Time needed for proofreading aka am I too slow ? Thread poster: Pia Myeong-Jin Lampert
|
|---|
Dear colleagues,
as I am still relatively new in the translation/proofreading/editing field, I would like to ask you a question. Recently, my clients send a lot of "urgent request" proofreading jobs (IT/Software/Life Sciences/Clinical Trials). They expect 4000 words to be done in a day or sometimes even less. Unfortunately, in most cases the translation is not of the best quality, so it takes some time to proofread the text. So far I have turned down every job containing 4000-5000 ... See more Dear colleagues,
as I am still relatively new in the translation/proofreading/editing field, I would like to ask you a question. Recently, my clients send a lot of "urgent request" proofreading jobs (IT/Software/Life Sciences/Clinical Trials). They expect 4000 words to be done in a day or sometimes even less. Unfortunately, in most cases the translation is not of the best quality, so it takes some time to proofread the text. So far I have turned down every job containing 4000-5000 words with a delivery time of one day or even less, as I do not think that I can provide substance and quality in such a short time, especially in fields such as IT or Clinical Trials.
My question is, am I too slow? Is it reasonable to proofread 4000 words in one day, especially if I don't know the quality of the translation or if the translation is mediocre at best?
Thank you
[Edited at 2023-03-03 08:58 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Adieu 
Ukrainian to English
+ ...
800-ish/hour on complex or unfamiliar projects and 1000-1500/hour on repetitive familiar stuff is normal.
That's with a CAT tool and for an active hour. 6000 words per day is comfortable, 10,000+ is headache-inducing.
The key to proofreading productivity is sticking to your field and keeping notes/translation memories/bookmarks/templates/etc. on hand.
A first encounter with any particular new type of document will always be brutal.
| | | |
Revising 5000 words in a day should not be a problem. If it's a decent translation, it shouldn't take much more than 3-4 hours, so I guess the problem is poor translation quality.
| | | | jyuan_us
United States
Local time: 03:33
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
| Depends on the quality of the copy to be proofread | Mar 2, 2023 |
The hourly output for proofreading could range between 500 and 2000 words per hour. Most translation copies I have proofread fall into the lower end of the range.
[Edited at 2023-03-02 20:25 GMT]
| | |
|
|
|
Alex Ossa
Chile
Local time: 03:33
Member (2017)
Spanish to English
+ ...
| Speed depends on complexity, qualityand experience | Mar 2, 2023 |
Hi,
I'd say take it easy for now. Translation quality has an impact on proofreading/editing, as do the complexity of the subject matter as well as your experience, both with the subject matter as well as with the editing process.
When I started editing legal and accounting texts I was probably doing about 700 words an hour, with effort. Several years in, I am editing between 1400-2000 words per hour depending on TT quality (and how tired I am!).
Speeding u... See more Hi,
I'd say take it easy for now. Translation quality has an impact on proofreading/editing, as do the complexity of the subject matter as well as your experience, both with the subject matter as well as with the editing process.
When I started editing legal and accounting texts I was probably doing about 700 words an hour, with effort. Several years in, I am editing between 1400-2000 words per hour depending on TT quality (and how tired I am!).
Speeding up will happen naturally as you become more familiar with everything involved in the editing process. I wouldn't worry too much about it right now: you can't force yourself to speed up without damaging quality. Be patient, continue accepting jobs you feel you can handle and in due time you'll be accepting those 4000 words for a half day turnaround without breaking a sweat
Good luck! ▲ Collapse
| | | |
Reviewing 5,000 words in a day is quite feasible, but I never accept these jobs without having first a good look at them and I have refused a lot because of quality issues. Occasionally some not-so-honest agencies offer you a MTPE job calling it proofreading…
| | | | Sumit Sarkar
India
Local time: 13:03
Member
English to Bengali
+ ...
| One can do even faster but it depends | Mar 3, 2023 |
As you see many colleagues are doing even faster. However some agencies tend to work with bad translators at low rate or use Machine translation to do primary translation and ask reviewers/proofreaders to do rest of the job.
It is unfair.
You will easily identify those agencies. Ask them for higher rate and more time to do the job or simply avoid working with them. There are many agencies i don't even give a second to check their proposal.
| | | |
Speed of proofreading depends on the complexity of the subject and the quality of the translation as Alex says.
In generally proofreading does not take too much time if the translation is decent and you are familiar with
the field.
For this reason, first I take a look only at the translation in the target language (my mother tongue)
to check the naturalness in terms of grammar, style usage of words, without reading the source text.
I start proofreading if the transl... See more Speed of proofreading depends on the complexity of the subject and the quality of the translation as Alex says.
In generally proofreading does not take too much time if the translation is decent and you are familiar with
the field.
For this reason, first I take a look only at the translation in the target language (my mother tongue)
to check the naturalness in terms of grammar, style usage of words, without reading the source text.
