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French into English · literary and commercial
Here is a page of my work in both languages. Read the right-hand column first.
If the English holds up on its own, that is the only test that matters, and you can apply it in thirty seconds without speaking a word of French. Everything else on this page is about price, direction and how a quote gets worked out.
Source
Le matin où l'on a vidé l'étang, ma mère est restée à la fenêtre sans rien dire. Elle avait cette façon de regarder les choses qui partaient : poliment, comme on regarde un train.
Il y avait, en dessous, tout ce que le village avait laissé tomber en quarante ans. Des bicyclettes. Une chaise. Le portail de la ferme des Renaud, que personne n'avait jamais cherché.
Il y avait, en dessous, tout ce que le village avait laissé tomber en quarante ans. Des bicyclettes. Une chaise. Le portail de la ferme des Renaud, que personne n'avait jamais cherché.
English
The morning they drained the pond my mother stood at the window and said nothing. She had a way of watching things go: politely, the way you watch a train.
Underneath was everything the village had dropped into it in forty years. Bicycles. A chair. The gate from the Renaud farm, which nobody had ever gone looking for.
Underneath was everything the village had dropped into it in forty years. Bicycles. A chair. The gate from the Renaud farm, which nobody had ever gone looking for.
Six decisions in two paragraphs
"poliment" → "politely" — The obvious word, kept. Not every line needs solving, and a translator who shows off in the first paragraph will still be doing it in the last one
"comme on regarde un train" — "The way you watch a train", not "as one watches a train". French "on" is neutral; English "one" is not. Choosing "you" is a decision about class as much as grammar
"laissé tomber" → "dropped into it" — Literally "let fall". English needs the pond put back into the sentence, because it will not carry an object that far without help
The full stops stay — "Des bicyclettes. Une chaise." would read more smoothly as a list, and it is not meant to read smoothly. Smoothing that out is the commonest way a translation goes quietly wrong
"que personne n'avait jamais cherché" — "Which nobody had ever gone looking for" — four words longer. The flatness that French gets for free needs room in English
What you're paying for — Not the words. Forty decisions like these on every page, and the consistency of having one person make all of them the same way
"comme on regarde un train" — "The way you watch a train", not "as one watches a train". French "on" is neutral; English "one" is not. Choosing "you" is a decision about class as much as grammar
"laissé tomber" → "dropped into it" — Literally "let fall". English needs the pond put back into the sentence, because it will not carry an object that far without help
The full stops stay — "Des bicyclettes. Une chaise." would read more smoothly as a list, and it is not meant to read smoothly. Smoothing that out is the commonest way a translation goes quietly wrong
"que personne n'avait jamais cherché" — "Which nobody had ever gone looking for" — four words longer. The flatness that French gets for free needs room in English
What you're paying for — Not the words. Forty decisions like these on every page, and the consistency of having one person make all of them the same way
How a quote works
Send the actual text — Not a description of it and not a word count. "About five thousand words of German" cannot be priced, because the five thousand words are the entire question
It stays confidential — Read, quoted, and deleted if you don't go ahead. An NDA before you send anything is completely normal and is signed the same day
The quote is fixed — One number, and it doesn't move afterwards. If the text turns out harder than it looked that is my problem, which is the correct place for it
You'll be told if it's the wrong job — Wrong language pair, wrong field, or better done by somebody else — and you'll get the name of that somebody else. That answer is free
A sample first, if you like — Three hundred words, paid, deducted from the job. On anything book-length it is worth doing before either of us commits
Turnaround — About two and a half thousand words a day, and that figure includes the days spent on one paragraph. Anybody quoting five thousand is quoting a first draft
It stays confidential — Read, quoted, and deleted if you don't go ahead. An NDA before you send anything is completely normal and is signed the same day
The quote is fixed — One number, and it doesn't move afterwards. If the text turns out harder than it looked that is my problem, which is the correct place for it
You'll be told if it's the wrong job — Wrong language pair, wrong field, or better done by somebody else — and you'll get the name of that somebody else. That answer is free
A sample first, if you like — Three hundred words, paid, deducted from the job. On anything book-length it is worth doing before either of us commits
Turnaround — About two and a half thousand words a day, and that figure includes the days spent on one paragraph. Anybody quoting five thousand is quoting a first draft
Why it's priced per SOURCE word
2,500words on a good day
20%English grows going into Spanish
15%German shrinks going into English
3passes before it is sent
You can count the source today — It is a number that already exists. The target word count doesn't exist yet, so pricing on it means agreeing to a figure neither of us can see
Languages change length — English into Spanish grows by about a fifth. German into English shrinks. Pricing per target word quietly rewards padding in one direction and punishes economy in the other
It removes an argument — Nobody has to check whether a sentence was made longer on purpose. That suspicion is corrosive and per-source pricing simply deletes it
Repetition is discounted — Where a text genuinely repeats itself — manuals, catalogues, terms — that is counted once and priced once. Ask for the analysis and you get it
Minimum charge — There is one, and it is small. A hundred-word job still costs half an hour of somebody's attention and a place in the queue
What isn't charged extra — Formatting, a glossary, or answering questions about the finished text six months later. Those are part of it rather than line items
Languages change length — English into Spanish grows by about a fifth. German into English shrinks. Pricing per target word quietly rewards padding in one direction and punishes economy in the other
