Video Translation Rates 2024 (No Transcription Provided) Initiator des Themas: Wahn Acker
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Wahn Acker
Vereinigte Staaten
Local time: 15:35
Spanisch > Englisch
+ ...
Hi guys,
I’m new on Proz, and I’d really appreciate to read some of your thoughts about these types of job offers. So, basically, I was offered a couple of video translation jobs from Spanish into English for $5 USD per conversation minute, and $1.5 USD per silence minute.
Now some interesting details:
- The agency classifies this type of job as “transcription” when you’re basically translating directly from an audio/video file.
... See more Hi guys,
I’m new on Proz, and I’d really appreciate to read some of your thoughts about these types of job offers. So, basically, I was offered a couple of video translation jobs from Spanish into English for $5 USD per conversation minute, and $1.5 USD per silence minute.
Now some interesting details:
- The agency classifies this type of job as “transcription” when you’re basically translating directly from an audio/video file.
- They DO NOT provide a transcription of the source material, so you have to listen to the video/audio, and then translate it directly into the target language (English in this case), which sounds very intensive in cognitive terms.
- Subject matter: Criminal activity, and victims’ statements.
- Translations are not only verbatim. The agency also requests non-verbal information, so you have to include description of noises, gestures, and any other non-verbal piece of information.
- In the samples they sent me there are 2-4 speakers. Some of them are not native speakers of Spanish. Some of them mix Spanish with some other Romance languages. However, the videos are classified as “Spanish” files.
- The recording quality is not very good: a lot of crosstalk, loud background noises of all kinds, files recorded with a phone, etc.
I’m quite certain that $5 c/m and $1.5 s/m are low rates considering the nature and level of difficulty of the tasks, the number of speakers, the recording quality, and the absolute absence of a previously transcribed script. Now, the question is, how bad is this offer considering the industry standards? Somehow reasonable or just unacceptable? This is not the kind of translation work I usually do, so I’d like to have an idea.
Thanks a lot!
Wahn ▲ Collapse
| | | | Thayenga 
Deutschland
Local time: 20:35
Mitglied (2009)
Englisch > Deutsch
+ ...
| That's common practice | Jun 8, 2024 |
Welcome to ProZ!
The agency is trying to get two different jobs done for the price of one.
You could offer to transcribe the conversations at an hourly rate and then translate them. Unfortunately, I am almost certain that they won't accept that. You might also suggest that they have a transcript created and send it to you. If they don't agree to this logical proposal/request, then you might end up working several unpaid hours. You should ask them to take this into consi... See more Welcome to ProZ!
The agency is trying to get two different jobs done for the price of one.
You could offer to transcribe the conversations at an hourly rate and then translate them. Unfortunately, I am almost certain that they won't accept that. You might also suggest that they have a transcript created and send it to you. If they don't agree to this logical proposal/request, then you might end up working several unpaid hours. You should ask them to take this into consideration as well.
Good luck!
[Edited at 2024-06-09 06:38 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Only one way to find out | Jun 8, 2024 |
IDK the price for your langage paid, but is should be something like transcription + translation of subtitles + maybe bonus for difficult audio/video.
If the file is not super long and you don't have more pressing things to do, you can do it once just to get a feel how much you need to charge for this sorta stuff to make it worth while for you.
I make an educated guess at a price when I do something that is new to me - and sometimes yeah, you guess too low. But then ... See more IDK the price for your langage paid, but is should be something like transcription + translation of subtitles + maybe bonus for difficult audio/video.
If the file is not super long and you don't have more pressing things to do, you can do it once just to get a feel how much you need to charge for this sorta stuff to make it worth while for you.
I make an educated guess at a price when I do something that is new to me - and sometimes yeah, you guess too low. But then the next time around, I can set a price making it worth to me. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Wahn Acker
Vereinigte Staaten
Local time: 15:35
Spanisch > Englisch
+ ...
THEMENSTARTER
Hi Thayenga,
Thanks for replying. Yes, that’s exactly what I thought: a 2x1 job. It’s quite annoying the way these “agencies” try to take advantage of people. And yeah, I agree with you. They probably won’t accept any request that implies more money. That’s their business: exploitation.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and welcoming me!
Thayenga wrote:
Welcome to ProZ!
The agency is trying to get two different jobs done for the price of one.
You could offer to transcribe the conversations at an hourly rate and then translate them. Unfortunately, I am almost certain that they won't accept that. You might also suggest that they have a transcript created and send it to you. If they don't agree to this logical proporal/request, then you might end up working several unpaid hours. You should aks them to take this into consideration as well.
Good luck!
[Edited at 2024-06-08 12:49 GMT]
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Wahn Acker
Vereinigte Staaten
Local time: 15:35
Spanisch > Englisch
+ ...
THEMENSTARTER | Definitely not a win-win situation | Jun 9, 2024 |
Hi Malthe,
I think your formula would be a good starting point. And yeah... Maybe that's the only way to find out. I may end up accepting just out of curiosity, but I don't know... It sounds a little tricky to me, and definitely underpaid. My language pair (SPA ENG) is 0.09 - 0.13 USD/wd approx. So, when I take into account the fact that the average speaking rate for native speakers is around 150-160 words per minute... That would be $13.50 USD per minute, and they are offering me ... See more Hi Malthe,
I think your formula would be a good starting point. And yeah... Maybe that's the only way to find out. I may end up accepting just out of curiosity, but I don't know... It sounds a little tricky to me, and definitely underpaid. My language pair (SPA ENG) is 0.09 - 0.13 USD/wd approx. So, when I take into account the fact that the average speaking rate for native speakers is around 150-160 words per minute... That would be $13.50 USD per minute, and they are offering me $5 USD per minute. And they don't even provide the transcription. Sounds quite bad, doesn't it?
Thanks for replying!
Malthe Strandby Nielsen wrote:
IDK the price for your langage paid, but is should be something like transcription + translation of subtitles + maybe bonus for difficult audio/video.
If the file is not super long and you don't have more pressing things to do, you can do it once just to get a feel how much you need to charge for this sorta stuff to make it worth while for you.
I make an educated guess at a price when I do something that is new to me - and sometimes yeah, you guess too low. But then the next time around, I can set a price making it worth to me. ▲ Collapse
| | | | kd42
Estland
Local time: 21:35
Englisch > Russisch
| Take the time as the basis | Jun 11, 2024 |
I would advise you to split this job into tasks. The first task is a verbatim transcription with time coding, like they do for speech recognition training, where all the noises and overlaps are included. If you never did that before, you can transcribe 20-30 minutes of speech per day. Divide your daily earnings by this number and you will get the rate per minute.
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