Comments on: Work less, produce more

By: Translator output | The GITS Blog

Translator output | The GITS Blog — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 03:23:15 +0000

[...] the comments to this post by Thoughts on Translation, several translators said that they use 2,000 words per day as a [...]

By: Corinne McKay

Corinne McKay — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:41:35 +0000

Thanks to everyone for your comments. I think you’re right that a) the 2,000 words per day guideline is a good one and b) sometimes 2,000 words takes 3 hours and sometimes it takes 10 hours. I guess we could also go around and around about whether it’s better to charge by the word or by the hour, but that’s another post! Kevin, I agree with you about the many small projects versus one big one; I also find that as I “ramp up” on a project, I can usually translate faster, versus familiarizing myself with the terms and writing style in a bunch of small documents.

@Olli, the average ATA member (most but not all of whom live in the US) earns about US $60,000 per year from full-time freelancing, so that’s US $5,000 per month. If freelancers in Spain are averaging US $ 2,300, it seems that rates there are substantially lower or people tend to work less. You might want to talk to some US-based English to Spanish translators for more details.

By: Olli

Olli — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:15:12 +0000

I thing it is not just a question of how much words do you translate a day, but how much you are paid and where do you translate. Don’t know how much you people pay in the US in taxes. Here in Spain freelancers pay around 25 to 30%. So, with an average of 3000 € a month (around 2.300 $), it is just imposible to make 100.000 a year unless you work on a very specific field.

By: Kevin Lossner

Kevin Lossner — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 18:47:08 +0000

I, too, follow the 2000 word/day “rule” in my time planning. Of course one’s daily output varies – I’ve had Texts from Hell where the formatting was so troublesome that I was lucky to accomplish 1000 words/day in my best subjects (I refer to these as “tag salad” because of the way the segments look in TagEditor or DVX, my usual working environments); at other times I can pull off nearly 9000 words in a day (with almost no repetition) and still get a good night’s sleep. But planning 2000 per day usually allows extra time for the many unplanned incidents in the daily routine, including short “emergency” texts for which one can charge a healthy premium or build good will. By booking out my calendar with that limiting assumption, I can always take any “extra” capacity I have when the “daily limit” is met early and finish projects sooner, which usually has positive benefits.
One thing I have noticed which has a significant impact on productivity is how those words are distributed. If the 2000 words are constituted by a number of smaller projects, the administration and setup time for the individual projects may cause things to go much slower overall. As I have seen the “damage” done to productivity by numerous daily requests for “just a few sentences” or “only 50 words”, I have become increasingly rigorous in imposing minimum charges to turn these time-wasters into profit.

By: Ryan Ginstrom

Ryan Ginstrom — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 00:01:29 +0000

@Werner Patels

As a personal preference, I’d avoid the 2,000-word job that takes all day, take another job that lets me do 5,000 words a day, and take more days off.

My quality on the 5,000-word/day job will most likely be better than my quality on the 2,000-word/day job, because when I can work faster it’s because I have expertise in the subject area and don’t have to waste time on research/dictionary work.

That’s for my own situation and type of work, of course. For you it’s probably different. But that’s why an “absolute maximum” doesn’t work as a blanket statement. Everyone’s skills, expertise, temperament, and clients differ.

If a client wants me to do more than I’m prepared to handle, I just say “no.” I’m an independent professional, not the client’s employee, and I don’t have to take a job if I can’t or don’t want to handle it.

By: Werner Patels, M.A., C.Tran.

Werner Patels, M.A., C.Tran. — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 23:38:09 +0000

Ryan, you are absolutely correct. But this is why we have this standard of 2,000 words. Even in cases where you’re exhausted at the end of the day, the thing to remember is that you will be able to complete this volume within a normal working day (with varying degrees of exhaustion).

In some cases, the 2,000 words may take you no more than two hours, while in others, you’ll be at it for the full eight-hour day from nine to five.

But the main thing is that it’s a volume that can be managed and completed in a day. Three thousand or even five thousand words (as one international agency with that “perfect” name invariably expects of its translators, and overnight, too), however, cannot be managed in a day.

It is about quality assurance, after all. To ensure the most flawless product at the end of the day, we must adhere to no more than 2,000 words as the absolute maximum.

There are also agencies, for example, that use 1,000 words as the daily cutoff, which is even better, of course.

By: Ryan Ginstrom

Ryan Ginstrom — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 22:43:21 +0000

I think it’s a good idea to pace yourself, but the problem with holding a 2,000-word limit is that not all 2,000 words are created alike. With some documents, 2,000 words would leave me exhausted at the end of the day, while with others, I’d get them done and be feeling great at about the time I started thinking about lunch.

By: Corinne McKay

Corinne McKay — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 21:37:01 +0000

Werner, thanks for your comment! It’s great to hear from translators who hold themselves to the 2,000 word limit; clients may push for more, but in the end I think everyone benefits. Thanks for reading!

By: Werner Patels, M.A., C.Tran.

Werner Patels, M.A., C.Tran. — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:03:16 +0000

So true about productivity. This is why I observe the industry standard of translating no more than 2,000 words a day. Period. You need to pace yourself, or you’ll find yourself making mistakes that you would not normally make.