So you need fast and affordable translation? You don’t want to spend more than € 0.07 per word and you value high quality? Do you also want the translation to be done by a professional native speaker translator with academic qualifications and several years of professional experience? Also, is it important to you that the translation is proofread by a second native speaker in order to get a perfect product that is tailored to the target group? This might be a problem!
What is important to you in translations?
Of course, such offers seem tempting at first glance. Why pay €2.00 for a chocolate bar or €59.99 for a jumper when you can have them for 39 cents or €10.00? In some market segments, there is already an understanding and appreciation of fair trade principles. Most people know the circumstances in which really cheap products are produced, namely the exploitative practices found in third-world and developing countries. But you do not have to look to Bangladesh or Côte d’Ivoire to understand the consequences of price dumping.
In the land of price dumping
DThe translation market in industrialised countries such as Germany often resembles that of a developing country. Profit-oriented translation companies have fostered a greed-is-good mentality through years of price dumping and have undercut each other with word and line prices that are frankly devoid of business sense. Enticing promises such as “professional translations by professional native-speaker translators” at almost zero cost are now flooding the translation market. But have you ever asked yourself how it is possible to offer a professional translation at the rock-bottom rate of €0.07?
Amateurs instead of professionals
A price per word of €0.07 corresponds to a price per line of approximately €0.50, which is what the translation agency charges up front. For the translator, there is not much left over from this. According to the price guidelines set out in Honorarspiegel für Übersetzungs- und Dolmetschleistungen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland für das Jahr 2014 and adhered to by the largest German translators’ association BDÜ, the lowest price for a standard line in the source language is €1.55, which corresponds to approximately €0.21 per word. This price has been set to ensure the translator a reasonable standard of living.
A sample calculation
On average, a translator manages to translate about 15 to 25 standard lines per hour. At a price per line of €0.50 (i.e. approx. €0.07 per word), he or she would earn between €7.50 and €12.50 per hour, and that’s before the agency has deducted its commission. We do not need to explain to you that no professional translator is available at this price. Most cheap agencies keep this information to themselves: they offer translations for €0.07 per word without coming clean about who is actually translating your texts. One thing is certain: such jobs can only be taken on by amateurs or trainees who are just learning the art of translation – but who usually do not understand the finer points.
The consequences for the customer
There will probably always be people who believe they can get high quality for little money. Whether an agency sets out to make mega bucks or not, it will collect its commission, one way or another. But for a translator, it will be almost impossible to deliver high quality for a line price of 50 cents. Ultimately, the translator will be sawing through the branch he or she is perched on. To get a decent hourly wage, he has no choice but to translate faster and faster. There is no time left for extensive research or further training. At the end of the chain, the consequences of this are borne by the customers who cannot explain why their product does not appeal to a foreign market or why their company does not get the recognition it deserves.
What NATIVE SPEAKER does
Yes, NATIVE SPEAKER is a translation agency, and we have not reinvented the wheel. We make our living by providing you with translators, interpreters and proofreaders and therefore cannot pay them the full fee they would receive for a direct assignment. However, we feel a responsibility to them and wish to reward their work as fairly as possible. Our prices per line start at €1.20 for a non-specialised language text. We pass on the majority of this directly to the translators. For interpreting and proofreading, the majority of the fee also goes directly to the interpreters and proofreaders.
Ultimately, we all benefit from fair pricing: you as a customer receive consistently high quality, we as intermediaries cover our costs and, together with our translators, interpreters and proofreaders, earn a living wage. Whether you eat cheap food, wear cheap clothes or make use of “cheap English translations” is up to you. However, if you value quality and believe in fair trade, there is no way around paying a fair price for chocolate, jumpers… or translation.
By the way, we will have used up around three minutes – equivalent to one translated standard line – of your working time to read this article. We hope you will forgive the intrusion, and we thank you for your valuable time.
Your NATIVE SPEAKER team
P.S. If we were still unable to convince you after all, you will find your personal cheap translator by copying and pasting the following into a search engine:
“cheap translator “; “cheap translator english”; “translator 50 cent”; “cheap translation berlin”; “cheap interpreter english german”; “fast translation “; “translation 24”; “cheap interpreter berlin”; “proofreader fast cheap”; “professional translator cheap”; “native speaker translator cheap”; “native speaker fast cheap”; “proofreader free of charge”; “french translator free of charge” and the like.
