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Hello and thanks for this blog, I check it from time to time and find it very interesting. I felt the need to react to this post, working myself for a translation agency as project manager. What you may (or may not) know is that project managers handle quite a lot of projects at a time. Let’s say that for a single project there are a dozen languages, for another one 5 languages, etc. So, multiply the number of projects * number of languages required * 2 (for translator and proofreader) and you get the number of people who you’re in touch with daily (not to mention clients or your colleagues). Working in a translation agency means juggling all the time with deadlines / people / files and keep everyone happy without losing money. It’s very challenging and interesting, don’t misunderstand me. But I sometimes envy translators, who can focus on a task more than 30 minutes ; a translation PM is constantly under fire and multitasking. Therefore I can understand that sometimes things don’t go too well, i.e a file is forgotten and sent late to the proofreader. In that regard, it’s also hard to expect a PM to send your translated file to the proofreader the next minute, when your email is just one of 150 daily emails received…
You may say then that we could be better organised, but just like all freelancers in the translation business, we never know when and how many projects we’ll get : sometimes there’s plenty of time, sometimes we’re at full speed. >> Direct clients usually ask me how much time I will need to finish a translation project, whereas agencies usually stipulate the time frame for project completion.
Of course, when we do a quote, we agree on a set deadline with the client, based on our experience from other translation projects. Just imagine for a website into 10 languages if we had to define different deadlines for each language, after contacting 10 translators, half of which would already be busy on another project, so then 5 more translators to email, then proofreaders, etc etc. I know that from a freelancer point of view all of this doesn’t seem obvious, so I thought I’d give a small idea of what a translation agency does. At Trad Online we always try to define appropriate deadlines which take into account the time needed for managing the project + the time needed for translating + proofreading. We never expect any translator to deliver more than 2,500 words a day anyway, and this is told to the end client. But underestimating or overestimating may happen, we are human beings I hope my attempt to reconcile freelancers and translation agencies will be understood as such, I just wanted to underline that although we share the word “translation” in our activities, we do a totally different job and that problems usually arise because we’re not aware of how it works on both sides.

commentaire TOL

En tant que représentante de l'agence de traduction Trad Online à Lyon, j'aimerais partager avec les lecteurs d'Intermédia un petit retour d'expérience concernant la traduction de sites web. Nous avons géré plusieurs projets importants de ce type en 2011, et avant de demander un devis et vous représenter combien coûtera la traduction d'un site en anglais, ou en 5 langues, voici quelques questions à se poser, notamment sur ce que l'on souhaite traduire ! On peut diviser les types de contenus en 5 catégories... 

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Very interesting post, as I'm on the PM side for Trad Online. However, I must say that I disagree with your point on the format : we've had to translate Word, Excel or Powerpoint files at best, but also many application files (.xml,.po,.strings, etc) or even directly online on the client's website. Take the exemple of application files : they open with a plain text editor, impossible to track changes, lots of code to be left untranslated, punctuation to watch carefully, etc. Client's website, even worse : no back-up, possible server crash and loss of data and various technical problems. It's impossible to expect the client to provide only clean Word documents... however, it would be reasonable to ask for more for these types of texts. What do you think ?

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Seulement, l’objectif de Google et de son avancée Google + n’est pas celle de constituer un énième réseau social, c’est bien mieux que cela. Il s’agit clairement d’une stratégie de développement de l’application première : le moteur de recherche. Un moteur dont le leadership permet à la société américaine de générer 95% de ses revenus via la publicité. Si bien que chaque nouvelle application doit s’inscrire dans cette orientation de rentabilité. Et google + est clairement dans ce cadre.

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I quite don't agree with "as agencies want to make profit of each project you can expect the price with translation agencies is well below what you usually charge customers (sometimes even only half of your normal price)". The difference in the prices freelance can charge to agencies vs direct clients is not due to the fact that we (I'm talking about Trad Online here) "want to make profit" in the sense of "becoming super rich at the expense of translators" - but you need to consider 1. the considerable amount of time spent looking for new customers (and keeping them) and 2. the time spent managing problems on some projects (last example I have in mind : a client wanting to provide a secure access to their website, which led to long discussion as to what technical means would be used). This has a cost. AND, if I may add another comment : of course that making (some) profit is the idea (along with providing a service) - if not, why bother working ? ;) Thanks anyway for this post, it was a very good read !

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Lorsque vous ajoutez le nom de votre entreprise ou de votre employeur à votre profil Facebook, il ne sera pas automatiquement lié à la page de l’organisation. Le lien renverra le visiteur à une page vide plutôt que sur la Page Facebook existante de votre entreprise ou blogue.

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Résumé : alors qu’elle a du mal à pénétrer sur les bons vieux forums ou des communautés d’activistes parlent à bâton rompu, l’entreprise est toujours aussi mal à l’aise avec les communautés qu’elle essaie d’agréger sur le web “moderne”, ne sachant trop que faire ou quoi donner pour que la mayonnaise prenne. En fait tout le problème réside dans cette notion d’agrégation : de plus  en plus, et sur Facebook notamment, on agrège des égoismes plutôt qu’on réunit des communautés. A partir de là la compréhension de leurs attentes devient essentielle pour servir efficacement ces pseudo-communautés : communication, promotions et service. Pour le sentiment d’appartenance et la passion il faudra aller voir ailleurs…là où, bizarrement, l’entreprise n’a pas droit de cité.

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