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Poll: What is the largest number of words you have ever translated in one day?
Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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Apr 29, 2012

This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "What is the largest number of words you have ever translated in one day?".

This poll was originally submitted by Jose Arnoldo Rodriguez-Carrington. View the poll results »



 
Mary Worby
Mary Worby  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:05
German to English
+ ...
7500 Apr 29, 2012

I can remember exactly how many words, but I can remember it was in the region of 7 or 8000 words in a day (not including repetitions). It was, admittedly, a long day, but they were market research verbatims and incredibly straightforward. I don't think I had to look up a word all day.

Obviously, with a good TM with lots of matches I can get through more, but I'm guessing that doesn't really count for the purpose of the poll!


 
Allison Wright (X)
Allison Wright (X)  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 15:05
4,250 Apr 29, 2012

No CAT tool. Part of a pulp fiction title. Lots of look ups (for synonyms!), although no real repetitions. Height of summer. Did it just to prove that hot weather need not be a productivity-killer. My average (1,800-2,000) done on the days before and after this rush of blood to the head.

 
Ty Kendall
Ty Kendall  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:05
Hebrew to English
Ceteris paribus?? Apr 29, 2012

Source words or Target words?
CAT tool or no CAT tool?
Language pair? Agglutinative/Isolating languages distort the picture somewhat.

Have you really translated something if you have just clicked a button using a CAT tool/TM on a large repetitive segment of text?

I suspect the 10,000+ answerers and the 3,000-5,000 answerers are interpreting this question differently.

I'm in the latter group. I did 4,000-odd (source) words before - so it
... See more
Source words or Target words?
CAT tool or no CAT tool?
Language pair? Agglutinative/Isolating languages distort the picture somewhat.

Have you really translated something if you have just clicked a button using a CAT tool/TM on a large repetitive segment of text?

I suspect the 10,000+ answerers and the 3,000-5,000 answerers are interpreting this question differently.

I'm in the latter group. I did 4,000-odd (source) words before - so it came out about 6,500 target words, without a feline helper, ....although it was a loooooooooong day/night and not something I'd look to repeat any time soon.

[Edited at 2012-04-29 09:40 GMT]
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Hipyan Nopri
Hipyan Nopri  Identity Verified
Indonesia
Local time: 22:05
Member (2005)
English to Indonesian
+ ...
8000 Words Using Typewriter Apr 29, 2012

Working on a local translation order all day long starting from 5:00 am until 5:00 pm for US$0.0000680605 per word.

It is my first day of going professional.:)


 
Steven Sidore
Steven Sidore  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 16:05
German to English
Between 7-8 k words Apr 29, 2012

On a general contracting bid for an urban environment. Heavy duty rush job, and was paid that way.

Wasn't all that economical for me, though... I was so fried after that day that I took 2 days off. Ultimately I prefer steady work to the dash-and-crash approach.


 
neilmac
neilmac
Spain
Local time: 16:05
Spanish to English
+ ...
Up to 10K at a push? Apr 29, 2012

About a month ago I did 10-11K between Saturday morning and Sunday night, which I suppose is 2 days really. This was an unusually large amount for me and my usual output is around 2-3K a day without breaking sweat.

However, I have no children or immediate family around to distract me and my work almost always takes precedence over social life. On the weekend in question. I got up early, worked until lunch time, went out for a lunch, had a siesta for about an hour and then worked unt
... See more
About a month ago I did 10-11K between Saturday morning and Sunday night, which I suppose is 2 days really. This was an unusually large amount for me and my usual output is around 2-3K a day without breaking sweat.

However, I have no children or immediate family around to distract me and my work almost always takes precedence over social life. On the weekend in question. I got up early, worked until lunch time, went out for a lunch, had a siesta for about an hour and then worked until about midnight. The Sunday was more or less the same but I ate at home...

It also depends largely on the content - I work in some fields where I can just tear through the texts almost on automatic pilot, and others where a lot more thinking and pausing is required.

"Never mind the quantity, feel the quality."

PS: Apart from speech recog, I didn't use any CAT tools since they are pretty much useless with farmers' verbatims...



[Edited at 2012-04-29 14:32 GMT]
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neilmac
neilmac
Spain
Local time: 16:05
Spanish to English
+ ...
Mine too Apr 29, 2012

Mary Worby wrote:

... It was, admittedly, a long day, but they were market research verbatims and incredibly straightforward. I don't think I had to look up a word all day.



The example I quoted was also marketing verbatims - I've been doing them for years for this client now and using Dragon speech recognition, which I invested in about 6 months ago, I can now usually whizz through them


 
Erik Matson
Erik Matson  Identity Verified
Thailand
Local time: 22:05
English to Norwegian
+ ...
Too many zeroes? Apr 29, 2012

Hipyan Nopri wrote:

Working on a local translation order all day long starting from 5:00 am until 5:00 pm for US$0.0000680605 per word.

It is my first day of going professional.:)


Are you saying you worked all day for less than one dollar ($0,54)??


