What is the going rate for C-E translators in Beijing?

[mrtoga]

I think it helps to have your own company. Then you can invoice companies directly, have your own business cards etc. You can even offset income against expenses to a certain extent. Plus, if you have too much work it is easier to outsource or take on extra people. How about other freelancers? Have you also set up your own companies?

[roddy]

My work comes to me almost entirely through contacts I made while I was teaching English (who are know working in study-abroad agencies or other companies) and on here. I've picked up some bits and pieces of work via Proz.com, but nothing substantial and when my premium membership ran out I didn't bother renewing it.

Adverts on thatsbj.com never yielded anything useful, although I haven't tried that for a long time. I don't really network either, don't even have business cards.

[lilongyue]

Roddy recommended I revive this thread, as I've been working as a part-time translator, and am about to go full-time. I took a really low rate when I started, 90RMB/1000 characters, just to get my foot in the door, and also because I was still a student at the time with no experience. I also didn't think I would be able to get too much more than that in the Mainland, but now I see that isn't necessarily the case. I'll be working for an agency that's been around for a while, in Hangzhou. Among other things, they have an 8 year contract with Hangzhou's largest media company, The Hangzhou Daily Press Group, who is responsible for all the newspapers (都市快报, 杭州日报,每日商报) here in Hangzhou. I'm working out the details of the contract now, and need to ask for more money, but am a bit worried that I put myself in a bad position by starting out so low. Ideas? Anyone who posted still around and working as a translator?

Thanks!

[imron]

I think two things to consider are:

1) Hangzhou is not Beijing or Shanghai, and with presumably lower living costs, it's understandable that rates offered by a local company will be lower than what you could find in a larger city. Also, if you look at most of the posters so far in this thread, they've been talking about translation work for international clients, who are both likely and able to pay significantly more. Who the final client of the translation work will be will have an effect on how much you can ask for.

2) Do the math. Decide on what you think is a reasonable monthly salary that you would be happy with. Divide that by the number of days you work in a month (say 20 for a 5 day working week) and the number of characters you can realistically translate in a day, although lean towards being pessimistic rather than optimistic when deciding on this figure. If you've been doing translation work part-time already, you should have a rough idea of what this number will be, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to look back at the numbers for past projects, and get some hard data on the amount of characters translated and the time it took you to do the translations.

Once you plug that figure into the formula above, it will give you a baseline for what you need to earn per character, in order to make a salary that you're happy with (multiply by 1,000 to get the rate per 1,000 chars). Perhaps calculate a similar figure for the bare minimum you would want to earn per character, so you know how low you could go in negotiations if you absolutely had to . Then take that request to the company you're planning to work for. If they are unable to accept that rate, then your choice comes down to working for a rate that is below your needs, or looking elsewhere for work.

[jbiesnecker]

imron is right about figuring out what you want to make and going after that but, still 90RMB/1000 is a ludicrously low rate. I've been doing it for a couple of years and have built up some good clients, so my per character rate might not be widely representative, but unless you're very fast (and can maintain that speed for a long period of time) you're going to be making less than a just-off-the-plane English teacher (even in Hangzhou which, while still cheaper than Shanghai, is getting more expensive by the day).

I think you'd be silly to ask for less than about 12000 RMB, which is 0.2 RMB/character (200 RMB/1000) at 3000 characters per working day. If they try complain that the per character price is too high, remind them that as a full-time employee one of the things they're paying for is you being there all the time and not being able to turn down work, not just your character count.

[lilongyue]

but unless you're very fast (and can maintain that speed for a long period of time) you're going to be making less than a just-off-the-plane English teacher (even in Hangzhou which, while still cheaper than Shanghai, is getting more expensive by the day).

I'm OK with making the same as a just-off-the-plane English teacher, actually. Working at this company is temporary, until I get a job with the American Foreign Service. I have my own long-term translation goals, which don't include working in an agency, but I'm not opposed to it should things not turn out as expected with Uncle Sam. I'm willing to work for less than I could make teaching English, if it means not teaching English!

