Payment issue (Translation of 74,000+ words technical manual) Thread poster: Inge Schumacher
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Inge Schumacher 
France
Local time: 14:38
Member (2023)
French to German
+ ...
Dear colleagues, (that feels SO good to say that! ,
I just worked on a very large translation (74,000+ new words + 40,000 reps) in defence field (highly technical).
For "help" I received 2 old translations (from 2003, each doc about 300 pages) + French manual (1100 pages) and the old, relatively outdated TM from 2003. French document form army (based of an old IT>FR translation, with loads of additions (i... See more Dear colleagues, (that feels SO good to say that!,
I just worked on a very large translation (74,000+ new words + 40,000 reps) in defence field (highly technical).
For "help" I received 2 old translations (from 2003, each doc about 300 pages) + French manual (1100 pages) and the old, relatively outdated TM from 2003. French document form army (based of an old IT>FR translation, with loads of additions (initial documents about 5,13 Mo, new French manual 10,3 Mo (agency claims the new translation is QUITE IDENTICAL to the old one! I can't see how this might be possible?).
I encountered problem after problem after problem: PM "FORGOT" preparing 80,000 Mo file to be translated in Trados Studio (me, being a Trados Studio Newbie, I didn't realize the MASSIVE segmentation problems, started merging formerly broken segments (initial document almost 25,000 segments!) after the agency realized this enormous issue and told me to "merge", which ended up with the crash of Trados Studio, and the loss of AT LEAST 1 week's work.
I also had loads of other problems due to the Machine Translation provider chosen by the agency (DeepL: not at all suitable for that kind of job! I had to "manually" translate missing parts of segments, completely rephrase hundreds of sentences because of wrong grammar (infinitive translated into formal or informal imperative), and more (DeepL and also Trados Studio have been informed) about all the purely technical issues.
Now, the agency doesn't want to pay the money they owe me (I had to realize the initial rate was just a rip-off: 0,05 EUR/word (preps free of charge) for a highly technical translation (I spent AT LEAST 300 hours relentless work on this job, working up to 9 hours/day, 7 days/week! , because I trusted the agency and thought that it WAS possible! Initial delivery date: package sent on the 18. October 6.15 pm and delivery expected the 31. October. Afterwards, they extended until the 29. November. Beginning of December, I was on the brink of complete exhaustion!!
To make it as short as possible: I didn't manage to provide a "translation" in the given time, max. a kind of (light) Machine Translation Post Edition. They miraculously managed to have this mess be "revised and fixed" within a week, and now they want to pay me half of the 3700 EUR (flat rate), minus the COST for the TIME to WRITE their mails...
My partner thinks I "should take their money and just walk away"... It's true that I don't DEPEND on this money, I earn enough to get by, but I think it wouldn't be right to let this agency get away with it. They have a huge part of responsibility in this disaster and I don't say why it should be the linguists who should pay for their incompetence, dishonesty and failings?
Does anyone know what I can do (besides writing reminders and a bad review) to get my money? I learnt that there are German lawyers specialising in freelance. What do you think? I don't want to waste more time, and also not create any health problems for me (I just spent the last 5 days in bed because of a bad cold, couldn't see my family for Christmas, I'm SO fed up!).
I really look forward to reading your replies.
Kind regards,
Inge ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:38
Member (2008)
Italian to English
x 3700/2 = Euro 1,350 for the equivalent of 12.5 days' work = less than 2 weeks = about € 108/day
Not good but listen to your partner. I would just take the money and never do this again. Next time, check out the source files very carefully and don't work on a text that's outside your experience.
[Edited at 2023-12-26 16:37 GMT]
| | | | Zea_Mays
Italy
Local time: 14:38
Member (2009)
English to German
+ ...
| more than a month | Dec 26, 2023 |
Tom in London wrote:
x 3700/2 = Euro 1,350 for the equivalent of 12.5 days' work = less than 2 weeks = about € 108/day
From my calculations, for around 37.5 days of work it would be 1,850 EUR in total/49.3 EUR per day.
But I agree:
Not good but listen to your partner. I would just take the money and never do this again. Next time, check out the source files very carefully and don't work on a text that's outside your experience.
