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Translation - art & business » Business issues »
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Free test with more than 1000 words, is it normal?
Thread poster: cherrypick
Kay Denney
Kay Denney  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 06:15
French to English
. Jul 30, 2022

[quote]cherrypick wrote:

Samuel Murray wrote:

The reason is they give me a large document and ask me to translate some specific parts of it. It looks like there are some long sentences and terms that they are not quite sure and they just, you know, want free translation. Of course, it's only my assumption.

To be fair, they might just be asking for you to do the hard bits because any pro should be able to do the easy bits.
When I had to send tests out to translators while working at an agency, I would spend literally two minutes assessing tests: I'd check to see if they'd put the spell check through (that eliminated a surprisingly high proportion - I'd noticed that the best translators always ended with a spell check, because if I ran a check, Word would tell me there were no mistakes straight off), and I'd check the pitfalls in the text to see if they had fallen into them (pitfalls such as "hydratant" translated as "hydrating" rather than the industry standard "moisturising" in a text on cosmetics). If I had more than one candidate after that, I'd look a little more closely, but I rarely had to do that.
So really, they could just ask you to do about five lines, that's plenty when the five lines have been judiciously chosen.
I will do up to 250-300 words, any more and I'll say I'll do it if I can bill it (as a test to see whether they pay me promptly, after all I have to decide whether or not I will work with them, and knowing I'll be paid is the most important reassurance I need).

Thomas T. Frost
Edwin den Boer
 
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Free test with more than 1000 words, is it normal?


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