Hi Evrybody - long time no play!

[russh]

Just a quick note to say hi to everybody, and HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Have not been around for a long time, and have missed you all. I've taken a
quick look at the recent posts, and it seems as if I've not been away at all -
Waldek is back (and welcome), and the quality is as good as ever.

I look forward to contributing a little in the rare moments of spare time I
seem to have at the moment.

PS - I've been offered a job proof reading (invoiced). Any idea what the
hourly rate is?

[kylie1]

Good to see you back. I was just wondering what happened to you.

[usenetposts]

Hi Russ!

Great to see you around, and I hope you come around a lot more. It makes a lot
of difference to have you here.

From what I know of the market, you should be taking no less than 5 grosze per
word, but start the bidding at 8 grosze per word. I don't think you will get 8
grosz per word, but if you hold out you might prove me wrong.

You should at the outset set a minimum of 30 PLN for each assignment, as well
as a 30 PLN minimum for revisiting an assignment if there are later amendments.
(You may only get 25, but you might like to start the bidding on that even at
35). If you don't have this, you will be pestered for things which are worth so
little as to be not worth the aggro.

You should also set in the agreement that if you have to add paragraphs which
were skipped in the original translation, it's 20 grosze per word - this cuts
in only if the amounts missed exceed 10 consequent words, or 50 in the whole
document.

If you follow this advice, I think you will have a contract worth working on,
rather than something you will get fed up with after a while.

Hope this helps.

[russh]

Thanks Dave, and good to be back.

The legal practice that has offered the job wants to work on an hourly basis,
with a regular 2 / 3 hours a day. I have no idea if this is normal or not.

What would the hourly rate be, do you think?

[usenetposts]

Do you actually have to go in for 2-3 hours a day?

I would suggest, in that case, that you ask for a retainer of 6000 PLN per
month, and that you keep a record of the words checked per month. If the word
count exceeds 100,000 then you charge 4 grosz per word for the extra work
(which is well below market) but you get this made up by the fact that you
still get paid the retainer if there is little work. If they don't give you 40
000 words in a given month, then they can use the differenc between what you
did and 40,000 and add it to the 100,000 word cut-off for three months, after
which they forfeit it.

That should be a reasonably fair basis.

If you perceive they just want you to turn up and hand around for a few hours a
day, and not necessarily give you anything like that amount, then you might
just say 100 PLN/hr (start the bidding higher), but make sure that is for time
spent, not normative ideas of how many words you do - they might be crafty and
use "hours" as a way to manoeuvre you into doing more words for 6000 PLN than
you would get on the market, or you might turn up and go to the trouble of
being there, and they might say "well, there's nothing to do today, so we don't
accept a fee for today".

If you would like me to negotiate on your behalf, then let me know.

[russh]

Thanks for reply.

Any possibility of coming into town and seeing you. I have a meeting with the
law firm on Friday at 13.00 in the center, and would very much appreciate some
firther advice, and to talk to you about a project I'm starting to develop.

[usenetposts]

Sure, see you at my office Friday afternoon - if you come hungry that we help
me put into practice the resoluation I have just taken of going out to lunch!

I take it you've still got my card, if not all the details are on
www.strategiahorwath.com

[varsovian]

Russ, lawyers are tricky - this is exactly the sort of job I do.
The aim of the game is to try to change things slowly - go too fast too soon
and they will view you as arrogant. The truth of the matter is legal
translators here make a living out of translating literally, even when the
resulting style in English is excruciatingly bad.
Without blowing my own trumpet too loudly, the level of English where I work is
so much better than it was before I joined, and part of that is down to me.
Bit by bit I asked them to change their style by:
writing short sentences (!), chopping out verbiage (within the territory of the
Republic of Poland etc), eliminating basic mistakes (e.g. "amounting to" with
all numbers, instead of "is", for example).
Management has been fantastic throughout, as has marketing - out with direct
translations, in with concept marketing translations - proofread of course.

Certain things you can't possibly change, of course.

One prime example is "perpetual usufruct". This is used in Canada and Finland
to stop tribal lands being broken up when owners sell their property
(essentially, they sell within their tribe or to the state). Some Polish
linguistic expert applied this term to Polish real estate, when he meant
something like a "99 year public leasehold" (a descriptive, anglo-centric
translation). Polish lawyers have had to describe "perpetual usufruct" ever
since, because it makes little sense to 99.99% of English speakers.
Or perhaps Poles are in fact nomadic hunters at heart, trekking across the
tundra and taiga?

In saecula saeculorum - round in saecles we go.

[usenetposts]

A more accurate term would be secular usufruct, but this is not used anywhere.
It would however be a nice 'dog latin' translation of the term "uzytkowanie
wieczyste". Of course then people would misunderstand the economic meaning of
the word secular and think that the use of the land excluded builded churches
on it.


There is nothing perpetual about a UW, but they tend to last about a century,
so the term I've suggested would be a very apt coinage.

[varsovian]

Perpetual, legally, in this context means to the end of your life.

[usenetposts]

It cannot possibly have that legal meaning, or it would make a nonsense of the
term "perpetual copyright".

[varsovian]

In the context I used it in it does, though.

[usenetposts]

These lawyers think they can use words as the fancy takes them. That's the
problem.