My company has been trying to get a document translated from Spanish into English. Most of the translations companies that we’ve contacted have given us quotes based on the number of words in the source document (i.e. the Spanish one). A few have said they charge based on the final wordcount in the target document (i.e. the English one).

Your company charges based on the source document, why do you do this - and why do some companies do it differently?

Question from Joseph

Answer

Good question Joseph,

Source and target word counts can be confusing – but you’ve hit the nail on the head. The source document is the original and the target document is the one that will be the final translation.

It is also true that many translations companies use different formulas to come up with a final price. Some use the wordcount from the document you send (i.e. the source) and some use the wordcount from the document they send back to you (i.e. the target).

There are some real advantages to the client when only the source wordcount is used to calculate the price.

First of all, you can see the wordcount in the source before you send it to us. This means – once you know our rates – you can effectively calculate how much the translation is going to cost all on your own. There can be real differences between the source and the target wordcounts. Doing it this way means that the client never has any surprises when the translation is finished.

The word count of the source document will never change – so you always know how much you are paying for.

Second of all, there can be some real disadvantages for the client when the target wordcount is used.

Languages use different numbers of words to say the same thing. Something that can be said with one word in English may require two words in French or three words in Spanish. While these differences may seem small – over the course of a full translation of a 10,000 word document – they can really add up. The point to stress is that the translator is effectively taking ‘ideas’ expressed in the source document and expressing them in another language within the target document. You are really paying for the translation of ideas – not words. Therefore, it would be unfair for you to be billed more simply because your target language requires more words to say the same thing.

Word counts can grow exponentially depending on the language that is being used. There are also many different ways to say the same thing within each particular language. This is where the second benefit of using the source wordcount comes in.

Translators who are paid based on the number of words in the target document have a real incentive to ‘pump up’ the final wordcount. That is to say, they may choose – either consciously or subconsciously – to artificially inflate the final wordcount in order to get paid more.

Here is an example: say a translator is being paid based on the target wordcount for a translation into English. He has been asked to translate from French and the phrase in question roughly translates to: “The summer season is probably my favorite time of the year”. In this case, the translator has the ability to express this idea in a number of different ways. He can write: “When it comes to my favorite time of the year, the summer season is probably my favorite” (17 words). He could also write: “Summer time is probably my favorite time of year” (8 words). Both sentences say exactly the same thing, but one has a much longer wordcount. When you give control to the translator in this way, you will probably end up paying more.

That’s why it’s in your best interests if we charge based on source document wordcount. It gives you certainty. It avoids surprises when it comes to final price. It also ensures that your document controls the price – not the final one that is controlled by someone else.