Translation Agency Work Translator

the below might shed some light on my present situation. Otherwise, I haven't received that much informative translation work from German into English, but I'll grade your sample and contact you as soon as something comes in. concerning the Panasonic project and other possible work, Panasonic said they’d like to start end of January with some of the languages. They are basically trying to find another vendor for their translations, because their present one is too expensive. The first year or two they could give us work mostly from their Malaysian plant (about 300,000 words a year, all languages combined), with 10 times that volume from their Japanese plants after that. But they are negotiating with a lot of translating agencies and no agreement has yet been reached. Otherwise, right now I am entering a major marketing campaign. My last marketing push was about 7 years ago, but since then I was too busy dealing with large projects to have time to do anything else. When I did find some time I would focus on improving things to increase my capacity. The last two years I have focused heavily in this area, and now I am ready for a major expansion, so hopefully it will not be too long until I will be able to start to send you some work. I will use the Panasonic tender to test translators in general.

> Do you handle Kazak translation? What is your rate?

a pretty meagre list in my database, as you will see below. I can also have some from my older database, but not sure how many of those email addresses would be still active. Not very promising, but I can approach them if you like. My prices for these translators range from 0.05 to 0.1. -1 means "yes".

0

-1

I have a M.Sc. in Chemistry & Physics.

Kazakhstan

3rd year studying translation at Damascus university

Kazakhstan

0

Our employers are at least university students.

I am the head of Brad group.  I am a senior studnent of Bog Uiversity, Turkey. What we do is finding the best jobs for university students in Turkey.  Most of our employers are from Bog University and ODTU which are the best universities in Turkey.

We have all translators of the languages that I marked above. All of our translators have a fluent use of English beside their native languages.

So plese if you want to work with us just let us know. We would be glad to work with you.

Kazakhstan

English

0

I have my Bachelor's degrees in Accounting and Business Administration, currently I am in my first year of master's program.

Kazakhstan

Russian

I've been emailing with the German to English translator and I have some unfortunate news in that she says she is quite booked at the moment and will not be able to get the translation done before Friday. Better quality translators usually have lots of work, and I could not find anyone else I was happy with. I do not get a lot of work in this language combination and subject. A larger agency could, but would probably charge more. Trying my best but this is the best (affordable) resources I can offer you. I told her you are stressed for delivery, so she will try her best. After that I will proofread it. Both my best Russian translators are ready and waiting, so I would guess I can get all of it to you around Monday. I still need about half a day to check that nothing is missing in the translation and that the formatting is correct.

it is about 1700 words and I should get it on Friday. The original translation is in German, so I cannot show you anything until it is translated into English. Would you be interested in proofreading it this time? How is your Russian marketing pizaz?

sorry for the late reply and have been swamped with some projects, so trying to catch up to old emails again. I checked out the job links on proz but generally I have never been successful with getting work through there. I guess because I am an agency and charge more than the translator. Even by myself as a Czech to English translator, offering what I felt were very competitive prices, I did not get any success, so I usually only use Proz to post ads myself. Eventually I want to hire someone to peruse for work, as I don't have time for such things myself.

My rates start from around 0.08 USD/word and I probably do not have enough good Croatian translators to actively pursue work in that language. Anyway, I have a Rumanian girl who is surfing the net for email addresses and I am slowly into my first and largest marketing push for customers. I hope to make this a full time job for someone, as I am finally ready for expansion. The system is set up. Now all I need is some work, so that I can invest back to find more customers, and let the system snowball itself larger. Or so the strategy goes.

I think my cooperation with this customer might be ending. Or i will be much more careful of work I take from them. With the job you did last, they sent me that file I forwarded to you and said they needed it "Bulgarian also". But they meant Bulgarian "only", and are not interested in paying for the other languages. So I told them I think they are sniffing too much glue. I think they are doing gumby work with this proofreading. For example, I wrote them a long letter asking how on earth they want a proofreader to whip through the translation like that, under the assumption that 85% has been translated before and should be fine, when they give no indication to the translator WHICH is the previous translation. I think they just take the work, do a bullshit job, and Kodak is satisfied that they can put a stamp on it that the translation process has actually been done and so they are not liable for lawsuits due to wrong translations. Gumby work from start to finish, and maybe I'll take such work from direct customers in the future, but I feel that this customer is turning into a big gumby. It has expanded and often hires people who just don't have good organisational skills and are airheaded in their decisions.

I just did a horrible construction translation for Presto so I think I can squeeze out another couple of thousand crowns for you. Not much I know, but I'm paying alimony, and I don't know when the next work will come, so I must play it carefully. Made about 30,000 this month, but sometimes I don't have work for several months. Anyway, hope that will change soonish. A Rumanian girl is surfing the web collecting email addresses of potential customers, and she said she can get paid when I have the cash, so I'm trying to get work on several fronts.

Well, just finished the horrible construction project for Presto and I see good hope for this software, but only for technical and legal stuff. For example, I noticed it has an "extract terminology" feature, creating a list of often repeating words. Those can be translated beforehand, and then asked to automatically translate when creating files. This is good for technical and legal documents, where certan words are always translated the same way. I create different dictionaries for different subjects, and I can do the same with the translation memory. Have learned a lot of tricks with the last few projects. But definitely not good for literature, marketing or stylish type translations, where I would often break up or combine sentences when translating. Needs to be rigid text. I think it was applicable for a large part of the Monster project, but I did not have a chance to analyse the text like I do now. What kind of translations do you usually get?

responding to your last email about getting the English and Russian done by this Friday, it occurred to me that, worst case scenario, I can send a first or second draft by that time, or even before, so that you start putting the text on the web. Then, if the translator or through the vetting process we decide on further changes to make everything more perfect, in Word it is easy to show the changes through the Revisions too, so you would be able to see any modifications we make, and make the appropriate changes on the web. Would you like to try something like that? First English file already in and forwarded to the Russians. If you are interested in French, I can already start showing my translators the files and get their feedback. I have many people tested into French.

> Is it a translation or proof-reading task?

I wanted to try Arterm as a proofreader, but just remembered that he shyed away from that task, I think. I already handed it to the other translator and will ask him to send a sample once he has achieved a certain part, which I can forward to Arterm. Do you think Arterm will be willing to help me with the proofread or should I look for someone else? The translation should be quality, but I'm not sure about the marketing style.

okay, can you take a look at the translation and give me your opinion? In the usual folder, or the exact full link is http://desknow.kenax.cz:8000/download/Active_Tenders/Panasonic_34languages/Big%20sample/Translated/ The customer said it would usually want a proofread by a separate translator, so I can go through this procedure this time and pay you for it. I will be approaching several translators to proofread, so just give me your opinion for now, before I choose a proofreader for this.

Oh, we didn't know there's a difference between Saudi Arabian Arab and Egyptian Arab. If you find anything regarding the difference, could you advise us how they are different. Thanks.