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Rates for post editing machine translation texts
Thread poster: Blanca Amoroso
Jeff Whittaker
Jeff Whittaker  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 19:45
Member (2002)
Spanish to English
+ ...
MT is free, so on what basis is a discount justified? Feb 23, 2016

Aren't all projects potentially post-editing jobs? In other words, the difference between a standard translation and post-edited translation is the provision of the machine translation provided by the agency. But, since any translator can easily generate their own MT (for free or for a very modest amount), the agency adds no value in this regard that would justify a discount, so why should the agency be given a discounted rate? Therefore, the only possible justification for granting a discount i... See more
Aren't all projects potentially post-editing jobs? In other words, the difference between a standard translation and post-edited translation is the provision of the machine translation provided by the agency. But, since any translator can easily generate their own MT (for free or for a very modest amount), the agency adds no value in this regard that would justify a discount, so why should the agency be given a discounted rate? Therefore, the only possible justification for granting a discount is the agency's expectation of receiving a sub-standard product and the translator accepts the discount with the understanding that he/she has the agency's authorization (in exchange for charging a lower rate) to provide a sub-standard product. However, does the client also expect to receive a sub-standard product or are they just sold on price and speed?

[Edited at 2016-02-23 19:57 GMT]
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alexandra lozano
 
Mirko Mainardi
Mirko Mainardi  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 00:45
Member
English to Italian
Of course Feb 23, 2016

Dan Lucas wrote:

If Google Translate did not exist, would I instead have hired a translator to translate and summarise the posts on the mailing list? Never. So, because of the cost element, MT makes possible some things that would not be possible with humans, even though human translators may still do it better.


You are right, also about your observation concerning potential new markets. However, as I wrote in another thread about MT-PE, I was proposed several such projects, and I was honestly surprised as I realized many of those concerned very important end-clients (even major players in their respective industries). And I would be very much surprised to know such clients didn't care about the quality of their copy...

Also, I must say that in at least one instance, the MT sample I was sent as a preview wasn't so bad (paid 2/3rds of the "standard" translation rate, btw). But that's basically just another way to cut costs (and, incidentally, translators' livelihood), as once the agency has optimized/trained its own MT engine by feeding it relevant terminology and "real" translations, all they need to do is press a button to populate translations and get a discount from whoever is ready to accept the deal (and I guess they'll always find someone willing to do it).

In other words, what I'm saying is that I don't think MT-PE is as marginal as someone seems to believe, and that MT-PE is yet another weapon more and more agencies are deploying in order to further compress translators' rates (speaking in very broad terms). But again, we'd need figures to see the whole picture for what it really is.


 
David Parry
David Parry  Identity Verified
Poland
Local time: 00:45
PEMT update to 2017 Oct 6, 2017

At the moment there seems to have been another flurry of PEMT jobs. While the comments here go back to 2012, I don't see that anything has changed significantly. MT is just as good or as bad as it was, the rates offered are no higher, and possibly lower.

My take on this: I refuse to do PEMT jobs. The expectation is that the translator will accept a much lower rate because most of the work has already been done. True, but somewhere along the line it has been done badly, and correctin
... See more
At the moment there seems to have been another flurry of PEMT jobs. While the comments here go back to 2012, I don't see that anything has changed significantly. MT is just as good or as bad as it was, the rates offered are no higher, and possibly lower.

My take on this: I refuse to do PEMT jobs. The expectation is that the translator will accept a much lower rate because most of the work has already been done. True, but somewhere along the line it has been done badly, and correcting a mess takes as long as redoing it from scratch. Years ago I did a lot of text correction in Japan and I got quite fast at it, and this was similar to PEMT, but that is why I have my doubts about the financial viability of PEMT. MT works fine for "translation for information", and if it is clearly understood that you only need to correct obvious errors and unacceptable style, then you can edit such texts quickly. Nonetheless, this sort of correction work quickly gets very boring and repetitive.

Bear in mind that it takes time to get used to the requirements for PEMT jobs. Looking at the guidelines for PEMT work sent to me by a couple of potential customers, it would take me valuable time to become familiar with these guidelines.