Thanks for the info. I'm going to set 200 RMB/1000 characters as my goal. Not sure if I'm up 3,000 a day yet, but I can live off of less than 12,000 RMB a month.

P.S. If anyone knows of one of these high paying international companies that needs a C-E translator, let me know!

[Lu]

Not entirely off-topic:

In case anyone is interested and for further reference, the going rate in Taiwan is 2-5 NT per character (C-E). Companies sometimes try to get it for less, down to 1NT/字, but unless you're really desparate that's just not enough.

3000 characters a day is really fast, in my opinion, I can do about 1000 on a good day. Same for my colleagues (apart from the really fast one, who can do a lot more).

[roddy]

On a busy day I'll do significantly over 3,000 characters, but it'll be fields I'm familiar with for regular clients. Or the Chinese will be so utterly awful in the first place that I can invoke my Garbage In Garbage Out law of translation . . .

For lilongyue - I suspect you may have an uphill struggle trying to double your rate with a provincial translation company - the chances are that they compete very fiercely on price. If I was in your position I might be inclined to see if you can't work something out whereby you get a bit of an increase on the regular stuff, which you continue doing to a decent standard, but also suggest they pitch for higher-quality stuff - ie marketing materials that will actually be read by English speakers, rather than the bog standard 'oh, guess we should have an English version' type - at a higher rate on the basis of having a dedicated, native-English speaking translator. And a chunk of that higher rate gets passed on to you.

The translation company I used to work at (only doing proofreading at that point) used to charge more for stuff that I looked at, and they loved showing me off. Clients or visitors used to get walked past my desk and told that I was a bilingual foreign expert, which is . . . .well, wrong.

[lilongyue]

I'm getting the feeling you guys think Hangzhou is some backwater city because it isn't Shanghai or Beijing, ha-ha! Hangzhou is the capital of Zhejiang Province, which is a very wealthy province. Zhejiang has Ningbo, a large international port, and Wenzhou, a backwater city but filthy rich. This company is rather large, has been around a while, and is well connected. That doesn't mean they'll want to give me what I'm asking for, but it improves the chances of it.

Yeah, I think I painted myself into a corner by working for so little, but the boss already admitted that they charge different rates for translation work. I'm going to work that angle, along with the fact that they will have an in-house American translator (something I expect them to make known, as was done with roddy).

Wish me luck!

[ex-Hongtongxian]

I don't know about elsewhere, but in the U.S., a freelance translator is considered a sole proprietor for tax purposes. You don't need to incorporate or register your company, and you can deduct business expenses including your home office.

One way to find new freelance clients is to find documents on a prospective client's website, translate them, and send your translation to the client as a sample, with a letter offering your services. This would be especially effective if you specialize in a certain narrow field and want to go after clients in that field. And with the Internet and emailable documents, you can work for clients anywhere in the world. There's no reason to limit yourself to clients in your own city or country.

[lilongyue]

Looking through the contract made up for me, and there isn't any of the sort of benefits given English teachers (housing allowances, airline tickets, etc.). I wasn't expecting a contract exactly like one given to teachers, but then again I thought why shouldn't it have some of the same benefits? So, those of you translators who have contracts with companies, besides your wage, what else is there in the contract?

[roddy]

You can ask for it by all means, but if you think you aren't getting enough I'd just ask for more cash and use that to buy whatever. That saves you the hassle of having to get receipts from your landlord to justify a housing allowance, getting approval on plane tickets, etc. When all is said and done they're going to be looking at the cash equivalent, so why shouldn't you.

Unless there's a tax advantage - not sure about that.

[imron]

For most places, I would have thought you'd get no benefits, and are compensated for that by a higher salary. Once you get out of the teaching world, but aren't quite yet in the expat-package world, these sorts of costs need to be covered by yourself. That's how it is for me, anyway, and although I'm not employed specifically as a translator, part of my work does involve translation.

