Quite often a translation has to be made "for yesterday". This is the reality of our lives. It is also true that nearly all translation agencies perform urgent translation at a double or triple rate, i.e. an extra charge on the normal cost of translation is made at 100%-200%. We believe that such extra charges are unreasonably overestimated.
Urgent translation certainly takes extra effort and responsibility both on a manager’s and translator’s part. However, we have come to a conclusion that normal extra charge for urgency should be 40%-60% of the cost of a standard translation.
Example:
- cost of translation performed with an ordinary deadline is 100,00 UAH;
- cost of urgent translation is 100,00 + 50% = 150,00 UAH.
In case of urgent translation we always try to give a customer an advance notice of possible minor errors, misprints due to the fact that such a translation because of undertime cannot be properly proofread.
But this doesn’t mean that your translation will be made "hit-or-miss" or using computer-aided translation software.
Peculiarities of urgent translation or the impossible is possible
Suppose you have an important business appointment tomorrow and you have to urgently translate 60 (or more) pages of a contract.
It is clear that a single translator will not be able to cope with this size as he physically cannot process this much text within 24 hours. What if the text is hard, for instance, medical, and requires considerable attention but you need it urgently?
Even in this situation we will try to do all possible and impossible.
But this doesn’t have an implication that your translation will be made on the “hit-or-miss” principle or using computer-aided translation software.
In such cases translation is split between several translators, subsequently combined into a single text and reviewed to eliminate the discrepancies in terminology, stylistics.