Somebody commented about MT and legal texts. Apparently patent lawyers use MT for patents, but only at the level of obtaining information. If they need a full translation, that is a job for humans.

Another issue is that people like Amazon are using MT for their product lists. Firstly, the product names or descriptions, which may be inaccurate. They may be short, but it takes time to check such terminology. Secondly, the full description. Grammatically simple, so MT can cope with it, but you still have to check and cross-check the terminology. Profitable? I think not.
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Gabriele Demuth
Gabriele Demuth  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 23:45
English to German
Expectations Oct 6, 2017

jyuan_us wrote:

I recently used google.com/translate on the website for a 2000 word project, and I was so happy at first, because I finished the translation within 2 hours. However, I found the translation was so poorly worded when I came back to review the draft after several hours. It was very hard to enhance the translation because the structure of many sentences was quite different to my intuitives, although no major error was found. I had to re-write most of the sentences and eventually my productivity is lower than my usual practice, i.e., translating without the help of google.com/translate


I have never accepted such work as I have a feeling that it would have a negative effect on my writing skills and I think I would find it boring - but, as Tomas said, what do clients expect from PE? Is robotic language without grammar and spelling mistakes enough, and is that achievable in let's say half the time (if they expect to pay half the translation rate)?


 
Claudia Weigel (X)
Claudia Weigel (X)  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 00:45
English to German
+ ...
No decline in translation work due to PE jobs? Dec 15, 2017

Hi,

I'm surprised that you are not noticing a difference. I have been getting a few PE requests four years ago as well, but noticed a steep increase in PE jobs this year. Two of the translation companies I work for are mainly offering tasks for editing machine translation now. Obviously they pay less for them, and I find myself more and more accepting this type of work despite the fact that the quality of the machine translation is still low. But I like to make you aware that the q
... See more
Hi,

I'm surprised that you are not noticing a difference. I have been getting a few PE requests four years ago as well, but noticed a steep increase in PE jobs this year. Two of the translation companies I work for are mainly offering tasks for editing machine translation now. Obviously they pay less for them, and I find myself more and more accepting this type of work despite the fact that the quality of the machine translation is still low. But I like to make you aware that the quality of machine translation is improving. Check out deepl - definitely way better then google translate!

Anyone else noticing that PE jobs are becoming the standard and/or a decline in rates?

Claudia
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Jean-Christophe Duc
Jean-Christophe Duc  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 00:45
English to French
+ ...
Anyone else noticing that PE jobs are becoming the standard and/or a decline in rates? - Yes Feb 20, 2018

Well yes and no.

PE works well enough for specific, technical text, with a solid IT backup team (and not the cheap free software), and is clearly the way some major translation providers are going (including one very active on this site).

As for anything, it has to be handled with care. I.e. it is imperative to see samples and limit it to technical texts with loads of repetitive text.
Any text where the writing style is important would have to be avoided like the
... See more
Well yes and no.

PE works well enough for specific, technical text, with a solid IT backup team (and not the cheap free software), and is clearly the way some major translation providers are going (including one very active on this site).

As for anything, it has to be handled with care. I.e. it is imperative to see samples and limit it to technical texts with loads of repetitive text.
Any text where the writing style is important would have to be avoided like the plague.
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alexandra lozano
 
Christopher & Rozilene Frye
Christopher & Rozilene Frye  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 20:45
Member (2011)
Portuguese to English
+ ...
Sneaky PEMT Mar 13, 2018

I have worked with Google Translate enough to recognize it when I see it. I have had clients send me MT saying that it was human-translated, and tried to get me to work at my editing rate, which is half my regular translation rate. Nice trick. I really wanted to avoid editing machine translation, but I began to realize it's going to come at us more and more. So I adopted a rate that was 75% of my translation rate, to avoid it really, but willing to do it if someone was willing to pay me that muc... See more
I have worked with Google Translate enough to recognize it when I see it. I have had clients send me MT saying that it was human-translated, and tried to get me to work at my editing rate, which is half my regular translation rate. Nice trick. I really wanted to avoid editing machine translation, but I began to realize it's going to come at us more and more. So I adopted a rate that was 75% of my translation rate, to avoid it really, but willing to do it if someone was willing to pay me that much. Well, I got no such work, because the clients are expecting to save a lot of money. I think we are largely going to get stuck with this, as it will be used more and more. So, facing reality, I agree that we should charge by the hour. That is fair.Collapse


