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Time needed to translate an audio file
Thread poster: Anna Parish
Anna Parish
Anna Parish  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:02
English to Russian
Feb 6, 2013

Hello, I was approached by an agency to translate some audio files. The files are about 120 - 180 min long. They are asking to provide information on how much translation I could be doing per day. I have never done translation from audio before so have no idea how long it can take. Could anyone advise on how much could be achieved per hour?

Many thanks!

Anna
 
Nikita Kobrin
Nikita Kobrin  Identity Verified
Lithuania
Local time: 22:02
Member (2010)
English to Russian
+ ...
2 phases Feb 6, 2013

Anna Parish wrote:

Could anyone advise on how much could be achieved per hour?


There are 2 phases:

1. Transcription of audio files - depending on many various factors each minute of the recording takes from 5 to 10 (or more) minutes to be transcribed.

2. Translation of the transcribed text - your usual pace.

Taking the above into account make the calculation.

Nikita Kobrin
 
Anton Konashenok
Anton Konashenok  Identity Verified
Czech Republic
Local time: 21:02
French to English
+ ...
Impossible to tell in advance Feb 6, 2013

It is impossible to give an estimate without listening to the files first. Ask for a sample and measure yourself. If there are several speakers recorded, make sure you get a sample for each of them. I once made a mistake of giving a quote to transcribe a recording of a two-day conference after listening to just a couple of speakers. One very long presentation by a Chinese speaker and two by Norwegians took me about 5 times longer than I expected because of heavy accents aggravated by murderous g... See more
It is impossible to give an estimate without listening to the files first. Ask for a sample and measure yourself. If there are several speakers recorded, make sure you get a sample for each of them. I once made a mistake of giving a quote to transcribe a recording of a two-day conference after listening to just a couple of speakers. One very long presentation by a Chinese speaker and two by Norwegians took me about 5 times longer than I expected because of heavy accents aggravated by murderous grammar. ▲ Collapse
 
LEXpert
LEXpert  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 14:02
Member (2008)
Croatian to English
+ ...
Speaking speeds Feb 6, 2013

Nikita Kobrin wrote:

Anna Parish wrote:

Could anyone advise on how much could be achieved per hour?


There are 2 phases:

1. Transcription of audio files - depending on many various factors each minute of the recording takes from 5 to 10 (or more) minutes to be transcribed.

2. Translation of the transcribed text - your usual pace.

Taking the above into account make the calculation.

Nikita Kobrin


One can always skip phase 1 and just translate from the audio, especially since monolingual transcription is almost always more easily done by native speakers.
Average speaking speed is about 100-150 wpm, so an hour of continuous speech can have 6000 words or more. How long would it take one to translate that from text? Translating from audio will take longer.

Advertised rates for monolingual transcription seem so low that it's hard to see how it wouldn't be worthwhile to just pay a transcription agency to transcribe and then have the translator do the translation from that (although it might be hard to find transcriptionists in small languages).
 
Nikita Kobrin
Nikita Kobrin  Identity Verified
Lithuania
Local time: 22:02
Member (2010)
English to Russian
+ ...
* Feb 6, 2013

Rudolf Vedo CT wrote:

One can always skip phase 1 and just translate from the audio, especially since monolingual transcription is almost always more easily done by native speakers.


Rudolf, for quality and accurate rendering I would not recommend to skip phase 1.

And another point: transcription normally should be made by a source native speaker while translation - by the target one...

Nikita Kobrin
 
LEXpert
LEXpert  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 14:02
Member (2008)
Croatian to English
+ ...
Natives and transcription Feb 7, 2013

Nikita Kobrin wrote:

And another point: transcription normally should be made by a source native speaker while translation - by the target one...

Nikita Kobrin


You're quite right - I should have clarified which natives I meant.
 


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Time needed to translate an audio file







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