Time Translation Text Czech Translators Email

sorry about the late reply. My nephew grabbed my pocket pc mobile without asking me and ended up breaking it, so I have not been able to check my email regularly as I usually do, meaning that I was not set up properly to manage your project well, since I need to communicate with my translators regularly during an ongoing project.

Now I have a new phone and I've made some other improvements, so I am back in full force and able to take work from you again. The new phone has a better battery so I can leave it running all the time now, and we can resort to a more direct form of communication, as you once suggested. There is the possibility of calling me, if you like, or I can give you a special email address which will send a text message directly to my phone. I can respond to that, or it can give me the impetus to hook my computer to the internet to check any emails and respond to them. But keep in mind that I cannot accomplish much when I receive a request at 11pm in the evening (my time). If I do, what I can mostly do is prepare emails to many people, send them out late at night and shortly thereafter, and get up early the next day and start processing everything. On the other hand, I can also set up a system with certain trusted translators, sending them a text message to their mobile, to hopefully get a quick response and be able to quickly confirm an order back to you. However, in the past, it seems I would often get an email from Ivane around 4pm your Friday, which might be 11pm my time, her asking for a response and confirmation for an order "ASAP". As if she had been trying to farm out work all day, and having some left over and her day coming to a close, she thought she'd try me. This is not a good way to hand over the baton. I can work on a project all weekend, approaching translators and communicating with them through my mobile, anywhere any time, but it is difficult for me to give a secure confirmation on such short notice. In such a case it might be better if she started approaching me earlier in her closing day. But like I said, I can set up an instant mobile phone text messaging system with certain key translators, whereby I could possibly give her such secure confirmation within an hour. Otherwise, I have lots of translators in my database, and every day gaining more, and feel quite confident in certain language combinations, subjects and volumes that I could successfully complete any project over the weekend, without the need for a secure confirmation beforehand (secure meaning that I have already received confirmation from the translators before securely confirming the order to you).

When managing a project over the weekend, I've learned that I should not rely on consultation with your customer, as Charles explained to me that the turnaround response time is quite slow. When I did that first multilanguage project for you over the weekend, I thought that I could get some consultation done over your day so that the project could be delivered successfully by 3pm Monday your time. But this has turned out to be impractical. In any case, it is no problem to use my own resources to help the translators with any issue they need help with. They were simply asking, and I was simply forwarding their questions. But it turns out that they eventually figured it out, also with my help, as I was forwarding their questions to other translators, and the project was successfully delivered as finalized, on time.

Another problem is the low value of the USD (although it may be at the beginning of a long climb upwards), as a lot of my translators are outside the US. So if we do resume cooperation, it will take me a little bit of time to find out which translators I can still use. So it would be good if you could tell me your exact price limits for each language combination and subject that you are interested in.

What concerns the languages I can handle, I'd say it is roughly the same as it has always been, which is mostly European languages, and Chinese (although I can certainly branch in others, if there is a need – it only requires testing them). I've had a fair amount of work in those languages and have many tested translators. But I think it would be difficult to fit into your price for some of the Scandinavian languages. I still have a good translator in Dutch that I have used for many of your projects. The northern languages would have to be tested more, what concerns price.

Well, guess that's it. Hopefully we can work together again. I've done a lot of reflecting and decided on a different strategy. In the past I guess I was getting too complicated with my suggestions, so I'll keep things as simple as possible for your staff, sending as few emails as possible. I think things could work out well.

Have a good one,

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> Every time surprised your positivism.

Sometimes I surprise myself. I think it is so strong though to the point of being unhealthy sometimes. Anyway, I'd rather be optimistic than pessimistic.

I have such script but it is without any restriction and allow to surf anywhere in filesystem. Fortunately, it is not too difficult to correct. Do you really need in DeskNow? What is the main functions you need in?

Well, the big advantage of Desknow is the following, and it pays off when I have a lot of projects. Perhaps you could help me find some alternative during times when I have little work.

- the biggest advantage is that it is light and I can check my email cheaply through my pocketpc. It has many functions I can perform through my pocketpc.

- or if I hookup to it using my mobile phone as a modem, in ppc mode very few kilobytes are transferred, so I can check my mail cheaply, and most importantly, save files to the server.

- files that are saved to the server can be downloaded by translators using the Abyss Server. So I do not have to download large files to my mobile and then upload them again. Everything stays on the server.

- since the server is Windows XP, it can run Transit Termstar, which is a very important translation program. My remote employees can remote desktop connect to the server, run the program and process files for the translators. But I have not been using it much for the past two years. Again, all this pays off when I have a lot of projects that need managing, which I havent for the past year.

The server contract expires at the end of the year and they said they do not mind disconnecting it until work picks up again. Or do you think I could run an XP server somewhere for cheaper than 2000$ a year? Or do you know of some email software which can install on my webhost server and which I can use to check my mail cheaply through my mobile phone, and save files to the server? The webhost server has some email thing and I will look at it the next time I'm on the internet. Perhaps it will prove useful and not hog too many kb. It will be good to downscale and save this money when I am not getting a lot of projects.

Concerning the download script, the purpose of that is just so that my friends could download some of my important software that I have been collecting over the years. With 300gigs of space on my webhost server, I have started backing up everything on it. The folder where I am putting the software is password protected. I don't want to give anyone ftp access, because they could upload scripts to the folders and through that gain access to the rest of the directories.

Perhaps you can use existent web communications services. Last time here rises the popularity of the national communication services like *.mail.ru. It allow to do many things which was unimaginable half year ago. I think unpossible to find hosting where they permit you to set up DeskNow because it is real tcp/ip-services system. 2000$ in a year, 5.5$ everyday for what? Suggest you to look for other collocation service company, imho it is too high price. I asked here my provider company and they offer collocation as much as 40$ per month but without traffic price.

