| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | Poll: My translation speed has improved over the past 3 - 4 years. Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "My translation speed has improved over the past 3 - 4 years.".
View the poll results »
| | | | | I don't know | Jun 14, 2022 |
I’ve always been much more concerned with quality than with speed: I prefer to go slowly and carefully. I’ve probably reached my cruising speed well over 20 years ago. There's a saying in Portuguese I go by: “Depressa e bem não há quem” (something like “Good and quickly seldom meet”).
| | | | | Probably not | Jun 14, 2022 |
Unless I am asked to take on a rushed job for delivery ASAP, I too am far more concerned with quality than speed.
That said, if you are trying to earn a living, then it IS necessary to get a certain amount done per hour, meet deadlines etc.
Sometimes there seems to be an ongoing battle with clients and agencies who do not appreciate that a good translation takes time, T T T as my grandmother used to say! (Things Take Time...)
The remedy is NOT to add extra layers... See more Unless I am asked to take on a rushed job for delivery ASAP, I too am far more concerned with quality than speed.
That said, if you are trying to earn a living, then it IS necessary to get a certain amount done per hour, meet deadlines etc.
Sometimes there seems to be an ongoing battle with clients and agencies who do not appreciate that a good translation takes time, T T T as my grandmother used to say! (Things Take Time...)
The remedy is NOT to add extra layers of administration and QA, but to give a qualified translator time to do it properly first time round. After that, a good reviser/editor can do the final polishing. All the same, I have done a fair amount of revising and editing in my time, and it is easy to see when the translator has rushed too much, and has had to cut corners. The editing takes far longer, so it is a poor use of time!
In these days of almost instant machine translation, human translators must go for quality, accuracy and fluency. Then work at an efficient speed, but don´t make ´fast´ a selling point! ▲ Collapse
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 10:52
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
Strange question. Why only the past 3-4 years? Becoming faster is a long and slow process that depends on a zillion details.
Compared to my early days I probably more or less doubled the speed by now (so over a period of 22 years).
That being said translating fast is a means to gaining a decent income, but never an end at itself. I never compromise on quality by translating (too) fast. E.g. if I'm about to miss a deadline I will never start to hurry. I will gladly miss ... See more Strange question. Why only the past 3-4 years? Becoming faster is a long and slow process that depends on a zillion details.
Compared to my early days I probably more or less doubled the speed by now (so over a period of 22 years).
That being said translating fast is a means to gaining a decent income, but never an end at itself. I never compromise on quality by translating (too) fast. E.g. if I'm about to miss a deadline I will never start to hurry. I will gladly miss the deadline and undergo the wrath (if applicable, mostly not) of the client. After he or she has calmed down, there's only one thing left that really matters: the quality of your translation. ▲ Collapse
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neilmac
Spain
Local time: 10:52
Spanish to English
+ ...
Don't know/ don't care.
People (colleagues and clients) tell me I'm fast. I'm not worried about that, I just want to get the job done and move on to the next one.
As the old saying goes, "more haste, less speed".
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I don't suppose I'm getting any better or faster at translating per se after all these years, but as time has goes on I become more and more specialised and know my customers better and better. So I get more done in less time.
Or, more accurately, slightly less done in a lot less time.
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disagree if we speak about the translation proper (having 40+ years of work under belt). The technology makes less stressful the translation process but adds its own problems (QA/QC among others)
in 1980, the standard daily rate was 4.5 conventional pages of handwritten/typed text based on the 1920s' League of Nation standards, today more or less the same rate (of TRANSLATION)
[Edited at 2022-06-14 14:03 GMT]
[Edited at 2022-06-14 14:11 GMT]
[Edited at 2022-06-14 14:11... See more disagree if we speak about the translation proper (having 40+ years of work under belt). The technology makes less stressful the translation process but adds its own problems (QA/QC among others)
in 1980, the standard daily rate was 4.5 conventional pages of handwritten/typed text based on the 1920s' League of Nation standards, today more or less the same rate (of TRANSLATION)
[Edited at 2022-06-14 14:03 GMT]
[Edited at 2022-06-14 14:11 GMT]
[Edited at 2022-06-14 14:11 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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If a book translation entails a fair amount of technical terminology in a field I am not all that familiar with (like when I had to deal with nautical and geographical terms, when I created the translation of a historical novel based on the life of Christopher Columbus), then I get slowed down. So I would say that it depends on the project.
