| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6] > | I charge $0.01/w, I have 3 years of experience, how much should I be charging? Thread poster: Ammar Naif
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Lefteris Kritikakis wrote:
Normally with your normal address (let's say Emirates). My question is, do we have to declare in internet profiles that we live in the Emirates? What if you visit a friend in the USA for a few months? Will your prices change?
My whole point is that locality creates a pricing bias. The agency says "this guy lives in the Emirates, he will accept a lower price". Yes, they do think like that, I assure you. And yes, they tell their clients that their translators are in the USA (for our example), to justify the prices they charge.
Isn't it funny that the client never knows the name of the translator and where he is located?
It's the only industry in the world that hides the names of all the people who created the project!
Given that I strongly disagree, to me what you suggest can only create problems, your reply is just as in italian we say "arrampicarsi sui vetri" sorry I don't know this idiomatic in English perhaps Tom will help.
And no, no and no it is not true that client never knows the name of the translator AGAIN what does one write on the invoice?
[Edited at 2024-01-15 15:29 GMT]
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Zea_Mays wrote:
Nope. Or do you know the names of the people who assembled the device you are writing your comments on? Or who built the Golden Gate?
[Bearbeitet am 2024-01-15 15:01 GMT]
The assemblers are workers, not running a business, and yet they can prove they worked there (it's in the company's books, not secrets!).
And some software companies have the names of the developers in the program. But besides that, the Google Engineer who was fired last year, has a resume that says "Google Engineer" and he can prove it officially. The translator can't prove that he ever actually worked (even POs are confidential, if anyone accepts them as proof of substantial work with no other supporting records).
You guys love to find exceptions and argue. That's avoiding the majority of situations, while embracing the exceptions as an alternative comforting reality. I can't participate in a conversation where the other side is an opponent trying to find exceptions all the time. It leads nowhere. That's why this site has been up for decades, and still nobody knows what the retail price of their own product is.
Bye from me.
| | | | Zea_Mays 
Italy
Local time: 14:50
Member (2009)
English to German
+ ...
Lefteris Kritikakis wrote:
The translator can't prove that he ever actually worked
See one of my previous posts - if you fear this, just ask for letters of recommendation. I have four of them, and had never to use them.
Serious agencies know how to - and are interested in - recognise if you're actually a professional, and they know that now an then there's a bad egg.
ps: I don't think companies are allowed to reveal to anyone the names in their books, these are sensitive data. Try to ask the producer who actually assembled your device, and let us know what they reply.
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Zea_Mays wrote:
As for being "anonymous" workers, if you collaborate with agencies, just ask them for a letter of recommendation. If you do a good job, most will be happy to provide one.
Last year I was contacted by an agency I knew to be stable for decades. I asked them to send me the TM we had for that client. They told me that "after the agency was sold, PMs changed along with other things and they don't have it anymore". Anyway, I found it myself in my files. I explained to them the past cooperation and sent them a client glossary. They told me they had no record of that or of the people who worked on this (large) client. So, good luck with using them as reference, right? Whatever you do, you have to do it fast before they are sold or change their entire teams.
Then there are the very large agencies that have long records and sometimes they can give you something a little more than "he/she worked as a freelance translator with us", I agree. Even if your efforts were 10 times more broad than the best they can say. But proof of freelancing can mean 1 project per year, right?
The developments in MT and AI will cause a very ugly awakening to those wanting to change careers in 2-3 years. I understand though, that most live from other sources of income as we speak (or their income is only supplementary to a spouse's large income or inheritance etc), but those depending on translation as their only source of income, will face an abyss. Those who were employees will have a much more sound footing (proof of employment is proof of constant and steady work - proof of freelancing is always lacking). There's no point trying to find exceptions, you can't rely on magic exceptions and good luck.
I got to leave now...
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Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 14:50
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
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Lefteris Kritikakis wrote: Angie Garbarino wrote:
Ok, yours is true, but, can you explain how to issue invoices, receive payments, pay taxes while declaring living in the USA instead of Emirates?
Please tell us Normally with your normal address (let's say Emirates). My question is, do we have to declare in internet profiles that we live in the Emirates? What if you visit a friend in the USA for a few months? Will your prices change? My whole point is that locality creates a pricing bias. The agency says "this guy lives in the Emirates, he will accept a lower price". Yes, they do think like that, I assure you. And yes, they tell their clients that their translators are in the USA (for our example), to justify the prices they charge. Isn't it funny that the client never knows the name of the translator and where he is located? It's the only industry in the world that hides the names of all the people who created the project!