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I did not notice the character count in the files.

Does the following text need to be translated?

Clánek c. 5

27.10.08

Kategorie: Info-kiosk/Nove v Praze/Úrady

Pocet znaku s teaserem: 1852

One address includes:

Justicní areál Na Mícánkách

Does something like that have to be translated? (Justice Area) Some addresses have an official English equivalent and need to be dug up and researched on the net, if necessary. If I can totally ignore the addresses I do not need to charge for them, but if I have to go through it and double check, I should get something for it.

I copied the text-only portion of one file into an empty page and found my word count to be 1885, above the stated word count of 1852, which indicates to me that the written word count only includes the marketing text and probably excludes the text:

Kontakty na pražské obvodní soudy

Which quickly translates into "Contacts for Prague District Courts". Nor would it include the excerpt at the top.

When I first stated my price, I indicated I might need to charge more if it is a marketing type text which needs time to reflect to produce quality, rather than just plough through the translation. I think time will reveal this. If the text is similar enough overall I could get faster, but if each translation snippet is different in nature, for marketing and presentation, I really should go slower and reflect. Again, time and volume will reveal how it goes.

My experience is that the number of English words is usually higher than Czech, but we can test this out.

Czech translation agencies pay me no less than 250Kc per page, which I consider a minimum price, and potentially low for a native English speaker. I do not see why I should work for less for an agency located outside the country. I checked out http://catcomm.de/. My German is only basic, but it seems potentially like a direct company, for which I usually charge a higher rate, like at least 350 Kc per page (for Czech companies, more for foreign ones).

I'd like to comment that Czech agencies always pay for the entire document and do not exclude the addresses and other things.

250 Kc per page should translate roughly into 0.04 Euro per word. Considering that you wanted a quote for the Czech word count (which I assumed is generally less than the English count), the fact it is marketing text and may require more time to think, and because I included the contact addresses etc. in my calculations, together with my price of 0.05 Euro per word this is the reason for our price difference.

In any case, because I have free capacity at the moment, perhaps we could agree on the following: 300 Kc per page of 1800 characters (including spaces etc. and based on the character count given in the documents), I absolutely ignore any addresses etc. but translate for free stuff like "Contacts for Prague District Courts" (and, if necessary, the text at the very top), and we try a few documents, compare the English word count against the Czech, and see how it goes. For western prices I feel 0.05 Euro per word is fairly reasonable, and most of my customers, even in the west, pay me by the target word. But I understand that each document comes with a character count, so we can try to base things on that. If you assign a high volume to me and it goes fairly quickly, I can consider some discount.

when we were first time in contact, you told me you would charge about 250 CZK for the text I showed you for a first cost estimation. This text had about 1.500 characters. For this reason I am now a bit surprised at your todays estimation - because the 3 texts I send you content: 2.163 1.852 1.943 5.958 characters should be 993 CZK (around 40 EUR) maximum - as the English text is usually shorter than the Czech one. (Our journalists always indicate the total of characters under or above their article). The internetlinks and addresses have of course not to be translated. Could you please explain to me this difference? Thanks a lot!

sounds good! So please find enclosed to this email 3 texts that ought to be translated into English. Please give me first a short cost estimation - thank you! I counted 1182 words, but for the Czech market I usually charge per target word. But if you'd like an estimate for all three files in advance, I would say 0.05 Euro per word, since there usually ends up more English words than Czech, perhaps by as much as 20%. So for these three files I would calculate it at 60 Euro. Or would you rather agree on USD for these projects? May I ask you another last question: are you a native speaker English? How comes? And: are you situated in Prague? I was born in Prague, left when I was three in 1968 with the Soviet invasion, grew up in Canada, where I obtained a university degree in economics at Queens, then moved to Prague, where I translated from Czech to English for roughly 10 years. I moved away from Prague about two years ago but still maintain a lot of contacts there and occasionally use some to help me with translations. I am sorry to say but I attached the wrong text. Please find the right one enclosed! just wondering if you received my last email and if there is any progress with this project.

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Hey... sure, but i don't understand what you mean by your friend... do you want me to pay the full amount or only part of it? Would you be paying me thru paypal in Euros?

He's not my friend but an old customer. If he agrees to pay like this then you can pay less. I'll give him a couple of weeks. I need the full payment to be made by around the 12th of December, so let's give him some time. Once that is crystalised, then I'll know how much I need you to pay and I can pay you in advance by PayPal and in whatever currency you choose. My PayPal account is in the US and also has a Euro account. Or do you have a Moneybookers.com account? That is becoming increasingly popular in Europe, and an incredibly dirt cheap method to transfer cash, at least in Europe. They are slowly spreading to other parts of the globe, although with limited service for the time being. I have a bunch of cash in my Moneybookers account and having a hard time accessing it. Perhaps I could convince you to set up your own account? It's like PayPal, so the set up is immediate, but then you have to email them scanned pics of your electricity bill or whatever (I keep all those on my computer and blast them off occasionally when needed), and then you need to verify your bank account (they transfer some pennies and you tell them the exact amount, or something like that). You can hook it up to your Czech bank account and it's like a regular domestic transfer between your Moneybookers and Czech bank account. I like them a lot more than PayPal, because they actually respond to your emails, quickly, and it cost me 50 cents to send someone 300 dollars, or something ridiculous like that.

latergator

Hey dude, do you think you could do me a favour? Because the costs were so high I closed down my Czech bank account, and now need to pay a Czech bank for car insurance, as I want to drive into Europe and through to Greece. If I pay you by PayPal in advance, do you think you could make the payment for me? It's about 3,500 Kc, but one Czech customer owes me about 2,500, so if he can pay to that account I'd need less from you. I could send you extra to cover the hassle. Lemmekno.