“la parole exportée”

• @jim_turner It’s a Sony Vaio. A colleague has a Toshiba that’s even smaller, but the keys on the keyboard are far too small for me. #
• Currently Browsing: http://tinyurl.com/69ptur Why wonder? Call me pessimistic or morose, but I just can’t figure out how people have a d … #
• @lackriver It’s going to be a Renault Clio Campus. The perfect car for me. Pity they’ll retire it in a couple of years at most. #
• @matthewbennett It’s not just school. It’s everything. The end of my sentence was: how can people make a decent life with only minimum wage. #
• @matthewbennett So true. #
• Diigo doesn’t allow you to “post-highlight” your bookmarks. Been caught twice, don’t like it. #
• @soultravelers3 Well, well, well, this is not looking too good. #
• Currently Browsing: http://tinyurl.com/56ooc7 Interesting… #
• Currently Browsing: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/index.shtml This is amazing. Queuing up like airplanes coming in to land. #

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• Today I got a smaller, cheaper, greener and more fuel-efficient car. Delivery next Friday. Can’t wait to drive it! #
• Currently Browsing: http://tinyurl.com/6n7ejp Internet Traffic Begins to Bypass the U.S. #
• Currently Browsing: http://tinyurl.com/5oactu Sounds sensible #
• @jim_turner I take laptop everywhere, small enough to fit in my purse. Can’t carry around sthg heavy. I don’t normally need that much equip. #

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• Translating a worldwide report on violence in schools. Counting blessings. Hoping to help make the world a better place for kids. #
• Currently Browsing: http://www.malevole.com/mv/misc/text/ If you need to generate text for a dummy #

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I’ve just answered to a LinkedIn question. What a great way to start the day?

The question is here.

Here is my answer:

Some translators, and some of them not necessarily as bad as you might think, are lured into thinking that they will get more work by accepting these low rates. What they get is more stress, and less money to pay their bills. What will happen to them in an age of recession?

This kind of treatment goes beyond the problem of ensuring quality. If I was accepting these rates, for whatever reason, I would deliver the same quality as I would do for 10 times the amount. But it’s a matter of how you value yourself and your work in the world. For me, 0.02 cent per word is not pay, it’s slavery that tries to pass off for pay.

Editing machine-translated copy raises the same kind of problems. Some of the mistakes produced by translation software can be very subtle and require exactly the same level of proficiency and skills as if the translator was doing the job him/herself.

So you have my answer: I never accept, and indeed would never even consider looking at this kind of rate, and translators (I mean real, professional translators) are doing themselves a disservice by encouraging this practice and putting themselves on an equal level with machines.

Honestly!