There may be some room for negotiation, though. Just that the issues should have been discussed from the beginning, asking them to fix things like merging for example.
I wouldn't call it translation either - it was actually MTPE. For MTPE, a rate of 0.05 EUR (I assume for FR>DE) may be acceptable if the MT output is also of acceptable quality. If that wasn't the case, the budget or the service required should have been discussed from scratch after the first let's say 2000 words. If they stuck to the initial budget, you could have asked for a written agreement on light editing of MTPE for that rate.
[Bearbeitet am 2023-12-26 17:04 GMT]
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 14:38
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
Yes, take the money and walk away. As far as I can tell mistakes have been made by both sides. I don't see how you could get it done to be fully paid in the circumstances you describe.
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I'm inclined to let it go as well.
By your own admission, you didn't give them anything workable even after the deadline had been extended by a month.
Depending on how badly their technical issues affected you and how similar the revised/final version was to your submission (total rework? stylistic changes?) you might be able negotiate a higher payout, but that's about it.
Learn from this experience and move on with your life.
| | | | Joakim Braun
Sweden
Local time: 14:38
German to Swedish
+ ...
| Notification | Dec 27, 2023 |
I agree with the "walk away" comments. We've all had bad, costly experiences like this that taught us to inspect offered jobs carefully in the future.
Paying half the agreed amount isn't totally unreasonable if someone had to spend a week fixing the delivered text. This must have been a nightmare for the agency, too.
Inge Schumacher wrote:
I didn't manage to provide a "translation" in the given time, max. a kind of (light) Machine Translation Post Edition.
That should have been obvious to you 1-2 weeks before the extended deadline, and you should have notified them at that time (well, perhaps you did). Then they would have had the option of dealing with whatever you delivered, or having you do part of it up to "translation" standard and allocating the rest of your draft text elsewhere for editing, and/or talking to their end customer.
In 9 out of 10 cases deadlines are somewhat flexible, PM:s are used to the occasional problem and realistic solutions can be found. But it's crucial to be upfront and provide timely notification, especially with jobs this large where replacement translators might be hard to find.
Inge Schumacher wrote:
Does anyone know what I can do (besides writing reminders and a bad review) to get my money?
If you're in Europe: https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/dealing-with-customers/solving-disputes/european-small-claims-procedure/index_en.htm
[Bearbeitet am 2023-12-27 10:39 GMT]
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It’s hard to comment without knowing more. 74,000 words would take a week to check under any circumstances. If the client was being unreasonable and there was clear communication then the translator should be paid in full for time spent unless quality was poor.
| | | | Inge Schumacher
France
Local time: 14:38
Member (2023)
French to German
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Hello Christopher | Dec 28, 2023 |
Thank you very much for your contribution!
You said, 74,000 words would take a week to check under any circumstances, so just imagine post-editing of a really poor quality draft (it WAS a real mess, I can tell you, because I'm the one who produced it... not because I'm incompetent or lazy or not available or any other reason related to my person…).
It was just impossible to produce such a highly technical translation (armament/new technologies) based on a rather poor quali... See more Thank you very much for your contribution!
You said, 74,000 words would take a week to check under any circumstances, so just imagine post-editing of a really poor quality draft (it WAS a real mess, I can tell you, because I'm the one who produced it... not because I'm incompetent or lazy or not available or any other reason related to my person…).
It was just impossible to produce such a highly technical translation (armament/new technologies) based on a rather poor quality French manual in such a short time, having to use (language) elements coming from an old former translation from 2003 and LATEST MT/AI language elements. And I informed the agency over and over again about all the issues I encountered!
I tried to produce something consistent, to avoid a sort of "patchwork" translation, but I now realise that the agency (and maybe also their client), doesn't give a **** about quality.
I am VERY (maybe too) quality-oriented, but I see that this is absolutely not the case with everyone in this "industry". Actually, already the term of "industry" when speaking about language arts, communication skills and so on, is almost an insult !
I must admit that I was VERY NAIVE to accept this project.
Now, I've made an experience (oh, nothing to do with linguistic skills, or translation altogether, I have a very long experience in this field), but with agencies, clients, tools, etc.
I learnt my lesson!
Kind regards,
Inge
[Bearbeitet am 2023-12-28 12:47 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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