Are you above average? How much can a freelance translator earn?
POST YOUR COMMENT
- Tommy
- This is purely speculative. Real life isn't that simple.
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REPLY
- 05/11/2013
- Lam
- I think if this calculation is based on full-time working, it may be a little inaccurate as it doesn't mean all the time (say 8 hours) will be spent on traslating but also on other administrative works. As for letting customer bullying ourselves, I think it is applaudable idea. I used to get $0.02 per word from a China agency for a semi-technical manual and turned it down right away. My reason for doing so is I dont want to spoil the industry when some agencies want to get the big best part of the cake at the expense of freelancers and other respectable agencies. Also, those agencies that don't value the quality and effort of their employees can't be trusted, who know if I even got paid after handing them my work. I think those who accept such offer would be the one who dont value their work or realize the importance of the effort or just in this for a quick profit.
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- 05/11/2013
- Steve
- It would have been more enlightening to multiply unit rates for the dozen+ languages of the ATA rate survey by the corresponding daily outputs to calculate what pro translators actually make in annual income versus language. The widely quoted $43K per year is essentially the Spanish-English/French-English full time translator US annual salary figure per the ATA survey. The ATA survey ignores specialties, although it is widely known there can be about a 2 fold difference between unit rates for literary translation (bottom of the distribution) and technical-medical translation. Per the ATA survey, essentially nobody earns $0.35 per word for a significant amount of jobs, so the above calculation is rather silly and misleading.
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- 05/11/2013
- Gal (Tomedes Team)
- Tommy - You are right, real life is never as simple as a 300 words article.
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- 06/11/2013
- Gal (Tomedes Team)
- Lam - Thank you for sharing your experience! You also raised a good point - The amount of money a translator will make at the end of the month depends on the amount of hours he can/willing to put in. That, by the way, seems to me as one of the great advantages of freelance - being able to decide for yourself.
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- 06/11/2013
- JIM
- For the best friend know
- 08/04/2020
- Gal (Tomedes Team)
- Steve - It can be interesting to relate to specific language pairs, we will definitely consider it for future posts. As you said, top notch specialty gives a great boost to one's rate and so the 0.35$ calculation purpose is to give some clue as for the amount of money that can be earned at the very top of the pyramid. Besides, you don't need a "significant amount of jobs" to earn a very decent salary when charging so much per word.
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- 06/11/2013
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