Poll: Do you think we should charge for providing the TMs or TMX to the client/agency? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Do you think we should charge for providing the TMs or TMX to the client/agency?".
This poll was originally submitted by Ines R.. View the poll results »
| | | | | I don't know | Feb 18, 2023 |
I don't use CAT tools. There are still a few of us left in the pack of dinosaurs...
Anyway, I have been asked by some of my customers to build a glossary of terms before starting a long project and they have always paid me for that. Why shouldn’t a TM be charged also?
| | | | Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 14:42
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| If it's no effort | Feb 18, 2023 |
If it's no extra effort to create such a file, then I think translators should be willing to provide it without extra charge. However, if it takes more than 5 minutes to generate the TM, then it would be logical for the translator to charge for it.
| | | | Thomas Pfann
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:42
Member (2006)
English to German
+ ...
| No client wants your TM | Feb 18, 2023 |
I answered 'No' but the question actually never came up. In 20+ years I have never been asked to provide a TM to the client/agency.
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Nikolay Novitskiy
Russian Federation
Local time: 18:42
Member (2018)
English to Russian
And I think we should also charge them for translation - are you doing it already?
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:42
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| Better still | Feb 18, 2023 |
ProZ.com Staff wrote:
This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Do you think we should charge for providing the TMs or TMX to the client/agency?". This poll was originally submitted by Ines R.. View the poll results »
Better still: politely refuse to provide it.
Also: if you have to convert a PDF to Word, charge for that. Charge A LOT.
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Maybe, but then it should have been discussed from the beginning, long ago, when we started to use CAT tools.
Now it's too late.
The clients expect us to provide their updated TMs that we have worked on - and I don't think they are going to change that.
There could be special cases, where the clients asked us additional work on the TM. Then I would charge extra.
[Edited at 2023-02-18 19:52 GMT]
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 14:42
French to English
I've never been asked. If an agency asks me to translate using a CAT tool, they can easily generate a TM from the work I deliver. And I never use CAT tools for my direct clients, in that CAT tools are simply not useful for the kind of work they give me.
I would totally charge a client who asked me to send me the TM, because either they're getting me to do something they can't be bothered to do themselves, or they're getting me to do something because they can't do it themselves. Whether it... See more I've never been asked. If an agency asks me to translate using a CAT tool, they can easily generate a TM from the work I deliver. And I never use CAT tools for my direct clients, in that CAT tools are simply not useful for the kind of work they give me.
I would totally charge a client who asked me to send me the TM, because either they're getting me to do something they can't be bothered to do themselves, or they're getting me to do something because they can't do it themselves. Whether it's my time or my skill set they need, I deserve to be paid for the effort involved.
I did supply a glossary to a client once (and billed a lot for it), so that they could use it to translate stuff in-house. Nobody ever did use it, their in-house translations were incomprehensible and so they continued to give me work. They were my top client last year in terms of volume and earnings.
[Edited at 2023-02-19 09:23 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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If the client wants a TMX of the job I have done for them or an easily accessible earlier job then it does not take long to extract one. Often they follow automatically, if the client sends the job in a package.
If they want more than that, i.e. extracts of my personally accumulated TMs, then no way! These contain a ragbag of other clients' confidential information, and there is no guarantee that they are free from errors. I try to update my TMs, but am certainly not 100% consistent... See more If the client wants a TMX of the job I have done for them or an easily accessible earlier job then it does not take long to extract one. Often they follow automatically, if the client sends the job in a package.
If they want more than that, i.e. extracts of my personally accumulated TMs, then no way! These contain a ragbag of other clients' confidential information, and there is no guarantee that they are free from errors. I try to update my TMs, but am certainly not 100% consistent. I check the output every time, and correct errors I find, so that I deliver is correct.
But I don't give general TMXs, and there can be no charge for them.
Converting a PDF and running checks on the source text is another matter, but I often prefer to convert them myself. Trados may do it well, or it may make a complete mess, but I try that first.
Clients' own conversions do not always deal well with the three extra vowels in my source language, Danish: æ, ø and å. Instead, they may introduce spelling errors and inconsistencies which I do NOT want in a TM!
As Tom says, these conversions should be charged for!
[Edited at 2023-02-19 11:45 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 14:42
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
Working for agencies I'm normally provided with a prepared CAT tool file with a TM attached to it. In that case there is no reason at all to charge the client for providing the TM content. They would also bluntly refuse to pay for it in the forementioned case.
However, if you are just sent a straight Word, Excel or other file and are supposed to return it in the same format, they have no right to demand for the used TM (if any). They also wouldn't get it.
[Edited at 2023-02-2... See more Working for agencies I'm normally provided with a prepared CAT tool file with a TM attached to it. In that case there is no reason at all to charge the client for providing the TM content. They would also bluntly refuse to pay for it in the forementioned case.
However, if you are just sent a straight Word, Excel or other file and are supposed to return it in the same format, they have no right to demand for the used TM (if any). They also wouldn't get it.
[Edited at 2023-02-20 08:27 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 14:42
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
Off-topic, but I don't know where else to put it: I see certain polls from last week have disappeared ? I thought we had a few about the workload in the past few months, but I don't see them anymore.
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