Agency word count less than actual word count Thread poster: Justin Watkins
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Justin Watkins
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:15
Member (2023)
Burmese to English
+ ...
I translate mostly Burmese, Chinese and Russian to English. Recently I've had problems with an Agency in the UK (who I won't name.... yet) who assign work and the amount to be paid on the basis of a pre-existing word count of the material to be translated.
Twice now, I've found that the actual word count of the document is more than the word count in the purchase order, and have been told I can't be paid for the shortfall. I don't know how they are arriving at the word count in th... See more I translate mostly Burmese, Chinese and Russian to English. Recently I've had problems with an Agency in the UK (who I won't name.... yet) who assign work and the amount to be paid on the basis of a pre-existing word count of the material to be translated.
Twice now, I've found that the actual word count of the document is more than the word count in the purchase order, and have been told I can't be paid for the shortfall. I don't know how they are arriving at the word count in the first place, if the source Chinese text is in images or pdfs.
An additional problem is that words can't be counted in Burmese, and the agency won't pay me per word in the translated English text (which is normal practice for all other clients I translate Burmese for).
I'm not sure what to do - I don't want to cut ties with the agency because they are a good source of work, but I don't want a part of the translation I do for them to be done for free! ▲ Collapse
| | | | Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 22:15
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Justin Watkins wrote:
I'm not sure what to do - I don't want to cut ties with the agency because they are a good source of work, but I don't want a part of the translation I do for them to be done for free!
Working for agencies is a great convenience, but there is a price for the convenience -- several prices, in fact. And one of those prices is that the agency sometimes miscounts... sometimes by accident, and sometimes systematically, and when that happens, they are not always able to adjust the PO (unlike direct clients, who have flexible budgets). I have one agency client that always undercounts by 20%. So, when I work for them, I simply assume that my rate is 20% lower for them, or that they're always getting a 20% discount. They send me a lot of work, so I take this as one of those "prices" of convenience.
| | | | Matthieu Ledoré
France
Local time: 22:15
Member (2022)
English to French
+ ...
I sometimes notice that the word count in Word/OpenOffice is different from that in my CAT tool… even with English.
I can imagine that it happens even more often with languages in other alphabets.
Of course, I am assuming that the agency is being honest with you, which isn't always the case.
| | | | Stepan Konev
Russian Federation
Local time: 23:15
English to Russian
| Why don't you ask them... | Feb 9 |
...how they count words?
Counting target words is a common practice when translating from Chinese or Japanese, etc. My wild guess is that they use a pseudotranslate feature of their CAT tool. It simulates translation into the target language producing gibberish sentences just for approximate word/char count. Ask them to explain their algorithm. And in turn, explain them how you expect it.
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:15
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| The customer is always right | Feb 9 |
This occasionally happens to me but if the agency's word count is not significantly different from mine, I just let it go. There's no need to make a whole song and dance about it unless the difference would be worth more than a few €
| | | | Justin Watkins
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:15
Member (2023)
Burmese to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | could be down several 00 of £££ | Feb 9 |
Tom in London wrote:
This occasionally happens to me but if the agency's word count is not significantly different from mine, I just let it go. There's no need to make a whole song and dance about it unless the difference would be worth more than a few €
I totally agree, Tom. I've let it go several times. My worry is that they seem uninterested in addressing the problem at all - and we need to work out some sort of plan for Burmese otherwise they will be systematically underpaying me for Burmese work - and for a series of small jobs I may, over time, be getting about 50% of what I should be getting.
I'm thinking about making a bit more of a song and dance now because there maybe a job of around 40,000 words in prospect, and the error could amount to several hundreds of £££/€€€.
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Justin Watkins wrote:
I'm thinking about making a bit more of a song and dance now because there maybe a job of around 40,000 words in prospect, and the error could amount to several hundreds of £££/€€€.
Estimate how much the shortfall usually is and raise your prices to match. E.g. if it's usually a 30% loss, raise your prices by 30%.
That's assuming you can afford to lose the client, though. If you can't, start looking for newer, more honest and cooperative clients ASAP and then raise your prices and let these guys walk.
| | | | Peter Motte
Belgium
Local time: 22:15
Member (2009)
English to Dutch
+ ...
Samuel Murray wrote: Justin Watkins wrote:
I'm not sure what to do - I don't want to cut ties with the agency because they are a good source of work, but I don't want a part of the translation I do for them to be done for free! Working for agencies is a great convenience, but there is a price for the convenience -- several prices, in fact. And one of those prices is that the agency sometimes miscounts... sometimes by accident, and sometimes systematically, and when that happens, they are not always able to adjust the PO (unlike direct clients, who have flexible budgets). I have one agency client that always undercounts by 20%. So, when I work for them, I simply assume that my rate is 20% lower for them, or that they're always getting a 20% discount. They send me a lot of work, so I take this as one of those "prices" of convenience.
If an agency miscounts willingly, it's a swindle.
There are differences in countings between programs and even between different versions of the same program. That might be due to language settings.
But I don't think 20% is due to different countings, except in some case, e.g. in texts with lot of tables with numbers in them.
Except for that, an agency which always counts 20% short, is swindling you.
Thanks for the remark anyway, as it reminds me I have to check those counts more regularly.
[Edited at 2024-02-10 11:24 GMT]
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Peter Motte
Belgium
Local time: 22:15
Member (2009)
English to Dutch
+ ...
I'm thinking about making a bit more of a song and dance now because there maybe a job of around 40,000 words in prospect, and the error could amount to several hundreds of £££/€€€.
In that case I would really stop with that client. That's not honest business anymore.
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