What does fluent mean to you?

[ttjereth]

100 yen per character, 300 character per hour, 8 hours a day, 3 days a week... 30 weeks a year.... $216,000 a year!!! SMORGUFLEERF?@L???!

This is assuming you get enough work at that rate to make that much. I get some work at extraordinarily high rates where I make $5000 in a 24 hour period, but that's not the norm and if I only accepted work at those rates I wouldn't make enough money to live off of.

I don't mean "aim for 30K and cut them off," I simply mean as a baseline for a minimum target income.

I understand, I'm just trying to impart that freelancing is extremely uncertain, there is no way for me to answer that question for you, there are too many variables, the best answer I can give you is "somewhere between 1 and 30".

Well, if you know of at least one freelancer who got sponsored, that is useful information for me.

Thanks for all the info and insights.

Just to clarify though, the freelancer in question was Norweigian and translated into that language, not English. The reason the company sponsored him is because there are literally like 3-4 freelancers in Japan who can translate into Norweigian and they have extraordinarily high rates.

[omae mona]

Question for ttjereth and kanchou - I've always been curious. Under the assumption most customers can't read the "target language" you're translating into (e.g. English), is there any mechanism that lets good translators get rewarded for quality?

I'm sure, as ttjereth pointed out, there's a lot involved in pleasing customers besides the translation quality itself (e.g. timeliness, professionalism, etc.). But still, how do customers figure out whether the translated documents and skill of the translator are good?

[kusai Jijii]

I've been following this tread with interest. Its quite insightful.
although I am not a professional translator, I have done a little from time to time. About two years ago, I was asked to translate a presentation paper from Japanese into English that was to be published in a conference proceedings, and I swear to you that the most skillfull translator in the world could not have made that paper appear respectable in English. I mean, the thing was just complete and utter crap. pure and simple.

So my question for the experienced, professional translators out there is this: what do you do when you get a manuscript that is just outright fucked? I'm talking about people (and in my opinion there are a growing number of them) who literally wont be able to explain to you what they have just written, becasue they are not really sure about what they wrote themselves. I'm sure you have come across the type, right?

KJ

[ttjereth]

[Charles]

Hitachi is also wonderful, because they try to make the terminology and phrasing in their manuals consistent, so when a mistaken term or phrase has been used in a past manual by one of their in-house Japanese translators, you MUST continue using that same mistake in order to maintain consistency with other documentation, even if the mistake is repeated in the manual 900 times and is so bad it prevents understanding of the content.

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

[ttjereth]

I've been following this tread with interest. Its quite insightful.
although I am not a professional translator, I have done a little from time to time. About two years ago, I was asked to translate a presentation paper from Japanese into English that was to be published in a conference proceedings, and I swear to you that the most skillfull translator in the world could not have made that paper appear respectable in English. I mean, the thing was just complete and utter crap. pure and simple.

So my question for the experienced, professional translators out there is this: what do you do when you get a manuscript that is just outright fucked? I'm talking about people (and in my opinion there are a growing number of them) who literally wont be able to explain to you what they have just written, becasue they are not really sure about what they wrote themselves. I'm sure you have come across the type, right?

KJ

For some reason, a lot of Japanese university professors seem to have problems writing decent papers even in Japanese. I only ever get those jobs through agencies and most of the good agencies will have a Japanese rewriter go over them before I ever even have to look at them (and that allow them to of course charge the client more, which doesn't hurt).

Otherwise it depends on the deadline and client. If you have a decent amount of time (very rare since again university education staff always seem to not get around to ordering a translation until the last minute) then you can go through and translate what is understandable and ask for clarification on the points that aren't. Otherwise you do the best you can and annotate the areas you are unsure of, with an explanation of what your English translation approximates in Japanese and shift the burden of making corrections to client, if they aren't satisfied with the translation they have to explain why and what should be different.

The only thing worse I've encountered is the various manuals and such (for some reason machinery and industry companies are particularly prone to this) where the person who wrote the manual is an engineer or operator who understands the equipment the manual is aimed at, but doesn't have the first clue how to go about making a manual and has bad writing habits (using unnecessarily complicated phrases, using different terminology for the same parts/equipment throughout the manual, etc.). It's fairly common to have to suggest alterations or additions to content, also often because because the person who wrote the manual knows certain things instrinctively and doesn't think to include them.

Unfortunately you can't really polish a turd, so crap in one language is going to be crap in another language when translated. This is why agencies also offer rewriting and copywriting services (advertisment doesn't translate well).

