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Why most rates proposed and/or expected by potential clients are below ProZ "Average rates"?
Thread poster: Bruno Carlier
Abba Storgen (X)
Abba Storgen (X)
United States
Local time: 05:53
Greek to English
+ ...
"Professionals" - what does it mean today... Apr 13, 2021

Lingua 5B wrote:
If interpreters are professional, trained, and reliable...


One thing we forget:

A career is something that entails promotions, bonuses, pension, etc.

A business is an asset, which you own and can sell.

We're neither. We' re job for hire. Usually when we realize this, it's already too late.
The best conduct in this job (as it has been formed in the last 5-8 years) is to have it as occasional "part time" for winter weekends.
Or open an agency just to get some government money.


Robert Forstag
writeaway
Rachel Fell
 
Dan Lucas
Dan Lucas  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:53
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
One year ago Apr 1, 2022

Dan Lucas wrote:
CARLIER BRUNO wrote:
Thanks for your comprehensive and very personal testimony... which sounds very gloomy, actually.

Because we know that context is everything, I should point out that Eleftherios (Abba Storgen) has been gloomy ever since he started posting on ProZ.com in 2004. One cannot deny that he has been consistent, and that's a good thing. And he's still here, so he must like it.

Personally, if I had listened to the people who were saying in 2014 that the end was nigh for translators I would never have started out in this business. I would have lost out on hundreds of thousands of pounds in income achieved with no investment other than a PC. Fortunately, I took a view, pushed on, and have been reasonably successful.

Unsurprisingly, since then people have made various excuses for why (until COVID) I was managing to grow my revenues steadily and why, despite CAT and MT, my professional life has actually been pretty good. One of my favourites is "Ah, but you're in a good language pair". In fact, on the JP-EN specific mailing lists there is plenty of doom and gloom, and talk of falling rates, so clearly the pair isn't the determining factor. JP-EN has been affected by broader industry trends, just like other pairs. Some people succeed, some people fail. It's complicated.

I fully expect to read many more wild and unsupported assertions to the effect that by 2024 (ten years after I started) my business will have dried up and I'll be no more than an MT jockey. Maybe that will happen, maybe not. Maybe it's no big deal if it does happen provided that my income remains much the same. Some people found ways of prospering despite CAT, some didn't.

But I can tell you now that, if my business hasn't imploded by 2024, the doomsayers will move the goalposts again and some other reason will be found for the success of people like myself. "You've been fine because of XYZ, but don't you worry, it's coming", will be the vague threat. "You just wait. By 2030 you'll be out of a job".

Yeah, OK. Anyway, good to see you again mate, you're looking well. Sorry, can't stop to chat, need to finish 6,000 characters by tomorrow morning.

I would not deny that the market has changed over the past decade, and I expect it to change again over the next ten years. I've been waiting for the sky to fall in - as foretold by many in this forum and elsewhere - for seven years. And you know what? If this is the end of the world, it's been fairly lucrative and quite enjoyable.

BUT, and it's a big "but", you need something that makes you stand out from other freelancers. For me, and many others, that has been domain-specific knowledge. If you are an expert in a particular field, there is demand out there. (For example, if this person's linguistic skills are up to scratch, she'll probably do fine because of her specialist knowledge.)

If you don't have some kind of expertise, it's going to be harder. Just being able to take simple text in one language and express it reasonably well in another language isn't enough any more. That market is under pressure. Adapt, evolve, or die. Then again, isn't that the case in most industries? Everybody needs a Plan B.

Regards,
Dan

[Edited at 2021-04-01 10:37 GMT]


With reference to the thread on MT currently bubbling elsewhere, this was the situation exactly one year ago today. I stand by my words. For most of those 12 months, my part of the market has been seeing a cyclical surge in demand. It won't last, but then again what does?

Dan


[Edited at 2022-04-01 08:00 GMT]


Christopher Schröder
Peter Shortall
Samuel Murray
P.L.F. Persio
Beatriz Ramírez de Haro
 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 11:53
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Getting back to the original question Apr 1, 2022

CARLIER BRUNO wrote:
Why are most of the rates proposed and/or expected by potential clients are below ProZ "Average rates reported by language pair"?

Getting back to the original question, if indeed the original poster wanted an answer to that question, when you fill in your ProZ.com profile, you are asked for two sets of rates, namely a normal rate and a minimum rate. AFAIK the minimum rate is used (or were used) to include or exclude you from job posts where the offered rate is above or below a certain threshold. This minimum rate is not shown to anyone on your profile page. The normal rate is the one shown on your profile page, and that is the rate that is used in ProZ.com's rates survey, but that rate is always higher than what translators are actually willing to be negotiated downwards to.

Also:

Jean Dimitriadis also made an interesting point (unfortunately in the middle of the conspiracy theory sub-thread, which may be why no-one responded to it).

