Once a would-be translator, operating as an independent contractor, has had an opportunity to see the document he or she might be translating, it would seem to be a simple thing to use the word-count feature in Word, for instance, to come to an agreement about a per-word rate. While it may strain one’s imagination to wonder what sort of complexities can be found in so simple an operation, remember: the devil is in the details.
The long-standing practice is to base a per-word rate on the word count of the source language--the language from which the translator will be working, that is, the original. In my experience with translation agencies, that industry standard usually is followed quite reasonably. After all, what could anyone possibly find to object to using a word count that either party can verify? Let’s examine three counter-proposals that some agencies, believe it or not, have made, as if the industry standard had never existed.
The first and most obviously self-serving suggestion is offered as if it were oh, so natural, to use the lower of the two word counts. This is often suggested when a translation manager knows that there will be fewer words in the target language, as often happens when translating from Tagalog into English. The fallacious nature of the suggestion is made obvious by the fact that the suggestion is never made when I translate from English into Tagalog, since most translation managers are aware that expansion occurs in that language pair and direction.
The second is to not count numbers. That almost seems reasonable. The first couple of times I was blindsided by that suggestion until I realized that numbers, even when written in Arabic numerals, need to be worked into the target language’s syntax. That takes mental work and intimate knowledge of how the target language handles numbers in the midst of language. For some languages, such as Japanese, there are even different words for counting people, things, and so on. Consider how, in English, one says “two-and-a-half tablespoons,” but in Romance languages, the word order is “two-tablespoons and a half.”
The third and last absurdity which I’ll comment on is to count a given word only once – after all, as the argument goes, once you’ve translated a word, your work is really done. Somewhere out there, I’m guessing some demon is working on a program that will count only the first occurrences of each word. The demon will sell it to translation agencies, convincing them of higher margins, but it will ultimately fail, since translators would hopefully be wise enough and have enough self-respect to invoice the agency for supplying an alphabetical word list of all the words in the document accompanied by terse instructions to figure out where they all go and to beware of inflections, conjugations and so forth.
In negotiating an editing job—when a translator is checking the work of another translator, often editing or commenting on it, things can get stickier. Complications and miscommunications can arise between the client and the agency as to the depth and breadth of an editing job and these miscommunications can be passed on to the translation editor or proofer. Some clients even want documents back-translated—a topic that will be covered in a separate article. Some clients want certain terms in the source language to be retained. Brand names are obvious and proper examples of this. The biggest pitfalls involve questions about style and register. Are the changes an editor proposes suggestions or is he or she pointing out a genuine error in word choice or grammar? These are issues that can often be addressed beforehand by being clear about the linguistic sophistication of the audience for whom the translation is intended.
I think the funniest thing that ever happened to me when dealing with word count is when a client did a word count of my translation and became very worried when the word counts of target and source were different. It turned into an educational moment and fortunately, he was teachable. Ultimately, it is mutual goodwill that will keep a translator and an agency working together.