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Felipe Tomasi 
Brazil
Local time: 05:52
Member
English to Portuguese
+ ...
The speed of translation depends on what you are translating. If you are translating a creative text or a book, you usually need more time than for MTPE or technical translations in fields you are already familiar with.
| | | | Orville Fitz-Henley (X)
United States
Local time: 01:52
Spanish to English
+ ...
| Interpreting Speed | Jun 14, 2022 |
Since I work as an interpreter, speed is definitely a factor in client satisfaction. One needs to balance that with quality renditions, so a great "partner question" to add to this poll would be "How much has your quality improved over the last 3-4 years?". And a numeric/percentage scale would be added to facilitate measuring such a factor.
| | | | Jan Truper
Germany
Local time: 10:52
Member (2016)
English to German
I'm not getting faster, I'm getting better.
| | | | Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 11:52
Member
English to Turkish
| Disagree (whatever that means) | Jun 15, 2022 |
If anything, my translation speed has 'deteriorated' over the past 3-4 years as I came to spend more and more time on researching and perfecting my translations to deliver the best end product that I possibly can.
As fate would have it, my inability to increase my translation speed was the reason why my boss, for want of a better word, made me redundant after 10 years of in-house service (slavery). She wanted me to produce 4000 words a day without research, quality check, proofreading.. E... See more If anything, my translation speed has 'deteriorated' over the past 3-4 years as I came to spend more and more time on researching and perfecting my translations to deliver the best end product that I possibly can.
As fate would have it, my inability to increase my translation speed was the reason why my boss, for want of a better word, made me redundant after 10 years of in-house service (slavery). She wanted me to produce 4000 words a day without research, quality check, proofreading.. Even tough I was under pressure to churn out that amount day in, day out, I just couldn't bring myself to type away mindlessly without checking a dictionary or Googling some terms... It's too bad she wasn't aware of Machine Translation back then or I'd still be employed (ffs!).
So, to answer the question, My translation speed was wicked back in the day, but not anymore. I value my work and my clients, unlike that er.. somebody... ▲ Collapse
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Kay Denney
France
Local time: 10:52
French to English
I'm certainly faster than when I started out 26 years ago. But I don't think much has changed in the past 3-4 years.
This poll was obviously written by a youngster!
Like most others here, I prefer to focus on quality. I base my estimated deadlines on my output from when I worked in-house, but I always build in extra time in case a dear direct client needs something urgently, and I manage to meet the deadlines comfortably.
If I do need to work faster, I'll take fewer breaks (t... See more I'm certainly faster than when I started out 26 years ago. But I don't think much has changed in the past 3-4 years.
This poll was obviously written by a youngster!
Like most others here, I prefer to focus on quality. I base my estimated deadlines on my output from when I worked in-house, but I always build in extra time in case a dear direct client needs something urgently, and I manage to meet the deadlines comfortably.
If I do need to work faster, I'll take fewer breaks (that's when I go missing from here for example) ▲ Collapse
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:52
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Similar problem | Jun 15, 2022 |
Baran Keki wrote:
If anything, my translation speed has 'deteriorated' over the past 3-4 years as I came to spend more and more time on researching and perfecting my translations to deliver the best end product that I possibly can.
I have spent a lot of time and thought on how to speed up the process of comparing the document I am currently translating to previous documents for the same end client. Basically, precedent is the starting point, and divergence needs to be justified. It therefore follows that you need to be able to make such checks quickly and reliably. I regularly discover small improvements and over time these mount up. In that sense, I'm much more efficient (and faster) than I was 5 years ago.
Dan
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It depends on the purpose of the translation and how much research I need (or choose) to do. If it's for publication, I am increasingly serious about doing research. For example, if a Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking writer cites a reference in English, now more than ever I check, and even read, the original English. The availability of these sources has increased at a quantum pace. Back in pre-Internet days, we just plowed through. We had no other choice than to use our best judgment.
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