurately (in my experience, tried and tested). That said, translation could be based on the transcript. Burrell's probably right about 3/4 USD/minute (based on subtitling, which in my part of the world has a going rate of 6/7.5 EU/minute). However, there's a lot of difference in what can go into a documentary, a movie or a newscast (the most word-intensive type of clip, at around 750 words/minute -... See more A native Japanese speaker wouldn't take as much time and, I daresay, could do transcription more accurately (in my experience, tried and tested). That said, translation could be based on the transcript. Burrell's probably right about 3/4 USD/minute (based on subtitling, which in my part of the world has a going rate of 6/7.5 EU/minute). However, there's a lot of difference in what can go into a documentary, a movie or a newscast (the most word-intensive type of clip, at around 750 words/minute -- i.e., there is sufficient justification for raising rates on newscasts).
Good luck! ▲ Collapse
| | | | Elizabeth Adams
United States
Local time: 11:29
Member (2002)
Russian to English
| I don't know anything about Japanese rates, | Sep 28, 2010 |
...but your final number seems to be in the ballpark. And there are plenty of reasons why the client may be quite happy to spend $5,000 to get the work done.
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riceyboy
Local time: 14:29
Japanese to English
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks everyone for the responses! You all have been very helpful! The thing with this project is that this guy contacted me directly (based off of a Craigs List ad for translations I posted 2 months ago). We've been talking for quite some time, but he's been consistently asking me for references, information, etc... Just this past week, he sent me the audio samples and asked for an estimate.
It's not exactly the ideal first transcription/translation project, but it also isn't the f... See more Thanks everyone for the responses! You all have been very helpful! The thing with this project is that this guy contacted me directly (based off of a Craigs List ad for translations I posted 2 months ago). We've been talking for quite some time, but he's been consistently asking me for references, information, etc... Just this past week, he sent me the audio samples and asked for an estimate.
It's not exactly the ideal first transcription/translation project, but it also isn't the first time I've been thrown into the deep end of something new! I'll definitely consider outsourcing the transcription, although I've found with the excellent audio software I've found (Express Scribe) that it's significantly more doable than I thought. If anyone has any recommendations of good places for transcriptions, let me know!
I'll be sure to keep you posted with his reaction to the pricing. Unfortunately I sent the e-mail out BEFORE I got the info about the per hour rate being low, but we'll see what happens. I'm not used to being paid that much!
Thanks, again~ Here's hoping!
P.S. I do live in the USA . ▲ Collapse
| | | | | This is a public forum, be careful | Sep 28, 2010 |
Anybody can read what you write here, including this:
I'm not used to being paid that much!
You are opening yourself up to exploitation, my friend.
Katalin
| | | | David Fleming
Local time: 13:29
Member (2023)
Japanese to English
| Should calculate based on time, not word count | Oct 27, 2010 |
riceyboy wrote:
Hello Proz People!
I have a question about pricing. I am giving a quote to a potential client for a transcription and translation of a documentary. I've never done a foreign language transcription before (I've done plenty in my English, though). This client has 10 hours of footage (only 3 need to be properly transcribed). That is... a lot, to say the least.
All that is going through my head is "who is going to spend almost 5000 dollars for a translation of some audio?" Is this insane? That's just 3 hours of the total 10. I also wonder how to price the rest of it, being that it's SO much. I read that the transcription and the translation should be separate charges, btw.
I really have no interest in destroying someone's bank account and thus losing a customer, so I want to know what is reasonable... The transcription is $450 and the translation is over $4000. That sounds crazy to me! What am I doing wrong?
The problem here is that you're doing video work but trying to use a text-based rate. 95% of the work I do is video (movies, TV shows, etc.), for which I charge X dollars per minute of run time. That's strictly for the translation. Spotting (setting the on/off timecodes for subtitles) is a separate fee, also based on dollars per minute. I typically charge a little extra if there's no recording script provided, which is basically the situation you're in. Then there's a fee for rendering out DVD/Blu-Ray/film subtitles if the client needs them. So yeah, I could see around $4700 for translation/timing/rendering for 180 mintutes of material that I also had to do by ear. And remember, transcription is a mechanical process - translation is an art. It's only natural that you would earn more for the translation portion.
Plus, translating documentaries is always harder, given that people are speaking naturally, often mumbling and with bad audio quality. It gives your listening comprehension abilities a real workout.
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