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Translation Work

Having lived in Germany and Austria for a number of years, i consider myself fluent and pretty much a native!

I've been asked by one of my mother's friends to translate some text into German for her.

She is willing and able to pay me well for the job, but i have no idea at all what a normal going rate is? I'll obviously be doing it at a cheap rate for her anyway, but need some basis.

Literally just stabbing in the dark at £50 / hour?

Comments

  • Sixer
    Sixer Posts: 1,087 Forumite
    The going rate for a freelancer is about £30 per hour - but it does depend on what you're translating. Highly technical jobs can pay more.
  • If you look around you'll find people offering translation from as little as £8 an hour up to £50 an hour - so the above at £30 sounds about right as for £8 an hour I'd be suspicious of the quality!
    :A
  • I would make sure that if you made a mistake on the translation that there would be no come back, otherwise you would need to think about some liability insurance etc.
  • A lot charge per word, anywhere from about 2 to 7p though
  • Alcmene
    Alcmene Posts: 652 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture
    It is the norm that you usually translate into your first language. This means that you would be going from German to English, or if you were French you would go from English to French.

    I think that if it is your first job then you should be wary of charging top whack. Bear in mind that just because you have a good grasp of both languages, this doesn't mean that you can translate. You need special skills to be a translator, and even more skills to be an interpreter.

    Please be careful and gets yourself some insurance.
  • Thanks for the seemingly sound advice. I'm only doing a couple of informal documents, definitely not going to make a habit or a career out of it.
    When i was living in Vienna i did a lot of translation into English and did a lot of volunteer work at English conversational classes.

    I was employed in Munich for a few months and my role included work as an interpreter for business meetings/conferences, but generally did so from German to English.

    I'm just going to charge £10/ hour as a favour to her, it should hopefully take no longer than 2 hours to get everything spot on.
  • I think these rates seem quite high. Most professional translators can do about 2000-3000 words a day for a solid translation depending on how technical the language is etc.

    So they might make around 100-150 pounds a day, £50 an hour seems really high
  • IronWolf
    IronWolf Posts: 6,426 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    most translation is per word, not per hour.

    If its not your mother tongue, you can't charge professional rates though, gotta discount
    Faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
  • davester
    davester Posts: 4,079 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    Also documents used for official uses also require a licenced translators stamp which are required, particularly immigration offices.
    Survey earnings total 2009 £417, 2010 £875, 2011 £574
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