Jean Dimitriadis wrote:
I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this, but the ProZ.com community rates description ... starts with this sentence: "This page lists the average rates reported by ProZ.com's community of freelance translators and translation companies." Notice anything peculiar? The community pairs listed as the average reported by both freelance translators AND translation companies.
...
So the "community average" seems to include a mix of prices geared towards two very distinct segments, with no indication of how many freelancers and how many companies are included in any given sample.


[Edited at 2022-04-01 07:43 GMT]


P.L.F. Persio
Claudio Porcellana (X)
 
Arianne Farah
Arianne Farah  Identity Verified
Canada
Local time: 06:53
Member (2008)
English to French
Simple really... Apr 1, 2022

CARLIER BRUNO wrote:
Why are most of the rates proposed and/or expected by potential clients are below ProZ "Average rates reported by language pair"?


Because hope springs eternal.

Agencies that pay well have no trouble retaining good linguists - they may post once in a blue moon because they got a new contract or a linguist they've worked with for 40 years has retired or passed away and they're looking for another reliable professional. They won't tell you what they pay; they'll ask what you charge.

Agencies that don't pay well find themselves recruiting and recruiting and recruiting and recruiting. They can't win. If the translator is good, but inexperienced, they'll leave for greener pastures after a few months. If they aren't good, the client will complain and the agency will ditch the translator. So they're back to the drawing board, they have to recruit again. You may see the same agency post dozens of recruitment ads a year. When they get desperate they send a 'dear linguist' mass email.

And we see this never-ending slew of low proposed rates and assume they're representative of the market. They're not. They're representative of the rate at which you can't hold on to a linguist.


Maisie Musgrave
Dan Lucas
Jorge Payan
Mr. Satan (X)
polishedwords
P.L.F. Persio
Jan Truper
 
Daniel Frisano
Daniel Frisano  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 11:53
Member (2008)
English to Italian
+ ...
Wishful thinking (from the translators), that's why Apr 2, 2022

Because the average rates that you see stated here are not realistic.

 
Sadek_A
Sadek_A  Identity Verified
Local time: 14:53
English to Arabic
+ ...
..... Apr 2, 2022

Arianne Farah wrote:
And we see this never-ending slew of low proposed rates and assume they're representative of the market. They're not. They're representative of the rate at which you can't hold on to a linguist.


Hats off to that statement! 🎩🎩🎩


P.L.F. Persio
 
Matthias Brombach
Matthias Brombach  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 11:53
Member (2007)
Dutch to German
+ ...
Stick to them! We have a great tool in our hand! Apr 2, 2022

Daniel Frisano wrote:

Because the average rates that you see stated here are not realistic.


Maybe the prices stated on https://search.proz.com/?sp=pfe/rates are not realistic, but they don't seem bad at all (at least in my combinations). Then why not stick to them, when negotiating, and quote them as a reference? Of course, the other side will tell you that their average price they are willing to pay is lower, but would they ever prove it to you or can you be sure that they tell the truth? No. I don't know any other international reference on the internet for translator prices, so why not consequently demand these prices collectively, to have a common ground that would secure a decent living for all or at least a majority of us, even when we are competing with each other? Wasn't that the original idea of proz, to offer a common platform to the benefits for the community of translators? So why not use it to convince us as translators to refer to the above tool and use it as the least possible denominator?

[Bearbeitet am 2022-04-02 20:26 GMT]


Jorge Payan
P.L.F. Persio
 
Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL
Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:53
Member (2004)
English to Italian
what about... Apr 3, 2022

Arianne Farah wrote:

If they aren't good, the client will complain and the agency will ditch the translator. So they're back to the drawing board, they have to recruit again. You may see the same agency post dozens of recruitment ads a year. When they get desperate they send a 'dear linguist' mass email.


...telling their client that at that rate that's the best they'll get? Agencies should educate their clients, but they are too busy lowering their prices to secure more business, that they can't sustain at those rates. Classic catch-22 situation.


P.L.F. Persio
 
Laurent Di Raimondo
Laurent Di Raimondo  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 11:53
English to French
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
Time to wake up! Apr 3, 2022

Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL wrote:

Arianne Farah wrote:

If they aren't good, the client will complain and the agency will ditch the translator. So they're back to the drawing board, they have to recruit again. You may see the same agency post dozens of recruitment ads a year. When they get desperate they send a 'dear linguist' mass email.


...telling their client that at that rate that's the best they'll get? Agencies should educate their clients, but they are too busy lowering their prices to secure more business, that they can't sustain at those rates. Classic catch-22 situation.


I woudn't have put it better! I find it this diagnosis quite realistic indeed, but quite idealistic all the same... Isn't that translators who should "educate" translation agencies instead, as our colleague Arianne Farah hinted? Maybe time has come to reverse things and turn the tables...

Ultimately, isn't that translators who do the donkey work? What are they ashamed of? What are they afraid of? The fact is: with no translators all over the world, translation agencies wouldn't even exist.

It's time to wake up!

[Modifié le 2022-04-04 17:52 GMT]


Matthias Brombach
P.L.F. Persio
 
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