What To Charge For Translating A 100+ Page Document From Thai To English?

[happysanook]

a friend has been offered a job translating 100+ pages from thai to english.. .i haven't seen the text yet, so not sure how much actual text is on 1 page... but trying to get some sort of estimate for what she should charge. the text is for a student, which needs to be translated to english as part of her degree. any ideas what kind of ballpark she should quote?

[Hugh Jarse]

Go for 200-300 baht an hour.

[Beetlejuice]

Prices range for Thai to English translation from 40 baht up to 200 baht per A4 page depending on how much text is involved.

If this is for a student, than I guess the girl will not have much money and want the job done for a very low price or next to nothing. Therefore, whatever your friend charges must be up to his/her discretion and consider this as doing a good deed, rather than for profit.

[tolstoy]

Unless your friend is a Native English speaker, I wouldn't translate it from Thai to English. If it is for school the English needs to be very clean. Most Thais I know can translate from English to Thai, but Thai to English still needs a lot of editing by a native speaker. Also remember if the translation is not approved the student will want it redone or blame your friend.

I have had friends get into trouble translating and editing for student's work. Professors can be a pain and then the student will demand money back or extra work for free.

[hellodolly]

Unless your friend is a Native English speaker, I wouldn't translate it from Thai to English. If it is for school the English needs to be very clean. Most Thais I know can translate from English to Thai, but Thai to English still needs a lot of editing by a native speaker. Also remember if the translation is not approved the student will want it redone or blame your friend.

I have had friends get into trouble translating and editing for student's work. Professors can be a pain and then the student will demand money back or extra work for free.

Well I have to agree with you on being a native English speaker. But I would suggest that they be as proficient as that in Thai.

A friend told me long ago that you really never knew foreign language until you understood the culture.

[uptheos]

Go for 200-300 baht an hour.

I don't think translating can be done by the hour.

There are slow and fast translators.

[slapout]

If I understand correctly, this is a degree/course requirement for the student. Sounds like the student is trying to get someone to do her/his assignmentr. I centainly would not worry about the charge being too much for the student. I would be more concerned that the text content is understandable to your friend.

Have your friend review the text in its entirety first. This seems to be fairly common at the university level, so I am told, so charge what the market will bear, if your friend is qualified to do it.

[Mapguy]

This is a big job!

OP provides insufficient information upon which to base any sensible estimate. For example, what sort of content needs to be translated? There are quite different levels of difficulty.

I am guessing that a 100-page paper has been written to satisfy the requirements for a thesis or dissertation.

The only sensible thing to do is to check with some other translators and check references on prior work.

[anselpixel]

Go for 200-300 baht an hour.

I don't think translating can be done by the hour.

There are slow and fast translators.

Right you are. From my experience, top-level translators work by a page rate. For complex text, that can be several hundred baht per page.

[scorecard]

If I understand correctly, this is a degree/course requirement for the student. Sounds like the student is trying to get someone to do her/his assignmentr. I centainly would not worry about the charge being too much for the student. I would be more concerned that the text content is understandable to your friend.

Have your friend review the text in its entirety first. This seems to be fairly common at the university level, so I am told, so charge what the market will bear, if your friend is qualified to do it.

Maybe I missed something here... If the submission must be in English then you can pretty much assume the program was taught in English.

So has the student written the submission in Thai because her English is poor, but this leaves the question 'how did she get accepted into an English language program?

I agree, the translator should read the document first and decide whether it can be translated easily, or whether she will have to continuously ask the writer to explain further in spoken Thai, then translate it to English, then write it in English. If this is true, this is a very big job and very tiring work.

Professors can be a pain, but please remember that professors have to be fair to all students in the class. There is an argument to say that if a student signed up for an English program and was accepted at an interview in English, then she should be writing the thesis herself.

On the other hand, there are the students who can write pretty good but not perfect English and can't afford translation help. Should they be penalised by getting a lower grade compared to the person who has paid for perfect translation?

Professors are also sometimes concerned whether the student (in the scenario being discussed, and where the professor knows the student has poor English writing skills) has done any of the thinking when the submission is lodged in perfect English.

I know of one Thai lady (speaks and writes excellent English) who charges 300Baht per page, but 200Baht for anything over 20 pages. She reads the document first. If it can be easily translated to English with no further discussion needed she takes the job. If further discussion is needed, she says 'sorry too busy'.

[naboo]

I know a girl who studied one of the sciences at CMU. Her course was in Thai, but she had to have her dissertation translated into English - she made a damned good go at it herself, she'd never spoken to a foreigner at this point in her life.

[scorecard]

I know a girl who studied one of the sciences at CMU. Her course was in Thai, but she had to have her dissertation translated into English - she made a damned good go at it herself, she'd never spoken to a foreigner at this point in her life.

In which case her professor should have given a grade based on her dissertation submitted in Thai language.

I have heard of universities, in cases where a dissertation is consider to be extremely good work to the point where the content is seen as highly valueable, e.g. an area of medicine), deciding that the work should be translated into another language for others to read. In the Thai context this could be Thai to English or English to Thai.

However in the case you mention, the translation to English (for whatever reason) should have been after she submitted her work in Thai and received a grade based on her work in Thai.