 
José Henrique Lamensdorf
José Henrique Lamensdorf  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 20:45
English to Portuguese
+ ...
In memoriam
Same rates as for conventional translation Mar 13, 2018

Christopher & Rozilene Frye wrote:

I have worked with Google Translate enough to recognize it when I see it. I have had clients send me MT saying that it was human-translated, and tried to get me to work at my editing rate, which is half my regular translation rate. Nice trick. I really wanted to avoid editing machine translation, but I began to realize it's going to come at us more and more. So I adopted a rate that was 75% of my translation rate, to avoid it really, but willing to do it if someone was willing to pay me that much. Well, I got no such work, because the clients are expecting to save a lot of money. I think we are largely going to get stuck with this, as it will be used more and more. So, facing reality, I agree that we should charge by the hour. That is fair.


What prevents you from shooting any non-PEMT job through Google Translate and doing PEMT, if you think this should cost you less (viz. take less time/effort) than translating in the conventional way, and charging your full translation rate?


 
Ceci SOW
Ceci SOW
Malaysia
Local time: 07:45
English to Chinese
machine translation Apr 17, 2018

jyuan_us wrote:

I recently used google.com/translate on the website for a 2000 word project, and I was so happy at first, because I finished the translation within 2 hours. However, I found the translation was so poorly worded when I came back to review the draft after several hours. It was very hard to enhance the translation because the structure of many sentences was quite different to my intuitives, although no major error was found. I had to re-write most of the sentences and eventually my productivity is lower than my usual practice, i.e., translating without the help of google.com/translate


Totally agree with you. Machine is the good invention for this era, but I personally fee it's the worst thing for translation, my country government has made some many laughing due to using Google translation on the banners for welcoming the President of China. Sigh!


 
Sergei Nikolenko
Sergei Nikolenko  Identity Verified
Local time: 01:45
English to Russian
Justification for discount Apr 18, 2018

José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote:

What prevents you from shooting any non-PEMT job through Google Translate and doing PEMT, if you think this should cost you less (viz. take less time/effort) than translating in the conventional way, and charging your full translation rate?


Perfectly agree. Nowadays MT translation is available for free or at a very low price (like paid version of Google Translate, which provides some convenience through connecting directly to CAT tools). I would charge either an hourly rate or a full translation rate.


 
Nikolaus Weimann
Nikolaus Weimann
France
Local time: 00:45
Member (2017)
English to German
+ ...
Review of MT is usually a waste of time Apr 22, 2018

with MT usually nearly everything has to be rewritten unless we have something like a parts list in an Excel file. We should charge by the hour, but usually the agencies propose a rate of about 2 to 3 cents per word. MT and their review are just another technique of reducing translation prices at the expense of freelancers!

alexandra lozano
Dhananjay Rau
Lutz Plueckhahn
 
Ceci SOW
Ceci SOW
Malaysia
Local time: 07:45
English to Chinese
Google translate is a lousy thing Mar 12, 2020

jyuan_us wrote:

I recently used google.com/translate on the website for a 2000 word project, and I was so happy at first, because I finished the translation within 2 hours. However, I found the translation was so poorly worded when I came back to review the draft after several hours. It was very hard to enhance the translation because the structure of many sentences was quite different to my intuitives, although no major error was found. I had to re-write most of the sentences and eventually my productivity is lower than my usual practice, i.e., translating without the help of google.com/translate


The structure of English and Mandarin writing is totally different, so it would't able to have a good result for machine translation via Google.com/translate.
In fact, I hate this technology very much, some of the buyers come and compare my work and rate with a Google translate.


Dhananjay Rau
 
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Rates for post editing machine translation texts







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