Average cost of english-spanish translation?

Question

I have done translations before, but I'm finally going to get paid for it. I have no clue of how much I should charge for it though since I consider that my previous translations have had a good professional level to them. However, I am not yet an experienced translator. Does anyone know the average cost of english-spanish translations? I'm also thinking that I will charge per word since the document has a lot of pictures, is that a good idea?

Answer 1

a buck a page, or 2 cents a word. is the low end, it depends also on the intellectual level the writings are, as the higher the literary level the more time you will use to accurately translate what the author point, or nuances of meaning.

Answer 2

I have been a professional translator for 2 years and I still charge the same fee I did at the beginning. 2c a word as suggested in the above answer is not a fee that I know any professional to charge for translation (I would charge that for proofreading for example). I charge 5c (euro cents, about $0.07), but it depends on your experience, education etc. Because I translate quickly this gives me quite a good hourly wage, and you will be a slow translator at first so keep that in mind.
Definitely charge per word and not per page, it's fair to both you and the client (one day they could give you lots of pictures and the next day a page with only text in small font...) MS Word has a decent word count facility that usually works well enough for that. For more info the best site on starting off as a translator, with lots of articles and information on issues you'd be interested in, go to http://www.proz.com
Even when you are not an experienced translator you can still charge a decent amount if you are have language abilities / certifications and a specialisation in the field that you are translate from.

Answer 3

O wonderful, someone who understands how useful a dictionary can be! Hurray! Mahal is quite right - amazon is the best place to look , and you can probably get a basic one for less than $10, especially if you check out the ones being sold Used. If you continue with Spanish to an advanced level, you'll want a better dictionary, a good, big unabridged one, probably costing about $30.