Japanese-to-English proofreading pricing?
Thread poster: FreelanceBass
FreelanceBass
FreelanceBass
United States
Local time: 08:38
Japanese to English
Dec 10, 2018

Hi,

I’ve been doing some technical translation work for an automotive company for a bit now.

I was recently approached by said company asking if I’d also be interested in proofreading some of the Japanese employees’ English reports; in other words, I would be going through the original Japanese and ensuring that their corresponding English translations are correct. I’m assuming that I’d also be editing them in order to make sure they look professional.
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Hi,

I’ve been doing some technical translation work for an automotive company for a bit now.

I was recently approached by said company asking if I’d also be interested in proofreading some of the Japanese employees’ English reports; in other words, I would be going through the original Japanese and ensuring that their corresponding English translations are correct. I’m assuming that I’d also be editing them in order to make sure they look professional.

I’ll be negotiating the pricing for this sometime this week, and am trying to come up with a rate that is fair but puts bread on the table. The company is a good one and isn’t out to stiff me, but I also want to ensure that I’m doing right by them.

My current rates for the company range from $0.10 to $0.125 per source character (no spaces), depending on how the document is formatted and also on how much extra time I estimate it will take for preliminary research and editing.

Based on the aforementioned pricing, what do you think would be a reasonable price for this sort of proofreading work? I’m assuming it would be a bit lower than my translation rates - but I don’t want to price it so low that when I start my first document, I realize halfway through that I’m not making enough to justify the time expenditure (compared to my full-on translation work).

Thanks in advance.
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William Tierney
William Tierney  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 08:38
Member (2002)
Arabic to English
Per Hour is Best Dec 10, 2018

Hi Bass,

Since you are going to have a number of different authors of varying capabilities, it would be best to work on a per hour basis. If the English version is strong, it will go quickly and your client will be happy. If it is poorly done, you won't get shafted for what may amount to a rewrite, and you can show the track change version in case there is a question.


Dan Lucas
 
Dan Lucas
Dan Lucas  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:38
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
Do you want to? Dec 11, 2018

FreelanceBass wrote:
Based on the aforementioned pricing, what do you think would be a reasonable price for this sort of proofreading work?

I agree with William, hourly rates make sense. Your translation rates are decent, so work out how many characters you translate per hour, on average, and use that to derive an hourly rate.

One issue is that you may find that they will not want to accept an hourly rate that is high enough to justify taking on proofreading instead of translation.

Regards,
Dan


 


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Japanese-to-English proofreading pricing?







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