| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Italian --> English Translation Rates Thread poster: Becky Green
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Maija Cirule 
Latvia
Local time: 23:01
German to English
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May I offer you some advice: if I were you, I would convert my CV to PDF and encrypt the file, just in case.
| | | | | Let's be real | Apr 16, 2015 |
Rita Pang wrote:
This has obviously been said before, but pricing also depends on the market and language pair. I don't work with Italian, but for English into Chinese for example people will be pretty happy to be paid 3 or 4 euro cents a word. I get to charge more since I primarily translate into English; competition-wise, there's a bit less people out there to compete against.
I started out in the trade purely by accident. I didn't know ANYONE who work with my language pair and when starting out it was not easy to gauge how much is considered a "fair" market rate. I was paid peanuts for my first job, but it was a rate I gladly accepted. Why, you ask? It was an opportunity for me to understand better how I should sell my services, and what "fair rate" means to me. It also helped me get my foot in the door with a pretty big agency, which led to more work. Eventually, I left that agency and moved on to work for higher rates.
The way I see it, it's not necessarily a bad thing to work for a certain lower rate. You are learning something (likely) new, you still get paid for your work (albeit less), and you're building up your track record. The key is to know how and when to raise the price when the time comes, and when you feel ready for it, go ahead and negotiate with your clients. For one of my long-term clients, I raise my rate annually.
Looks like there are hundreds of thousands of people working for very low rates. I guess they're all learning something new, still getting paid (a pittance) and building up their track record. And, I might add, hoping for the best. Good luck! When you're ready to work for those higher rates, I am sure people will just flock to you. Sorry to be sarcastic but I would never recommend to a newcomer to work for inadequate rates like the ones mentioned by Becky, just to be clear. Professional work needs to be paid adequately, otherwise it's a waste of your good time and your brain, and your skills, and your education, and .....
Why should you let those people (mostly agencies) profit from you as a newcomer (I am talking to newcomers!) when those people don't give a hoot about what your future plans are? They're just looking to make as much money off you as possible. Let's be real!
[Edited at 2015-04-16 15:04 GMT]
| | | | Rita Pang
Canada
Local time: 16:01
Member (2011)
Chinese to English
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Moderator of this forum | I think it's important to note.... | Apr 17, 2015 |
Bernhard Sulzer wrote:
Looks like there are hundreds of thousands of people working for very low rates. I guess they're all learning something new, still getting paid (a pittance) and building up their track record. And, I might add, hoping for the best. Good luck! When you're ready to work for those higher rates, I am sure people will just flock to you. Sorry to be sarcastic but I would never recommend to a newcomer to work for inadequate rates like the ones mentioned by Becky, just to be clear. Professional work needs to be paid adequately, otherwise it's a waste of your good time and your brain, and your skills, and your education, and .....
Why should you let those people (mostly agencies) profit from you as a newcomer (I am talking to newcomers!) when those people don't give a hoot about what your future plans are? They're just looking to make as much money off you as possible. Let's be real!
[Edited at 2015-04-16 15:04 GMT]
that from the very beginning I have mentioned that what I've seen is from a different language pair. Posts in the Chinese forum constantly remind fellow CHEN translators to not work for pennies, but reality in that particular market is that you can't expect to be paid a lot if you're a green horn. Unless you are equipped to work with certified documents or can notarize work, you won't ever get any work in this language pair at a decent rate when you are first starting out, unless you are super specialized in a technical field. That's the Chinese market's reality. It's a terrible reality, don't get me wrong, and often people shouldn't even be claiming that they can translate from English to Chinese, but hey, that's another discussion altogether.
Recommend a newcomer to work for peanuts? That's a bit harsh. I obviously don't work with Italian but just sharing my thoughts on what I've observed in a different market reality. Perhaps it's not as relevant in comparison to other people's thoughts and advice, but I am simply offering a different view on this, that's all. No one here is to recommend other people to work for nothing.
| | | | Becky Green
United States
Local time: 16:01
Italian to English
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks, Tom! This is great.
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Becky Green
United States
Local time: 16:01
Italian to English
TOPIC STARTER
Maija Cirule wrote:
May I offer you some advice: if I were you, I would convert my CV to PDF and encrypt the file, just in case.
Thanks for the head's up!
| | | | Becky Green
United States
Local time: 16:01
Italian to English
TOPIC STARTER | Great insights. | Apr 17, 2015 |
Thanks to everyone for their responses. It's been interesting to see different insights regarding various language pairs as well!
| | | | Jeff Whittaker
United States
Local time: 16:01
Member (2002)
Spanish to English
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| Don't think for one second that they have... | Apr 20, 2015 |
...any problems paying you .04 a word and selling your translation to the client for 0.25 or even .30 a word.
[Edited at 2015-04-20 17:12 GMT]
| | | | Becky Green
United States
Local time: 16:01
Italian to English
TOPIC STARTER
Jeff Whittaker wrote:
...any problems paying you .04 a word and selling your translation to the client for 0.25 or even .30 a word.
[Edited at 2015-04-20 17:12 GMT]
Thanks for the head's up, Jeff!
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| Rates aren't great | Apr 23, 2015 |
Generally my minimum from Italian is EUR 0.08, dating back to the mid noughties and never updated (there even some older exceptions, locked like insects in amber for over a decade at EUR 0.07). I get offered much too much much work at those rates rate and turn most of it down. I offer no upfront discounts based on CAT assessments for repetition.
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