Jianjun's Blog

I never liked job bidding in the translation industry. It’s something invented by a few large commercial job sites modeled on freelancer bidding systems for software engineers, web coders, etc. But the system doesn’t work the same way for translation business. I often hear professional translators grumbling about the ludicrous low rates and swindlers winning the jobs. Let’s not complain about that; just stay away from it.

The basic mechanism of a bidding system is price oriented, which goes against the nature of translation. In this system, the job goes to the person who can do the same job with the lowest rate possible. This works fine in many cases. For example, you can set a budget for a coder to add a slide effect to your photo album. No matter who wins the job at whatever low price, you know what to expect – a slide effect. There’s something concrete you are paying for, something you can see and evaluate on your own. But translation is not that straightforward.

Translation is a process whose quality is determined by a number of factors and is not easily measured. Although literal translation might not be for you, unless you set it as a criterion, you can’t say it’s a quality problem. Even if you set it as your quality requirement, what you regard as literal translation may not be so for another person (say, the translator). And what about a translation that changes your original content to the fancy of the translator (I see more of these than literal ones)? It’s obviously not literal, but could do more harm.

A coder bids for a coder’s job, but bidders for a translation job are not always translators.

There is a myth that bilinguals are translators. This is not always the case, but the other way round is definitely true. To translate, you have to understand the original text thoroughly. But this is only the first step. Accurately carrying the meaning over and re-create an equivalent language effect/impact in the target language is the real challenge. This skillful handling of text entails special training and years of practice. Daring to do it doesn’t mean being able to do it.

While the low price may not mean low quality for a coder, it means no quality for a translator.

Frankly speaking, professional translators don’t really care to bid for jobs. What makes a person professional are years of practical experience and a stable client base built upon a good track record. So, why care about bidding for a low price job?

Not very long ago, a job post offering 0.01 USD/word rate attracted over 35 bidders on ProZ.com (I didn’t personally see the post. Some colleague relayed it to me as a joke.)! There’s no quality for such jobs. They are the same people who brandish a high profile CV and, at the same time, use the low price as a selling point. They are professionals that are thirsty for clients – fake pros.

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