Help! Literary translation, Modern Greek into English
Thread poster: Reachan
Reachan
Reachan
United Kingdom
Feb 1, 2021

Hello. I've been offered a translating job from Modern Greek into English. I am Greek but bilingual in both languages, having started learning English at the age of 2 and having lived in Britain for over 30 years. The material is a theatrical play, about 48 pages or 12,000 words long.
I haven't done any professional translating for a while so I'd appreciate a fair price for the project. The client lives in the UK, as well, so please bear this in mind when suggesting prices. I'd also like t
... See more
Hello. I've been offered a translating job from Modern Greek into English. I am Greek but bilingual in both languages, having started learning English at the age of 2 and having lived in Britain for over 30 years. The material is a theatrical play, about 48 pages or 12,000 words long.
I haven't done any professional translating for a while so I'd appreciate a fair price for the project. The client lives in the UK, as well, so please bear this in mind when suggesting prices. I'd also like to add that there is no tight deadline (due to lockdown), so I assume I've have around 3 months to complete this.
Many thanks.
Collapse


 
Adieu
Adieu  Identity Verified
Ukrainian to English
+ ...
Depends Feb 2, 2021

Is this a commercial product (for the stage, already published, or for confirmed publication) by a serious professional or somebody's amateur attempts at breaking into the industry?

Is the client the author, a publisher, a theatre company, or an academic?

Etc.

Their expectations could be anything from sub$500 to $10k+ depending on the answers.

[Edited at 2021-02-02 15:30 GMT]

[Edited at 2021-02-02 15:31 GMT]


Jorge Payan
 
Reachan
Reachan
United Kingdom
TOPIC STARTER
thanks, here are the answers Feb 2, 2021

The play has been written in another language first and was translated into Greek (I'm not sure by whom). I get the impression that the playwright is my client's acquaintance.

My client is an actor/ director who, I am guessing, intends to organise a production of the play in the UK, hence the translation into English.

Many thanks, I look forward to hearing from you or anybody else who could help.


 
Adieu
Adieu  Identity Verified
Ukrainian to English
+ ...
More info Feb 4, 2021

Reachan wrote:

The play has been written in another language first and was translated into Greek (I'm not sure by whom). I get the impression that the playwright is my client's acquaintance.

My client is an actor/ director who, I am guessing, intends to organise a production of the play in the UK, hence the translation into English.

Many thanks, I look forward to hearing from you or anybody else who could help.


Commercially viable theatre or like community/volunteer/hobbyist/school stuff?

Also, in this case you might want to inquire about the legal aspect. I don't know how that works, but probably have confirmation that the author knows this is going on and approves or is involved? I know copyright law is generally pretty lax in real world application to stuff like free fan translations, but once you're getting paid and a third party client is looking to make a business use of the play... that probably changes real fast. IDK, but best find out.


 
Lingua 5B
Lingua 5B  Identity Verified
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 13:41
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
Contract Feb 4, 2021

What kind of contract do you have for this project? Is it a fixed rate or are there also royalties involved? Where did you find the client?

This would be in the literary translation field. Also the fact you are translating a translation, not the original work, sounds concerning. In my experience, this type of work is usually paid really poorly.

Why don't you discuss it with the client who ordered the translation and ask them what their budget expectations are? They will
... See more
What kind of contract do you have for this project? Is it a fixed rate or are there also royalties involved? Where did you find the client?

This would be in the literary translation field. Also the fact you are translating a translation, not the original work, sounds concerning. In my experience, this type of work is usually paid really poorly.

Why don't you discuss it with the client who ordered the translation and ask them what their budget expectations are? They will probably give you some range. Once they do, you may research around a little and compare it to what others charge.

I may be wrong and this may depend on language pair, but I assume this may not pay very well. Have you translated stage plays before, do you have experience doing this?
Collapse


 
Paweł Hamerski
Paweł Hamerski
Poland
Local time: 13:41
English to Polish
+ ...
first obvious step is to locate the text in original language and Feb 4, 2021

start translation from here.

 
Lingua 5B
Lingua 5B  Identity Verified
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 13:41
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
Self-explanatory. Feb 4, 2021

Adieu wrote:

Is this a commercial product (for the stage, already published, or for confirmed publication) by a serious professional or somebody's amateur attempts at breaking into the industry?

Is the client the author, a publisher, a theatre company, or an academic?

Etc.

Their expectations could be anything from sub$500 to $10k+ depending on the answers.

[Edited at 2021-02-02 15:30 GMT]

[Edited at 2021-02-02 15:31 GMT]


A publisher probably would not contact somebody how doesn't know how to price their work. People who are experienced at stage play translation would not how to price it and publishers want experienced providers.


