tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6748877443699290050.post3051001640366590036..comments2024-03-27T23:43:31.674-07:00Comments on eMpTy Pages: Creative Destruction Engulfs the Translation Industry: Move Upmarket Now or Risk Becoming ObsoleteKirti Vasheehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16795076802721564830noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6748877443699290050.post-80743196813389175702017-07-31T23:06:43.369-07:002017-07-31T23:06:43.369-07:00Great post.Great post.Aassifhttps://www.wordsmithglobal.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6748877443699290050.post-53159159320768685912017-06-18T06:19:21.625-07:002017-06-18T06:19:21.625-07:00A wonderful article that is so timely and so impor...A wonderful article that is so timely and so important for all translators who do not want to simply end up as human versions of machine translation mechanisms. Definitely food for thought. I thank you, Kevin Hendzel, for the article and you, Kirti Vashee, for making me aware of its existence. For the two of you and for the other participants in this forum, I want to give an example of how sensitivity is crucial in providing a high-quality translation. In Israel, you can use the word "mamzer" (bastard) in a positive sense, such as in the following sentence in modern idiomatic Israeli Hebrew like "Eizeh mamzer, aich hoo hitasher kol kach maher." In that sentence, "mamzer" would have the connotation of go-getter or super-achiever and the sentence would thus be translated as "What a go-getter, how did he manage to get rich so fast?" However, try calling someone a "bastard" in a conversation with an American or Canadian, and you might wind up with a black eye.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05706678544582608689noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6748877443699290050.post-64094302051506017932017-06-07T13:10:25.972-07:002017-06-07T13:10:25.972-07:00Hello Petro - My apologies for the delay in respon...Hello Petro - My apologies for the delay in responding to your inquiry, as I just saw your post.<br /><br />The secure jobs do require security clearances, and usually quite high-level ones. They also require U.S. citizenship, and dual citizenship usually depends on the country. Foreign travel is not so much frowned on, as much as having relatives living in other countries, for obvious reasons. You will have to document all foreign travel when you first apply for these positions and every time you have to update your security clearance.<br /><br />If you are interested in these jobs, there's a great deal of information on secure jobs at www.clerancejobs.com, which provides a lot of good unclassified (open source) guidance on how to find, qualify and understand the requirements on a wide range of jobs in the secure sector.<br /><br />Hope that is helpful to you! Many different companies also recruit directly from that site, so it's more efficient than giving you a list of companies to apply to.Kevin Hendzelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13134174901029466746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6748877443699290050.post-58370305404610346912017-06-03T23:44:35.036-07:002017-06-03T23:44:35.036-07:00Kevin, thank you for this very informative article...Kevin, thank you for this very informative article.<br />It mentions "the enormous potential of the premium markets in the secure government space." Do these jobs require security clearances? Do you they require US citizenship, and if so, is acquisition of a second citizenship disqualifying? Is foreign travel frowned upon?<br />Thank you so much.Petro Gleasonhttp://pgleasonjr.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6748877443699290050.post-43654498035531851082017-05-25T05:52:12.805-07:002017-05-25T05:52:12.805-07:00My friend who has a sub-titling business, prefers ...My friend who has a sub-titling business, prefers to use GT and give the output for Post-editing. Thereby cutting rates. This is what the Translation industry has come to. Google still fails on Indic languages but how long will that last?? The inevitable is nigh!!!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02887564954031377781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6748877443699290050.post-11310533585283833532017-05-05T11:45:24.169-07:002017-05-05T11:45:24.169-07:00Despite my current obsession with neural machine t...Despite my current obsession with neural machine translation (and I'm not going to do any spamming here :-)) I can vouch for the correctness of Kevin's observations. I have several friends who do very well indeed from specialist/premium-market translation. One of them can generate the best part of a $1000 a day, sitting at his kitchen table talking into a small dictaphone. But he does know his stuff inside out.<br />Terence Lewislingoblokehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04672941638948064485noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6748877443699290050.post-75692218115298592932017-05-05T00:51:23.349-07:002017-05-05T00:51:23.349-07:00Nice analogy, Kirti! I think the premium market ca...Nice analogy, Kirti! I think the premium market can be harder to find in some combinations and specialisations than others, but overall, there is definitely a substantial premium market where specialised translators can be overworked on rates of say 35 to 80 cents a word.Rose Newellhttps://englishroseberlin.denoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6748877443699290050.post-11239873088563797272017-05-03T11:52:07.599-07:002017-05-03T11:52:07.599-07:00Isabella, keep in mind that there is a significant...Isabella, keep in mind that there is a significant population of independent translators (tens of thousands) that work with direct clients and bypass LSPs altogether. They have sort of outgrown them. They work directly for a huge variety of clients in the banking, regulatory, institutional, Fortune 50, etc. markets are do in fact charge upwards of $0.50 per word, or by the hour (one recent rush high-profile project for a leading company in France was paid at GBP 400 per hour per translator working on the project).<br /><br />The premium market as I've identified it most certainly exists. We've had guest speakers from banks, financial market institutions, rating agencies and securities markets -- and that's just the financial sector attend conferences, speak to the importance of high-quality translation and the critical role it plays in their business -- who regularly pay upwards of $0.50 per word for translation.<br /><br />In the secure market, which I discuss in my other guest post on this site, there are 100+ multi-million and multi-billion technology and government-services companies whose names you're unlikely to have heard before (SAIC, Leidos, Booz Allen Hamilton) and some you may know (Lockheed, Hewlett Packard) that compete to find and place translators into very high-paying premium-market slots in the secure (classified) sector. Wages generally $150,000 a year, and in languages you would not normally suspect, such as Urdu, Kurdish, Dari, Pashto, and in some you would, like Chinese, Russian and Korean.<br /><br />One of the greatest challenges of getting one's arms around this industry is how immensely fragmented it is, and how disparate and quite different the sub-markets actually are.<br /><br />I also have the advantage of having owned my own LSP for many years (18), working with translators, engineers, voice-over artists and interpreters in 29 countries, and this was immensely helpful for identifying all the thousands of islands of talent out there, as well as the variety of sectors that comprise the overall market.Kevin Hendzelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13134174901029466746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6748877443699290050.post-87482076890393795042017-05-03T10:10:08.080-07:002017-05-03T10:10:08.080-07:00Isabella, In a "market" that has 25,000+...Isabella, In a "market" that has 25,000+ LSPs is it really improbable that there is a premium segment. Maybe only 1% or 5% but as in the phone market the premium player (Apple) walks away with 75% of the profits. Kirti Vasheehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16795076802721564830noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6748877443699290050.post-52572114903915819812017-05-03T10:04:19.280-07:002017-05-03T10:04:19.280-07:00An excellent piece on the evolution of the transla...An excellent piece on the evolution of the translation industry, shifting consumer expectations, and how to address. Douglas Greenhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/dougegreen/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6748877443699290050.post-78360176231627810042017-05-03T10:02:07.081-07:002017-05-03T10:02:07.081-07:00 Are we really, really sure there is still a premi... Are we really, really sure there is still a premium market?Isabella Massardonoreply@blogger.com