I was at a party last month and got talking to the husband of a friend about my work as a freelance French to English translator. I’ll call him Malcolm.
I was complaining that recently I’d not got a job because the translation client wanted to pay me a lot less than I was asking for.
“Maybe you overcharged. Why didn’t you just accept whatever they were offering?” Malcolm asked.
“Because what they wanted to pay me was well below what I should be paid for doing a decent French to English translation,” I replied.
“Yes, but translation can’t be that hard, can it?” he said. “I mean, all you’ve got to do is find the English translation. It can’t take that long?!”
Finding the right English translation
This got me thinking. Finding the English translation is what I do as a translator, of course.
But the trick is to find the right translation. The right words.
I thought back to a recent French to English translation of a TV script that I did for one of my clients, ARTE.
The script, which was for a current affairs TV programme, was talking about France’s National Front party becoming the National Rally, and comparing them. I had to translate the word “guerrier” in a description of the National Front. This word literally means “warrior”, so a literal translation would be “warlike”.
But would you use that in an English TV script? Not really. An online thesaurus suggested several acronyms, including “belligerent”, “aggressive”, “combative”, even “bellicose”.
In the end, I plumped for “confrontational”, which I think describes the former National Front pretty well. But it could have been any of those words.
I had to choose a word which suited the text-type (a TV script), the tone/audience (ex-pat viewers living in continental Europe) and the brand (ARTE, a European multilingual digital TV channel for people who are interested in the arts and current affairs).
So, it’s not just about “finding the English translation”.
Paying for my expertise as a translator
When a client asks me to help them with a translation from French or Spanish to English, they’re not just paying me for my time.
I didn’t just learn French and Spanish last week, nor did I pick up my writing skills in the last year.
Translation isn’t just about finding equivalent words in the other language – to be a good translator you also need to be a good writer in your native language.
They’re paying me for my expertise – the years of experience I’ve had both as a writer/journalist and as a linguist.
Paying for my time as a professional translator
But my time is obviously a big part of it too.
I need to spend time researching topics. I didn’t know much about the National Front or the National Rally in France prior to translating this script.
The whole text was about the European elections, which I didn’t know that much about either, so I had to spend time reading about those online too, and finding out how certain terms are referred to across the English-speaking media.
Another example of spending time finding an equivalent in English was when I was translating the menu for an upmarket Mexican hotel from Spanish into American English once.
The problem was how to translate “aceite brujo”, which described part of a marinade for a fish dish.
“Aceite” was easy: “oil”. However, “brujo” caused all kinds of problems. The literal translation for it is “wizard”, “sorcerer”, or even, “shaman”.
Hmm, I’m not sure I’d want to order fish marinated in shaman oil.
I did a bit of digging but couldn’t find any other equivalents. Then a colleague on the ITI Spanish network forum suggested that maybe “brujo” was a typo for “orujo”, which means “pomace”.
However, pomace oil, I discovered, is just a kind of substandard by-product of olive oil and is made from the leftovers of the olives. So, probably not something you’d particularly want on your fish, either.
Eventually, I asked the client what was actually in the oil. The answer came back clearly: “a mixture of olive oil, oregano, lemon and other herbs”.
Who knew?! But it sounds much more appetising!
Charging the right price for my translation services
So, now you can see why I might want to stand my ground when a potential client doesn’t want to pay what I’m asking for.
Of course, I don’t want to price myself out of the market either – but when it comes to charging for professional French and Spanish to English translation, a lot of research and thought goes into it.
More than most people – including Malcolm – realise.
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Looking for a French or Spanish to English translator, or know someone who might be? Leave me a comment below, or send me an email and we can talk!
Judith Zerdin 