Quoting rates for 100% matches, reps and fuzzies for a contractor of the European institutions
Thread poster: Rebeca Martín Lorenzo
Rebeca Martín Lorenzo
Rebeca Martín Lorenzo  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 16:23
English to Spanish
+ ...
Apr 26, 2018

Dear colleagues,

I have been contacted by an agency which is contractor of various European institutions, including the European Commission. I have already passed the agency's test of translation of EU documents with a good result. The agreed rate per word is at the low end of the spectrum, though still just acceptable to me. The next step in their selection process is an interview, where, they have told me, we will further discuss rates and other aspects.

In the meant
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Dear colleagues,

I have been contacted by an agency which is contractor of various European institutions, including the European Commission. I have already passed the agency's test of translation of EU documents with a good result. The agreed rate per word is at the low end of the spectrum, though still just acceptable to me. The next step in their selection process is an interview, where, they have told me, we will further discuss rates and other aspects.

In the meantime, I have found an informative document of the European Commission DGT on external translation, dated November 2015, which states that the DGT standard discounts are

100% match and internal reps = 20% of the rate
85-99% match = 50% of the rate
Below 85% match = 100% of the rate

My worries are that they will seek to set high discounts for 100% matches, reps and fuzzies, so before the interview I would appreciate it if you could share some information with me:
Do you know whether the above discounts are still applicable, or rather out of date?
Do you perhaps accept higher discounts than these for translation agencies that are contractors for the European institutions?

Many thanks in advance for the information and your advice!

Rebeca
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Katalin Horváth McClure
Katalin Horváth McClure  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 11:23
Member (2002)
English to Hungarian
+ ...
Quality of the TM matters Apr 26, 2018

Rebeca Martín Lorenzo wrote:

100% match and internal reps = 20% of the rate
85-99% match = 50% of the rate
Below 85% match = 100% of the rate

My worries are that they will seek to set high discounts for 100% matches, reps and fuzzies,


Do you know the quality of the TM these would be based on?
TM discounts are a personal choice, but it should reflect time-savings, and that depends on several parameters, such as language pair, type of text, individual translation speed, etc.
As for me, I would not accept anything less than these rates mentioned above, and accepting these would be contingent upon a good quality TM. If the quality of the TM is bad or unknown, discounts would be questionable.


 
Schtroumpf
Schtroumpf
Local time: 16:23
German to French
+ ...
Beware of low prices Apr 26, 2018

It is very sad that translating for the European institutions is not worth the effort any more. Prices have been slashed by low-price competitors. Some 15 or 20 years ago, good work was well paid and you could spend enough time on translating for the Commission or other institutions in order to produce good work.

It is up to everybody in the market to set his own price. As for my part, I stopped submitting offers over 10 years ago because of the increase in dumping offers.
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It is very sad that translating for the European institutions is not worth the effort any more. Prices have been slashed by low-price competitors. Some 15 or 20 years ago, good work was well paid and you could spend enough time on translating for the Commission or other institutions in order to produce good work.

It is up to everybody in the market to set his own price. As for my part, I stopped submitting offers over 10 years ago because of the increase in dumping offers.

If you consider the time spent on reading, understanding, grammatically and logically integrating and harmonising your translating, whether sentences are 100% matches or not, you will find the percentage above quite justified. If you want to offer lower prices, nobody can stop you from doing so, but senior translators clearly do not encourage anybody to pull prices down ever more...
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Quoting rates for 100% matches, reps and fuzzies for a contractor of the European institutions







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