"Unique" words Thread poster: anastasiawhite
| anastasiawhite United States Local time: 03:30 English to Russian + ...
I just received a 5,000 word project and they said that 2,000 of those words are unique. What does that mean? Should I only charge for the 2,000 unique words? | | | Jack Doughty United Kingdom Local time: 11:30 Russian to English + ... In memoriam
Some agencies expect you to use CAT tools and pay a certain rate for "full matches", a lower rate for "fuzzy matches" and nothing for "full matches". Personally I do not use CAT tools, they are not often much help for the sort of translations I do, so I refuse all offers of this sort. I don't think I lose much as a result. | | | Jack Doughty United Kingdom Local time: 11:30 Russian to English + ... In memoriam
Too late now to edit previous post, but it should read "...nothing for 'no matches'". | | | Thomas Pfann United Kingdom Local time: 11:30 Member (2006) English to German + ... 2,000 words to translate, rest repetitions | Sep 26, 2018 |
As Jack already pointed out, it means that 2,000 words are 'new'. The rest should be repetitions (or the client could mean TM matches - 100% or fuzzy - in which case you'd need to clarify if those need to be ignored or reviewed). However, if that's all the client told you it's a bit vague and you need to do your analysis (which you should actually always do anyway). Before doing any work, make sure to confirm the amount you will invoice for the job.
[Edited at 2018-09-26 08:... See more As Jack already pointed out, it means that 2,000 words are 'new'. The rest should be repetitions (or the client could mean TM matches - 100% or fuzzy - in which case you'd need to clarify if those need to be ignored or reviewed). However, if that's all the client told you it's a bit vague and you need to do your analysis (which you should actually always do anyway). Before doing any work, make sure to confirm the amount you will invoice for the job.
[Edited at 2018-09-26 08:01 GMT] ▲ Collapse | |
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Samuel Murray Netherlands Local time: 12:30 Member (2006) English to Afrikaans + ...
anastasiawhite wrote: I just received a 5,000 word project and they said that 2,000 of those words are unique. What does that mean? Should I only charge for the 2,000 unique words? What it means depends on whether the client took into account TM matching and internal fuzzy matching when calculating the "unique" words. But regardless of whether he has or hasn't, the "unique" words is a word count that attempts to reflect what is the word count of segments that contain non-repeating text. In other words, in the text "The cat sat on the mat. The dog sat on the mat. The cat sat on the mat.", there are 18 words in total, but 12 "unique" words. The words in the third sentence is "non-unique" because it is a repetition of the first sentence, and all the words in the first and second sentence are counted as "unique" because those are the first or only occurrence of those sentences. If we take internal fuzzy matching into account (i.e. if we take into account that the second sentence is very similar to the first sentence), then the "unique" word count would be even lower (as low as 7 or 8, in fact). Whether to charge for all words or only "unique" words is up to you. You should charge a rate that reflects how long it will take you to do the job. You should try to get a hold of the source files and do your own word count on it. If you use special tools that help improve your translation speed, then you should take that into account as well. If a client gives you a "unique" word count, he probably assumes that you will be using a CAT tool that will enable you to translate repeating or semi-repeating segments faster than non-repeating segments, and he is probably hoping that you will charge him less for repeating and semi-repeating segments. However, you should only charge less if you will in fact spend less time on those segments. If you're not using a tool that allows you to do that, or if the subject matter or language combination makes this unreasonable, you should not offer discounted rates for such segments unless you really want to. | | | Stepan Konev Russian Federation Local time: 13:30 English to Russian It means they gonna rob you | Sep 26, 2018 |
nothing for "full matches" is ok. This is exactly the way it works. No matches are full paid. anastasiawhite, ask them to highlight their unique 2000 words among all 5000 and translate only those words. | | | It may depend on your language pair | Sep 26, 2018 |
I work with two languages that have very few inflections, one being English, so a 100% match probably IS a 100% match. Even then, it is necessary to check that the text is correct and unambiguous as a whole, so I set the basic rate high if the rate for 100% matches is 0% … I suspect that with some pairs, when translating out of English, you have to take things like gender into account in the target language, so a 100% match might actually require considerable editing, not just ch... See more I work with two languages that have very few inflections, one being English, so a 100% match probably IS a 100% match. Even then, it is necessary to check that the text is correct and unambiguous as a whole, so I set the basic rate high if the rate for 100% matches is 0% … I suspect that with some pairs, when translating out of English, you have to take things like gender into account in the target language, so a 100% match might actually require considerable editing, not just checking. There will be other differences, depending on the languages you work in. You need to see the text and assess how much work is involved. I use my CAT all the time, unless it is really technically impossible, but I can appreciate that with different scripts and unrelated languages, a CAT may not be worth the effort of setting up the 'project'. If you can 'cut and paste' large sections of text as repetitions, so you can proofread them first and then re-use them as they are, then it is fair enough to give a reduction for them, even without a CAT. OTOH if there are mostly 'fuzzy matches', then it may still be a lot of work to translate them correctly into the target language. Checking an 85% match and correcting it CAN take longer than just translating it from scratch! (Even in my language pair...) ▲ Collapse | | | Stepan Konev Russian Federation Local time: 13:30 English to Russian RE: 100% match might actually require considerable editing | Sep 26, 2018 |
Christine Andersen wrote: so a 100% match might actually require considerable editing Totally agree. My phrase "nothing for "full matches" is ok." was about Jack Doughty's statement. He first put it right, then "edited" to the contrary. | | | To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator: You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request » "Unique" words TM-Town | Manage your TMs and Terms ... and boost your translation business
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