I start proofreading if the translation sounds natural. I decline the assignment or request extra fees if
the quality is poor. This helps me to avoid wasting time or working under unreasonable conditions. ▲ Collapse
| | |
|
|
|
Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 09:33
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Pia Myeong-Jin Lampert wrote:
Is it reasonable to proofread 4000 words in one day, especially if I don't know the quality of the translation or if the translation is mediocre at best?
Yes. I assume the people that send you this work are clients who work specifically in the language field, i.e. they know how long it normally takes a translator to do a job and they are aware of what happens when a translation isn't very good by the time the proofreader gets it. This means that you can confidently say "yes" to such jobs, and then tell them "sorry, the quality is very bad" within an hour of receiving the work, as soon as you discover that the quality is quite bad.
As you get more and more jobs, you might also learn that some clients do not expect 101% perfect quality anyway, and they want the proofreader to just fix the most urgent issues. When you get such a bad job, ask yourself: what quality of proofreading would I have been able to deliver if I had to stick to a speed of 800 words per hour. Not all translators are able to deliberately reduce the quality of their work, so if you can't do that, don't feel bad.
| | | | Thayenga
Germany
Local time: 09:33
Member (2009)
English to German
+ ...
When you start working with a new customer it is advisable that you inform him/her that you are relatively new to the industry. They either give you a little more time or look for someone else. But at least there won't be any disputes about the time you needed to complete a project should they choose you.
| | | | | What are you expected to check? | Mar 3, 2023 |
Scientific texts may be written by subject experts who know their terminology, but if they are not native speakers of the language, there may be issues with that.
If you need to check terminology and so on as well as editing the language, it can take a long time just to check a single term, to be sure you are really correct. Even routine checks can take several minutes, so if there are more than one or two, you will need an extra couple of hours.
On the o... See more Scientific texts may be written by subject experts who know their terminology, but if they are not native speakers of the language, there may be issues with that.
If you need to check terminology and so on as well as editing the language, it can take a long time just to check a single term, to be sure you are really correct. Even routine checks can take several minutes, so if there are more than one or two, you will need an extra couple of hours.
On the other hand, if you can assume that you only need to make linguistic changes, you can get through more. It still depends on the quality, and whether there is a lot to change, for instance to comply with a style guide. Checking and aligning references can be very time consuming.
Sometimes the source language shows through too much. I have often spent up to half an hour on a single sentence, trying to rearrange it so that an English-speaking reader can understand it easily. This happens, even in a text where the quality is generally good! I can imagine that this happens in German too, and perhaps even more where sentences are long and complex.
German is also a language where there are fewer words generally - if you translate 1000 words from some languages, you will perhaps end up with 900 or even 850 in German - that is simply due to the structure of the language. So if people happily tell you they can proofread 6000 words of say French in a day, that may be equivalent to 5000 words of German, I don't know specifically. (But I do know that kind of thing applies to Scandinavian languages...)
I find it hard to concentrate for a whole day on proofreading - I need long breaks. I may be able to translate or do other work some of the time, but I need to think of something else in between sessions. So I too - after years of experience - turn down urgent proofreading/editing jobs if they call for more than about 5000 - 6000 words a day. That applies even to a regular client, who generally writes very good English, but there are distinct patterns of ´Scandi-English´, which I don't catch when I am tired!
You may be able to work faster if you gather experience, especially if you have regular clients and know what to look for individually, so keep trying, and good luck!
[Edited at 2023-03-03 23:46 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Joakim Braun
Sweden
Local time: 09:33
German to Swedish
+ ...
9,500 words of an excellent translation of a familiar subject = 5 hours.
That's reading both columns of a bilingual Trados export on paper while cross checking the layout (omitting Trados would have saved time, but not possible in this case).
This is about as fast as it gets for me, except for something like a long text-only Word file.
Time required would vary by factor 2-4 given translation quality, layout complexity, type of document etc.
| | |
|
|
|
| Alternatively | Mar 3, 2023 |
Maybe you’re changing too much in the text?
Correcting errors is one thing; making it perfect is quite another…
| | | |
Thanks to everyone who replied to my post. Your tips are very valuable. It is good to see how much volume other translators can handle. I certainly won't force-speed my proofreading capability, as that will only lead to mistakes.
| | | | To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator: You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request » Time needed for proofreading aka am I too slow ? | Protemos translation business management system | Create your account in minutes, and start working! 3-month trial for agencies, and free for freelancers!
The system lets you keep client/vendor database, with contacts and rates, manage projects and assign jobs to vendors, issue invoices, track payments, store and manage project files, generate business reports on turnover profit per client/manager etc.
More info » |
| | CafeTran Espresso | You've never met a CAT tool this clever!
Translate faster & easier, using a sophisticated CAT tool built by a translator / developer.
Accept jobs from clients who use Trados, MemoQ, Wordfast & major CAT tools.
Download and start using CafeTran Espresso -- for free
Buy now! » |
|
| | | | X Sign in to your ProZ.com account... | | | | | |
Login to reply/comment 
Translation news