[waiguoren]

Can anyone give me an idea of what kind of rate I should be charging for part-time C>E translation in Beijing? I have no experience, but I speak decently well and my reading comprehension is rather good--at least when I have my electronic tools available. I guess the big factor in my favor is I am affiliated with a high-status US reputation that most Chinese are familiar with. Also, what sort of article should I submit as a sample? I'm wondering about length and subject matter in particular.

Thanks!

[yueni]

Wow. So after reading this thread, I am realizing that I've been doing a lot of work for very little money.

I answered an ad on theBeijinger for "English Editors" for a company that does news translations. My job was (is) to proofread translations of Chinese news articles into English. After my editing (the translations are done by native Chinese speakers who majored in English at the university), it goes to a second editor to make sure the edits are correct in context. After a while, I started doing some of the translations for them. I am fluent in both Chinese and English, but English is my native language.

I easily translate double the amount as other translators and more accurately as English is my native language, so I'm not prone to the awkward phrasing typical of Chinese native speakers. On top of that, I was still doing proofreading/editing of other translations.

My salary? Less than 35rmb/hour. I was being paid at the 6000rmb/month rate, but that's not entirely accurate either, as their hourly calculations are a convoluted:

6000rmb/ (21.5 days worked per month x 8 hours of full time work per day) ~= 35rmb per hour.

Further, I was only working part time, with irregular hours. Now, they want to give me a "raise" to 7000rmb per month, same calculations, which works out to around 40rmb per hour! Given a non-specialized topic that doesn't require me to look up every other word, I can translate approximately 700 characters per hour.

So now I'm at the stage where I can negotiate more with them as they are doing things hourly, or I can go looking for translation jobs elsewhere. I've been looking on theBeijinger.com, are there any other websites or places that I should be looking at? How do I go about doing this? Most of my previous translation and/or interpretation experiences have been unpaid. Any advice for a rank amateur?

[Heman]

Hi, there, I happen to need a freelance english copywriter for a quaterly company publication, any one interested in this? please contact me at keanezhang@hotmail.com for details.

[Jamasian]

I am so thankful to this thread! I just graduated and am in need of a job desperately. I'm starting school at BeiDa in Feb., but I'm unemployed until then. Should I go to China before it starts and do some translating or just stay in the states and find a retail position for the time being?

I plan to find a job in China anyway after my program is over in June. Right now I have a multi-entry tourist visa (just in case)

[orangutan]

I'm really shocked at what I've been reading on this thread - the freelance rates are so low! I have freelance Chinese-English translator friends based in the UK who have told me they expect to get about £80-£100 per 1000 words, including for some clients based in Beijing. Isn't anyone out there getting near this much? Seems like a huge difference compared with the rates of 160-400RMB per 1000 that people are talking about here.

[roddy]

There is work out there at that rate, but not necessarily very much of it. Also bear in mind that when this topic was started it was 2006 - inflation, exchange rates, the constant flow of wannabe-translators out of BLCU, blah blah blah.

I've had odds and ends of work at that level, but nothing regular, and can think of two occasions where I've quoted in that region and been knocked back. I tend not to go hunting for work though.

Plus it's a bit pointless comparing rates if you don't know what field and degree of specialization and quality we're talking about. Perhaps you can tell us what kind of translations your friends are doing, who their clients are, phone numbers of said clients, and details of any mistakes your friends have made recently we can refer to?

[orangutan]

Hi Roddy,

My friends do have MAs in translation, which is obviously an important factor in getting client's trust and willingness to pay good rates. But the work they do is not particularly specialised or technical. Perhaps the key factor is who they do the translation for. Their clients are mainly pretty big companies with international branches.

It's not surprising really that many Chinese companies would baulk at paying anywhere near 800RMB for 1000 words given that the average Chinese graduate's starting salary here is around 3,000 RMB per month.

I think getting regular work from those high-paying international companies does come to networking too - getting known and recommendations.

I'm afraid I can't tell you who my friend's clients are - I guessing no translator wants to give away his client's details for other people to poach or undercut! Can't blame you for asking though! ;)