[ttjereth]

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

I'd quote that to some of my clients, but I'm afraid they'd try and make me rewrite it.

[Iraira]

Question for ttjereth and kanchou - I've always been curious. Under the assumption most customers can't read the "target language" you're translating into (e.g. English), is there any mechanism that lets good translators get rewarded for quality?

I'm sure, as ttjereth pointed out, there's a lot involved in pleasing customers besides the translation quality itself (e.g. timeliness, professionalism, etc.). But still, how do customers figure out whether the translated documents and skill of the translator are good?

I've had to deal with some science papers where the author basically said that they found nothing of interest owing to so much experimental error, but they still wanted to try to publish in a journal where the slightest mistake gets you and your manuscript the bottom of the waste basket. This was all pointed out to them, and I still got all po'ed when they got rejected shortly after submission. Reviewers only commented on the content, not the English, but I still had to make nice with them.
Point is, you have to do a lot of apologizing, when translating, even though you want to argue them into killing themselves. Argue and get no more work. Kowtow, buy them a beer or ten, and they keep sending you stuff.

[ttjereth]

I've had to deal with some science papers where the author basically said that they found nothing of interest owing to so much experimental error, but they still wanted to try to publish in a journal where the slightest mistake gets you and your manuscript the bottom of the waste basket. This was all pointed out to them, and I still got all po'ed when they got rejected shortly after submission. Reviewers only commented on the content, not the English, but I still had to make nice with them.
Point is, you have to do a lot of apologizing, when translating, even though you want to argue them into killing themselves. Argue and get no more work. Kowtow, buy them a beer or ten, and they keep sending you stuff.

I told two big clients to piss off this past year because they were just too much of a pain in the ass. The money will be missed, but not the aggravation.

[omae mona]

[Nobody]

So my question for the experienced, professional translators out there is this: what do you do when you get a manuscript that is just outright fucked? I'm talking about people (and in my opinion there are a growing number of them) who literally wont be able to explain to you what they have just written, becasue they are not really sure about what they wrote themselves. I'm sure you have come across the type, right?

KJ

Nice to meet you on this thread.

Since I am also in this line of work, please allow me to post here one answer.
I always request to see the actual document before accepting any translation work. Failure to do so has always been a painful experience.
If the document is f****d, I tell the agent, using my best polite Japanese, that since "some parts seem slightly unclear, and since inquiring about the meaning of every sentence would waste everyone's time (me/agent/client)
I will try to interpret the author's thought. If corrections are necessary after delivery, please let me know. "

Usually the agent has no problems with this approach because it saves everyone's time and money, and usually they do any necessary "corrections" themselves.

[Kanchou]

I tell them "this Japanese/English sucks" (it does occasionally) and ask them what it's talking about.

Also, my J>E translations are used by the American staff, so I'll hear about it eventually if they don't make sense.

(although at this point more and more of the notations involving confusion tend to get left in since my boss does less and less checking and just explains it to them while they're reading it...)

[ttjereth]

That gave me a chuckle, because I've been the Bastard Customer From Hell in that role in some E->J work I sent out when I corrected the translators' Japanese. I averaged finding 1-2 potential mistakes per page. But I quite clearly told them it was OK to tell me to f*** off if I was wrong. Turns out that about 80% of the time they conceded, and 20% of the time they stuck by their guns and told me to f*** off. Frankly, the reason for about half their errors was that the source English material was horribly written, and ambiguous (I even got my coworkers to change the English version once I noticed).

If there are genuinely mistakes, then it is the translator's responsibility to deal with them and it's not a problem, but I get shit back like "shouldn't this be 'a' instead of 'an'?" and "doesn't this need a 'the' here?", but there will be HUNDREDS of them in a document and need to go through and check and RESPOND to each one for no extra money. That is a pain in the ass.

Then you get the real pricks who will go through and say "this should be this" and they will write exactly what they want you to change it to (often changing a correct translation to some Japlish nonsense) in a comment in the margin for every instance of the word/phrase in the document, but send it back to you to have you make all the replacements in the actual document when if they had just replaced it themselves instead of writing it in a comment each time, it could already be done, or the ones who tell you about some special terminology or phrasing that their company uses that you also have to use but they only tell you this AFTER you have finished and submitted the translation, and expect you to go through and make all the changes, again for free.

I should dig out some old translations and post some examples of "managerial replacements"...