 
Denise Phelps
Denise Phelps  Identity Verified
Local time: 16:05
Spanish to English
+ ...
6500 source words Apr 29, 2012

No CAT tools, no repetitions, some dreary report about something I can no longer remember...I'd got my deadlines mixed up and suddenly realised it was due in the next day. I've never missed a deadline yet, except once when I was rushed into hospital, which doesn't count. So I sat at the computer until it was finished and revised sometime in the early hours of the next day, after working 12 or 13 hours straight.

I've been more careful about keeping track of deadlines since then.


 
Rolf Kern
Rolf Kern  Identity Verified
Switzerland
Local time: 16:05
English to German
+ ...
In memoriam
I don't know. Apr 29, 2012

This is the option, that is missing in this enquiry.

 
Hipyan Nopri
Hipyan Nopri  Identity Verified
Indonesia
Local time: 22:05
Member (2005)
English to Indonesian
+ ...
Yes, I am Apr 29, 2012

Erik Matson wrote:

Hipyan Nopri wrote:

Working on a local translation order all day long starting from 5:00 am until 5:00 pm for US$0.0000680605 per word.

It is my first day of going professional.:)


Are you saying you worked all day for less than one dollar ($0,54)??

At the time (early 1990), I completely had no idea of what the price of my service is. In fact, it is not rate per word but rather rate per page; Rp250 per source page (400 words) to be precise.


 
Robert Forstag
Robert Forstag  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 11:05
Spanish to English
+ ...
About 8,000 Apr 29, 2012

I once translated a 40,000-word proposal to provide comprehensive IT support for a wastewater management system in a large city, all within 5 days. The following should be noted: the days were long (maybe an average of 12 hours); and the text contained a fair amount of repetitive language (but not extensive sections that could be simply cut and pasted).

I find that, for certain kinds of material (e.g., contracts, proposals), it is possible to approach and even exceed 7,000 words. T
... See more
I once translated a 40,000-word proposal to provide comprehensive IT support for a wastewater management system in a large city, all within 5 days. The following should be noted: the days were long (maybe an average of 12 hours); and the text contained a fair amount of repetitive language (but not extensive sections that could be simply cut and pasted).

I find that, for certain kinds of material (e.g., contracts, proposals), it is possible to approach and even exceed 7,000 words. The common denominator of such material is a restricted range of vocabulary that requires minimal lookups and a high degree of repetition.

As for more difficult, non-repetitive material, I translated in a single day a book chapter for a social sciences monograph that had about 6,700 words.

(All counts are target.)

In addition to the factors I've identified, one's energy and focus are important factors in terms of productivity on any given day.

[Edited at 2012-04-29 13:15 GMT]
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Kay Denney
Kay Denney  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 16:05
French to English
13000 source FR Apr 29, 2012

but I had already laboured through about 12000 words on the same subject over something like six days (half days here and there as I juggled with other projects), and this was more a matter of rearranging the same info into a slightly different format and order. So it involved quite a bit of copying and pasting, and when looking things up I simply went to the websites that I had previously bookmarked for this job.
I did spend the following morning checking through and proofreading but in
... See more
but I had already laboured through about 12000 words on the same subject over something like six days (half days here and there as I juggled with other projects), and this was more a matter of rearranging the same info into a slightly different format and order. So it involved quite a bit of copying and pasting, and when looking things up I simply went to the websites that I had previously bookmarked for this job.
I did spend the following morning checking through and proofreading but in fact the text was surprisingly deliverable: I hardly made any changes beyond what a thorough spell check picked up.

... and I used a feline interface but it was a demo version and didn't recognise any previously translated stuff so was no help whatsoever, in fact more of a hindrance because Word at least corrects quite a few typos, and automatically capitalises the first word in a sentence and so on.

I did this not long after reading a thread in the forum about people's daily output and just thought I would give it a try on this text because I had managed to get behind, by letting myself be gently bullied into taking other (far more interesting) things on when I didn't really have time. It was a really boring text, no poetry to it whatsoever, and very badly written in French. Even though I say it myself, the translation was in fact clearer and more concise since I adopted a "cut the cr#p" attitude and the client was delighted.



[Edited at 2012-04-29 15:37 GMT]

[Edited at 2012-04-29 15:37 GMT]

[Edited at 2012-04-29 15:37 GMT]

[Edited at 2012-04-29 15:38 GMT]
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Rebecca Garber
Rebecca Garber  Identity Verified
Local time: 11:05
Member (2005)
German to English
+ ...
8200 Apr 29, 2012

Last week while translating a pdf. So there wasn't the possibility of using a CAT, much as I would have loved one.
Yes, there were some repetitions that I could lift, but the majority was simply typing.
Not something I would like to do any time again soon. 5000 per day is a better amount. This project required me to cancel all of my normal activities and impacted my family.
The money was too good to turn down. Which means that I will eventually do it again, but not for a while
... See more
Last week while translating a pdf. So there wasn't the possibility of using a CAT, much as I would have loved one.
Yes, there were some repetitions that I could lift, but the majority was simply typing.
Not something I would like to do any time again soon. 5000 per day is a better amount. This project required me to cancel all of my normal activities and impacted my family.
The money was too good to turn down. Which means that I will eventually do it again, but not for a while.
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Poll: What is the largest number of words you have ever translated in one day?






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