 
Korana Lasić
Korana Lasić  Identity Verified
Member
Serbian to English
+ ...
This is much more than just a translation Feb 6, 2021

Reachan wrote:

Hello. I've been offered a translating job from Modern Greek into English. I am Greek but bilingual in both languages, having started learning English at the age of 2 and having lived in Britain for over 30 years. The material is a theatrical play, about 48 pages or 12,000 words long.
I haven't done any professional translating for a while so I'd appreciate a fair price for the project. The client lives in the UK, as well, so please bear this in mind when suggesting prices. I'd also like to add that there is no tight deadline (due to lockdown), so I assume I've have around 3 months to complete this.
Many thanks.


There are quite a few things going on here.

Firstly, you are bilingual and as someone who is bilingual herself, that can be a plus for a translator. But you aren't a translator. You've received no training and have limited experience doing it, some times ago. The latter works both against you charging a good rate and paradoxically for it, believe it or not. Since, if you indeed are talented for translation and you do take this job it will take you a good deal of learning as you go and much more research (to do it well) than it would take someone who is a professional translator.

There's now a whole range of points to be addressed that other people in the thread have addressed already...

Lastly and perhaps most importantly, this isn't translation but transcreation. You are basically writing a play using the Greek translation of an original play. Someone will then put your play on and it needs to function as a play in English.

Proz really is the best place to find the best freelance translators and packed with experienced and skilful translators but... Yup. There's a but. Never ask professional translators to help you calculate your transcreation rate because we are notorious for doing transcreation for very low rates that benefit only the translation agencies. Who then earn as much as 400 per cent, not failing to charge the end client properly. If an average translation agency earns 50 to 200 per cent on the rip-off rates they offer translators for regular translation work, their rip-off transcreation rates give them 100 to 400 per cent markup at least.

I can tell you that (it has been a learning curve but now that I know better) I charge 9 times my translation rate for transcreation. And my translation rate, even though it's the bare minimum of the professional translation rate, still seems to be the double of what many, too many if you ask me, people in my language pair are willing to work for. I also charge transcreaton per delivered word in contrast to translation's per source word standard.

So if Greek is even a bit more descriptive than very straightforward English, your client needs to pay you even more than the estimate per source word would show.

Transcreation is creative work in two languages and you need to at least know what you are getting yourself into before you can consider how much to charge. So you ought to research transcreation thoroughly and also consider how much does your client stand to earn from your translation, as well as who should own the copyright to the play you've written and/or who should own the copyright to it if you consider it simply a creative translation (transcreation).

Nobody can really tell you what you should charge, only help you get on the path towards calculating your rates.

I'm a trained, bilingual translator with 20 years of experience and a talent for language, poetry, creative writing with a mind that is very much in tune with the two languages I live in. I'm selling talent, training and my time not words by the pound as so many lower-end translation agencies expect us to. So, in my first year as self-employed, I've spent a good deal of my working hours saying no to underpaid projects and negotiating my position as a one-woman company. I will work with people who are willing to fairly compensate me for what they get from me or I'd rather go stack shelves somewhere. I'm trying to say that being a freelancer involves a good deal of negotiation and poor negotiation skills will result in getting paid less no matter how well you can do the actual work. I'm prepared to walk away from people who cannot afford my services.

So, I know I would charge 1 EUR per delivered word if they were an agency or a professional end client and 1 EUR per source would be the concession I'd be willing to make for amateur theatre.

I don't see why you should strive for any less, or anyone in the world, really, if you know that you are capable of doing a good job. After all, this isn't the 20th century anymore. Increasingly people care less about your official training and everyone wants to know only how well can you do the job? In my mind, this means that rather than working for a pittance you should take the time and do the research you need to learn and train yourself as you go about this project, so you can do a decent job of this translation and then charge accordingly.

I also think you shouldn't take this on if you aren't sure you can do a good job. I'm just assuming you do think you can do it and that's why you're here asking how much to charge for it.

I would also seek legal advice on the matter of copyright and any potential royalties because that depends on too many variables for me to list here or even remember. I know some clients offer royalty payments as a fixed, one-off amount. Like someone mentioned, do we know who owns the copyright of the Greek translation? I'm not sure how much that matters for you as the Greek to English transcreator/translator, but you ought to find out.

Good luck.

I will say that the 90-day deadline is a generous deadline for a 12K-word transcreation job. For you, though, it makes it just about comfortably manageable, since you have to compensate for your inexperience in translation and transcreation by doing additional research and transcreation involves a fair deal of back and forth with the client.

Update us from time to time on how things are going with the work, will you?

Edit: Obviously, you won't charge anything near a professional rate if all you can do is produce amateur work. Only you can be the judge of your skill.





[Edited at 2021-02-06 22:28 GMT]


 


To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator:


You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request »

Help! Literary translation, Modern Greek into English







Anycount & Translation Office 3000
Translation Office 3000

Translation Office 3000 is an advanced accounting tool for freelance translators and small agencies. TO3000 easily and seamlessly integrates with the business life of professional freelance translators.

More info »
TM-Town
Manage your TMs and Terms ... and boost your translation business

Are you ready for something fresh in the industry? TM-Town is a unique new site for you -- the freelance translator -- to store, manage and share translation memories (TMs) and glossaries...and potentially meet new clients on the basis of your prior work.

More info »