Location does. Same product by a same brand may have a different price in two different countries. It’s called market segmentation. Fair or not fair, you are suggesting somebody to lie they are from the US, then they will be sent US tax form to fill. You are advising illegal actions on the basis of “you are hidden behind the screen”. We are much less hidden behind the screen (IPs, pixels, socials, etc.) than we are off screen, and it has nothing to do with a name.
[Edited at 2024-01-15 15:35 GMT]
| | | | | Lots of people relocated during Covid... | Jan 15 |
Lingua 5B wrote:
Same product ... may have a different price in two different countries.
Lots of people relocated during Covid within the US, if they could work remotely. They moved to cheaper areas. Their salaries didn't change.
| | | | Zea_Mays
Italy
Local time: 14:50
Member (2009)
English to German
+ ...
| Thinking like an employee | Jan 15 |
This is what you seem to do, Lefteris.
With a lot of generalizations, prejudices, replies that have nothing to do with the statement they are answering (see the point on letters of recommendation), and even old-fashioned commonplaces (see the dig at women living off their husband's high income...).
| | | | | YOUR words, not mine | Jan 15 |
Zea_Mays wrote:
...and even old-fashioned commonplaces (see the dig at women living off their husband's high income...).
I said "spouse's large income". I didn't mention women. I said "spouses".
What I do not do, is putting words in another person's mouth. Which is what both you and others did against me in this thread. I didn't attack anybody, you guys did.
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Ammar Naif
United Arab Emirates
Local time: 16:50
English to Arabic
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TOPIC STARTER | @Samuel Arabic is mostly Modern Standard Arabic | Jan 15 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
Ammar has a bit of a problem in that his language combination is "English to Syrian Arabic", and I'm not sure how many clients who want Arabic translations want Syrian Arabic. What Amman could do is to claim that he is capable of translating into e.g. Egyptian Arabic, but only he would know whether that is truly true or not. He also offers Arabic to English, and although he's not a native speaker of English, he appears to be able to write in fairly good English, which may be sufficient for most translation purposes.
When it comes to translating Arabic, the output translation is almost always Modern Standard Arabic, which is the standard language for all Arab countries, but the input can differ between dialects; for me personally I can understand most dialects, but there are still dialects that I struggle to understand, like Algerian or Moroccan, mainly because they're strongly mixed with French.
| | | | | Talk about loving to argue... | Jan 15 |
Lefteris Kritikakis wrote:
You guys love to find exceptions and argue. That's avoiding the majority of situations, while embracing the exceptions as an alternative comforting reality. I can't participate in a conversation where the other side is an opponent trying to find exceptions all the time. It leads nowhere. That's why this site has been up for decades, and still nobody knows what the retail price of their own product is.
I think the main issue is that you keep making ridiculously sweeping rejoinders to arguments that nobody here has actually made.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 14:50
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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Lefteris Kritikakis wrote:
You're making assumptions about me, which are false and slanderous.
Don't you mean "You're making assumptions about me, which are false and slanderous"?
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Samuel Murray wrote:
Don't you mean "You're making assumptions about me, which are false and slanderous"?
Nah, I think the original poster has drawn conclusions - for the dialogue too (common experiences and observations are renamed to "sweeping generalizations" - and even if that were the case, they don't justify personal attacks and mockery, Mr. Murray and others - unless this is the normal attitude in here).
But in my experience, the experiences of one person are never unique.
One day someone will ask "how come you guys all have the same job, title and work tasks you had 20 years ago, and how come you're hanging out here, a website well-known for low-price offers, if you already have such a wide and generous clientele as you often claim, and are so great in marketing?"
I knew one person who was good in marketing translation services - he has an agency in the last 5 years or so, clearing almost 400K last year personal income. I couldn't, I'm not that good. It appears you can't either - so you're here, just like I am.
I write here every 10 years or so. So, see you again in 10 years.
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Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 14:50
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
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You are all about projection, aren't you?
| | | | Arne Krueger
Germany
Local time: 14:50
German to English
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Anybody remember why this post was started?
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Lefteris Kritikakis wrote:
So, see you again in 10 years.
... a threat - or a promise?
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