[ttjereth]

Nice to meet you on this thread.

Since I am also in this line of work, please allow me to post here one answer.
I always request to see the actual document before accepting any translation work. Failure to do so has always been a painful experience.
If the document is f****d, I tell the agent, using my best polite Japanese, that since "some parts seem slightly unclear, and since inquiring about the meaning of every sentence would waste everyone's time (me/agent/client)
I will try to interpret the author's thought. If corrections are necessary after delivery, please let me know. "

Usually the agent has no problems with this approach because it saves everyone's time and money, and usually they do any necessary "corrections" themselves.

By far and away the best practice, but I sometimes don't bother reading much into the translations until I have got time to work on them. I have also found that I often regret this...

What languages do you translate?

[Nobody]

By far and away the best practice, but I sometimes don't bother reading much into the translations until I have got time to work on them. I have also found that I often regret this...

Thank you.

What languages do you translate?

I translate from Japanese/English into French, and from Japanese into English.

[Kanchou]

Well, I've started my Shotgun Strategy and have begin applying to just about every agency that doesn't require 5+ years (and a few that do...)...

I'm going to be somewhat annoyed if I never get any work

[Nobody]

If you're still unexperienced at working in the Japanese translation industry, I'd suggest trying to find an in-house job at a translation agency here first for a year or so to learn the ropes. It doesn't pay much and the hours suck, but you'd be way better prepared in the long run.

I'd second what ttjereth said. By spending 2/3 years in a translation agency I've learned so much about this business.

[Samurai_Jerk]

SJ,
please, oh for fucks sake PLEASE dont tell me you are a FUCKING HEADHUNTER!:smashpc:

Headhunter? I prefer the far more politically correct and client focused term: headgiver.

[ttjereth]

I translate from Japanese/English into French, and from Japanese into English.

Good to know, I occasionally have clients asking me to find translators for languages other than English (mainly French and Spanish) if it happens again in the future, I can pass along info if you're interested.

I don't get any money or anything out of this (not until I start my own agency anyway ), it just stems from my clients thinking that since I am a foreigner and a translator I must be buddy-buddy with a ton of other foreign translators, and me doing what I can to help them out in order to further ingratiate myself with them

[Nobody]

[quote="ttjereth"]Good to know, I occasionally have clients asking me to find translators for languages other than English (mainly French and Spanish) if it happens again in the future, I can pass along info if you're interested.

I don't get any money or anything out of this (not until I start my own agency anyway ), it just stems from my clients thinking that since I am a foreigner and a translator I must be buddy-buddy with a ton of other foreign translators, and me doing what I can to help them out in order to further ingratiate myself with them ]

Very nice, thanks. I'll return the favor if I have a chance.

Ah yes. Déja vu. The phone call to know if by any chance you happen to know a *put nationality here* translator.

[Kanchou]

[kamome]

If there are genuinely mistakes, then it is the translator's responsibility to deal with them and it's not a problem, but I get shit back like "shouldn't this be 'a' instead of 'an'?" and "doesn't this need a 'the' here?", but there will be HUNDREDS of them in a document and need to go through and check and RESPOND to each one for no extra money. That is a pain in the ass.

Then you get the real pricks who will go through and say "this should be this" and they will write exactly what they want you to change it to (often changing a correct translation to some Japlish nonsense) in a comment in the margin for every instance of the word/phrase in the document, but send it back to you to have you make all the replacements in the actual document when if they had just replaced it themselves instead of writing it in a comment each time, it could already be done, or the ones who tell you about some special terminology or phrasing that their company uses that you also have to use but they only tell you this AFTER you have finished and submitted the translation, and expect you to go through and make all the changes, again for free.

I should dig out some old translations and post some examples of "managerial replacements"...

Can you make it an upfront policy that you get paid by the word (or by the minute) to perform any revisions made at the client's request after the job is complete? That would curtail some of the bullshit when management starts to second-guess your work and substitute their own English for yours.

[ttjereth]

[quote="Nobody"]Very nice, thanks. I'll return the favor if I have a chance.

Ah yes. Dé]

I find it kind of funny, the whole "oh I know another foreigner in BLAH, do you know him?" thing.

But for some reason I have been getting a lot of requests for Spanish and French lately, I actually know a few Spanish translators, but the only French translator I've known was terrible and hard to work with, on top which she had ridiculously high rates, which makes it sort of difficult to recommend her.