It removes an argument — Nobody has to check whether a sentence was made longer on purpose. That suspicion is corrosive and per-source pricing simply deletes it
Repetition is discounted — Where a text genuinely repeats itself — manuals, catalogues, terms — that is counted once and priced once. Ask for the analysis and you get it
Minimum charge — There is one, and it is small. A hundred-word job still costs half an hour of somebody's attention and a place in the queue
What isn't charged extra — Formatting, a glossary, or answering questions about the finished text six months later. Those are part of it rather than line items
One direction only
Into English, never out of it — Translators work into the language they think in. That is the ordinary standard in this trade and it is worth knowing that it is a standard rather than a preference
Somebody offering both — Is worth one polite question about which of the two they grew up in. There are genuinely bilingual translators and there are fewer of them than the profiles suggest
What that means for you — If you need English into French, you'll be pointed at somebody who does it properly rather than sold something adjacent
Fields matter as much as languages — A literary translator is not a legal one. Being told "that's not my field" is a better answer than a confident quote from somebody guessing
Reviewers and second pairs of eyes — Book-length work goes past a second translator before delivery, named in the credits, and paid out of the fee rather than added to it
What this doesn't settle — Whether any given translator is good. Direction and field are the two things you can check from outside; the sample is the only thing that answers the rest
Somebody offering both — Is worth one polite question about which of the two they grew up in. There are genuinely bilingual translators and there are fewer of them than the profiles suggest
What that means for you — If you need English into French, you'll be pointed at somebody who does it properly rather than sold something adjacent
Fields matter as much as languages — A literary translator is not a legal one. Being told "that's not my field" is a better answer than a confident quote from somebody guessing
Reviewers and second pairs of eyes — Book-length work goes past a second translator before delivery, named in the credits, and paid out of the fee rather than added to it
What this doesn't settle — Whether any given translator is good. Direction and field are the two things you can check from outside; the sample is the only thing that answers the rest
Machine translation, honestly
It is genuinely good at some things — Getting the gist of an incoming email, internal documents nobody will publish, and finding out whether a text is worth translating at all. Use it for those and save the money
Post-editing is a real service — Fixing machine output, priced lower, and offered here. For technical and repetitive material it is often the right answer and it will be recommended when it is
Sometimes it costs more — Bad machine output takes longer to repair than a clean text takes to translate. Where that is true you will be told before the work starts, not invoiced for it afterwards
It cannot hear a voice — The passage above is the argument. Every one of those six decisions is about a person rather than a sentence, and there is no prompt for that
Confidentiality — Pasting a client's contract into a free tool is a data question, not a quality one. Nothing of yours goes into any tool that keeps it
What gets disclosed — If any part of a job used machine assistance, it says so on the invoice. You should not have to ask, and with anybody else it is worth asking
Post-editing is a real service — Fixing machine output, priced lower, and offered here. For technical and repetitive material it is often the right answer and it will be recommended when it is
Sometimes it costs more — Bad machine output takes longer to repair than a clean text takes to translate. Where that is true you will be told before the work starts, not invoiced for it afterwards
It cannot hear a voice — The passage above is the argument. Every one of those six decisions is about a person rather than a sentence, and there is no prompt for that
Confidentiality — Pasting a client's contract into a free tool is a data question, not a quality one. Nothing of yours goes into any tool that keeps it
What gets disclosed — If any part of a job used machine assistance, it says so on the invoice. You should not have to ask, and with anybody else it is worth asking
Rates, per source word
Commercial
$0.16 · per source word
- Reports, sites, marketing
- Three passes before delivery
- Glossary kept and reused
- Fixed quote from the real text
Literary
$0.20 · per source word
- Fiction, essays, poetry
- Second translator reads it
- Translator credited on the book
- Royalty share where there is one
Post-editing
$0.09 · per source word
- Machine output, repaired
- Recommended only where it fits
- Priced after seeing the output
- Declared on the invoice
The translator's name on the book — Asked for on every literary contract, and it is not a vanity point — a named translator can be looked up, checked and held responsible for the English you are reading
Royalties — A small share where the publisher offers one, and it is asked for every time. Say no and the work still happens; not asking is how it stops being normal
Certified translations — Available, and what "certified" means differs entirely by country. Ask whoever is receiving it what they actually require before paying anybody for a stamp
Rush work — Costs more and is usually avoidable. Ask what the real deadline is — about half of them turn out to be the date somebody first said out loud
Royalties — A small share where the publisher offers one, and it is asked for every time. Say no and the work still happens; not asking is how it stops being normal
Certified translations — Available, and what "certified" means differs entirely by country. Ask whoever is receiving it what they actually require before paying anybody for a stamp
Rush work — Costs more and is usually avoidable. Ask what the real deadline is — about half of them turn out to be the date somebody first said out loud
Send the text
The actual file, or a representative few pages of it. You'll get a fixed quote, a date, and an honest answer about whether this is the right desk for it.
Send the text
"I don't know what that means" is a completely reasonable answer and it gets explained rather than upsold. Most people who are told they need a certified translation don't.
Live preview — every color, word and block is editable after you pick it.