Rates for ProZ newbie
Thread poster: Olivia McIntyre
Olivia McIntyre
Olivia McIntyre
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:04
Spanish to English
+ ...
Feb 21, 2018

I've just signed up on ProZ and I'm unsure what rates to set as I'm just starting out. I hold a Bachelor's degree in French and Spanish and I'm offering translation services from:

Spanish (Advanced) > English
French (Advanced) > English
Portuguese (Elementary) > English

Can anybody give me some advice on what my rates should be approximately in GBP?

Thanks!


 
Sheila Wilson
Sheila Wilson  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 10:04
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
Some thoughts Feb 22, 2018

Olivia McIntyre wrote:
I've just signed up on ProZ and I'm unsure what rates to set as I'm just starting out. I hold a Bachelor's degree in French and Spanish and I'm offering translation services from:

Spanish (Advanced) > English
French (Advanced) > English

That's fine but you'd be extremely wise to get yourself some sort of specialisation. Just consider how many native English speakers around the world speak one or both of those languages well. And then add in all the native speakers of the other languages who speak English well. Those are your competitors. Of course, the vast majority of them (especially the non-native ones) won't be able to produce good translations - even being totally bilingual is no guarantee. (Do you even know if you can? Maybe a translation course would be a good idea to prove to clients that you can.) If you promote yourself as a "generalist" you'll have to compete against the lot, and be at a disadvantage to those who have higher qualifications or experience, whereas by specialising you become a larger fish in a smaller pond.

Portuguese (Elementary) > English

Do you mean you have an elementary level in Portuguese? I'm afraid C1 has to be the absolute minimum level for a source language, with C2 preferable. Anything incredibly straightforward will just be put through Google Translate - for free!

Can anybody give me some advice on what my rates should be approximately in GBP?

These rates are derived from the ones we specify in our profiles, even if they aren't displayed: https://search.proz.com/?sp=pfe/rates For your very common language pairs they should be fairly representative, although of course nobody can say what translators are actually working for (although some of us display our rates and keep close to them ).


 


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Rates for ProZ newbie







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