Are you done yet?… How about now?  From the viewpoint of our customers, the most important aspects of a project are the cost and time required for a project.

I thought it might be a good idea to share some information about how much work a good linguist can do in one day.

There are a few variables that go into figuring out how long it will take for a linguist to handle a translation project.

• difficulty of the content (how technical? how much research will be required?)
• type of content (translation of software strings typically requires a lot of research, while translating a birth certificate does not)
• limitations of the project (translating software strings often requires conforming to certain character length restrictions; translating scripts for narration projects often requires timing the translation to the original English)
• what other projects the linguist is working on (will they be able to devote their entire day to the project)
• does translation memory exist (a large volume of matches will increase the output)

For this discussion we will just consider a typical project with no special requirements. When we estimate how much time it will take for a given project we use a pace of 2,000 to 2,500 words per day for the translator and 6,000 to 8,000 words per day for the editor. This of course assumes a full day of work (eight hours).

These figures should be used with caution; you really need to understand the impact caused by any or all of the factors listed in the bullets above to accurately estimate a timeline that allows for a quality translation project.

One of the things that I like to remind our customers is that the amount of work required to perform a good translation should be in line with the amount of time it took to write the content originally.  The process of translation involves rewriting the content in another language. It is not a simple conversion. If it took you a week to write a document it isn’t out of the question that it will take a week to translate the document.