DCTP Forums

Someone is asking me over the internet to translate something from a dialect of Greek to English.
In the hypothetical scenario that she actually pays and it is not a scam, what's a normal price for a non-proffesional translation?
The average price here is 0.05Euro, so for her ~1300 text it's about 65 Euro. I can't bring myself to ask for that amount though...

anyone here ever done translations for money? how much did you charge?

Non-professional? Don't know about that.

I'd charge about 2 or 3 times that amount for English German (although I prefer charging by the standard line), but it's different for each and every language combination. If it's a rather obscure dialect, you could probably charge a lot more (depending on your qualifications of course). I'll try and check the rates for Greek English.

Could you specify the dialect and the topic?

The dialect is actually my native dialect, Cypriot Greek. The context as it was described to me is a correspondence, no special terminology and the translation is for personal use.

Well, that's quite a fair price then.  Cypriot Greek is not that obscure, you're not a trained professional, it's not a technical text, and there are translators who'd do it for less (Curse those Indians, always trying to destroy the market!).

Two new developments. She needs the translation today and the text is not in proper Greek letters but in ad-hoc romanization (which will surely slow me down).

Should I go with the 0.03/word as I was thinking?

I thought you had been offered a rate of 0.05 already, my mistake. I'd try 0.04 if I were you, since I can imagine an ad-hoc romanization will slow you down considerably. (It would certainly slow me down with Russian).
That's a rate that is hard to beat. You might even charge something extra if she needs it asap. 55€?
If it's just for private purpose she might not be willing to pay that much; few people have an understanding of how much a (professional) translation is supposed to cost.
You could also charge by the hour.

Do you have a degree in English or anything else that would demonstrate that you're qualified? Or are you just a native speaker?

Native Speaker of Greek, degree in English. I have some experience with languages (studying linguistics) but not in the field of the translation.

If it's just for private purpose she might not be willing to pay that much; few people have an understand of how much a (professional) translation is supposed to cost.

Ant that's probably the case... She started wrapping up the things to tell me that she'll give the job to someone else.
Τι είχαμε, τι χάσαμε 

Have you tried offering her a (reasonable) hourly rate?

It's her own fault if she ends up with an xponese translation...

It seems like she was talking with many people willing to do a translation for her (none being a professional btw), and a "who will accept asking the less questions" type of speed race. She'll contact me "again if it doesn't work out or for any future work that comes up".

meidei wrote: It seems like she was talking with many people willing to do a translation for her (none being a professional btw), and a "who will accept asking the less questions" type of speed race. She'll contact me "again if it doesn't work out or for any future work that comes up".

Why does that sound familiar

Yeah

Hehe, I know that one^^

Ahh, the joys of freelancing.

Anyways, I was hopping I could cover the domain name registration expenses with that job, but I'll have to cut from the manga budget instead :D
Thanks for the assistance Dus, btw.

well.. for starters... just give an estimate price for a whole job!.
the BIGGEST mistake when deciding price if you are not a professional is : To use the same method of pricing but with lower / cheaper rate

in my late high school. i take a job to create an essay. all 3rd years must made a final essay for graduating. and the professional is expensive, so all the amateur use the rate of typing only!..

the charge is $1 for 4 pages. (normal) and 1 essay should have aroun 80 pages. so around $20 but instead of using that rate.. i go for $12-15 for my service!.

if you count it .. my price is very low.. but by using copy + paste my job became easy!


Now why i said this,
I want you to realize that getting a side job is  nice, but you need to be know to as many people so you can get more job.

And the most effective Advertising is DIRECT RECOMMENDATION From someone else.

so threat your earlier customer with special price, nice service, quick service and dont afraid to do a Under-priced job

after some people satisfied and like your job, they will tel to their friends..and so on.. so  on.... and in no time.. you will have your own Network.


( just a little tips from me.. at least i prove that)

---

Dus wrote: Have you tried offering her a (reasonable) hourly rate?

It's her own fault if she ends up with an xponese translation...

so xponese = crappy english now huh? 

xpon wrote:
Now why i said this,
I want you to realize that getting a side job is  nice, but you need to be know to as many people so you can get more job.

And the most effective Advertising is DIRECT RECOMMENDATION From someone else.

so threat your earlier customer with special price, nice service, quick service and dont afraid to do a Under-priced job

after some people satisfied and like your job, they will tel to their friends..and so on.. so  on.... and in no time.. you will have your own Network.


( just a little tips from me.. at least i prove that)

You're completely right there, but:
a) If I understand him correctly, this was more or less a one-time thing, so he wasn't really trying to get a foot in the door.
b) If you start selling yourself short, then you will have a hard time raising your rates later. You will find yourself working at terrible rates for longer than you'd like.

---

Dus wrote: Have you tried offering her a (reasonable) hourly rate?

It's her own fault if she ends up with an xponese translation...

so xponese = crappy english now huh? 

No offense, but I certainly wouldn't want to hire you as a translator