Basic prices¹

Surcharges¹

Discounts

Proofreading, editing

¹The prices quoted are the gross prices to be paid. The actual offer may be more favorable than the unit price multiplied by the volume due to repetitions in the text, therefore we recommend sending the source material along. Delivery by e-mail, by mail or personally in the Budapest office. Postage of foreign shipments: AT: DE, CH: UK: US: EUR + EUR / page. Payment against official invoice (upon request, the invoice is prepared in advance) by bank transfer or cash. With us you pay what was in the offer (no subsequent calculation).

²As a basis for the above values, we have chosen a FULL PAGE WITH STROKES INCL. ALL CHARACTERS chosen. The fee of at least one average page is charged per order.

How do we determine translation fees?

Do you regularly have something translated and feel the price could be better? In the following we will help you with orientation.

1. Volume

A cardinal factor is, of course, the volume, which in this industry is handled in at least 4 units of measurement:

• strokes without spaces (also called characters)
• strokes with spaces
• words
• standard lines (55 strokes including spaces; today only occasionally used in German-speaking countries)
• pages

Most translation agencies calculate in strokes or in words. Words in strokes can be converted quite well with knowledge of the technical language; in any case, the average word lengths (including 1 space) are as follows:

• Hungarian: 6.5 strokes / word
• English: 6.1 strokes / word
• German: 6 strokes / word

All character strings between two spaces are considered words, including numbers.

In view of the fact that with the help of translation memories long words usually do not have to be typed to the end, the number of strokes loses importance, so the basis of the calculations is more and more the number of words.

The volume of typewritten material can be measured automatically. However, it happens that the material consists of handwriting or bad photocopies / fax messages or the combination of both, in this case we resort to flexible pricing based on the number of pages.

Large quantities can also reduce the price, as translation agencies as well as translators are happy to have only one client for several weeks of work and to take care of one project.

2. Language and language direction

Rare languages are more expensive, but even among the rare ones, countries of relevant economic power are more expensive. English and German are considered to be common.

Translation to the foreign language is more expensive than translation to the language of the country. Translation between two foreign languages is the most expensive. If the two foreign languages belong to the same language family (two French, two Germanic or two Slavic languages), it is possible to offer it relatively cheaply from one source. However, if one of the foreign languages is that of a distant, small culture, the translation can often only be done with one intermediary language (usually English), which means double the hours of work.

3. Repetitions

10,000 words are not the same as 10,000 words. The statistics of translation programs show how many words or segments are unique in the whole document and how many words or segments are variants of each other. The repetitiveness of texts varies depending on the specific field; in technical texts, for example, there is a great deal of repetition (such as safety regulations), but volumes of investigative documents, which have been growing in length for some time, also contain repetitive parts (such as legal instructions).

We apply attenuating multipliers to the price of more or less repetitive segments or words:

• for individual words / segments the indicated unit prices apply
• words/segments of low agreement are multiplied by 0.9,
• the mostly matching ones by a factor of 0.8,
• and the very or completely matching ones are attenuated by a factor of 0.7.

Of course, there is also work to be done with repetitive parts. Often everything in a sentence is repeated with the exception of one word or data, so you have to be very careful that nothing is taken over by mistake.

4. Technical language

Almost all the texts we receive are more or less specialized. A distinction is made between 4 major subject areas: Law, Economy, Technology and Medical.

Legal texts are sometimes included in the umbrella term of social science translation, which otherwise includes the fields of administration, diplomacy, sociology and political science. Economic texts include texts in the field of business, national and world economy, marketing strategy, business, trade and finance. The category of technology also includes industrial texts of larger scope and information technology texts.

Ideally, the translator will have a degree completed in the field - but this is not a requirement. Whatever field he or she feels connected to, whether through an educational degree or work experience, he or she can have the general competence necessary for understanding most texts in the field. (He does not need to be an author.) Being in touch with the content is important; the more effortlessly the translator understands the material, the later he tires in his work. He looks up terms with greater or lesser frequency, he does research work, and for this he uses offline and online dictionaries, encyclopedias, and sometimes the image search.

In addition, there are easier and more difficult specialized languages, more fluent or slower translatable document types, or texts. Much more complicated thinking than the relatively clear materials of first instance courts is required by the correspondences of second and third instance lawyers. More prior knowledge than instruction manuals addressed to laymen is required for the interpretation of technological documentation from and to industry professionals.

In general, cultural, tourism or marketing texts are considered inexpensive. Diplomacy, lighter legal, some technical, commercial or business texts are of average rates. The more difficult legal (second and third instance applications and their evaluation), economic, financial, more difficult industrial and medical texts are the expensive texttypes.

5. Deadline

The faster a translation is needed, the more expensive it becomes, because the individual translator is exposed to a higher load and/or several translators have to be coordinated. The current workload of the translation agency also counts here; therefore, prices are cheaper in the summer slump or at Christmas than in the peak season of September.

If the task is already on the client's mind, only a larger translation agency with many translators can accept it. Since they need to work on a collaborative platform to ensure consistent terminology, which requires software and a project coordinator, the price will inevitably be higher.

A translator - depending on his or her experience, the volume of his or her translation memory - can manage up to 8 pages or 3,000 words a day for the same (good) quality in the long term.

We are on the safe side if there is an additional 10% time left for reading through and a few more percent for communication / looking things up on the Internet.

6. Flat rate prices

For standard documents, such as certificates, civil registry excerpts and some official certificates, the text of which is the same except for the individual data, we apply lower flat rates measured in strokesn, but increased by the price of the official preparation and postage.

7. Additional services

1. Proofreading in the native language
   • When translating specialized texts, it is not a requirement that the translator be a native speaker, it is sufficient if he or she has either completed a language course and further education or has a degree in law, economics, engineering or medicine and has completed further education to become a specialized translator. The more everyday the text is - beware! Advertising texts often try to be close to everyday life - the more important the native language becomes. No one is capable of that degree of linguistic economy, no one knows trendy phrases as well as a native speaker.
   • Money is spent on a native speaker proofreader when the naturalness of the target language text is of particular importance, as in the case of touristic, advertising and some cultural texts. For other specialized texts, the most in-depth knowledge of the subject matter is more important.
   • The price for native speaker proofreading depends on the rarity and professionalism of the language (see points 2 and 4); it is 30 to 40% of the given translation price.
2. Clause
   • Certification involves manual work and posting, therefore most translation agencies charge a flat rate and a price per page. In our case, the price for certification of documents is € / document + € / page. This includes the postage to a Hungarian address.
3. Postage
   • We add postage for international shipments (AT: DE, CH: UK: US: EUR + EUR / page). choose registered mail every time, so "priority" is included.
4. Transcription of audio material
   • Transcription is the typing of speech text in interviews, video recordings and radio broadcasts, with or without time code. The text to be transcribed often needs to be translated as well. It is difficult to link the price to the length, because the density of conversations in recordings varies greatly, which is why translation agencies sometimes link the price of transcription to the output. We, on the other hand, translate a short passage and calculate the time spent on it. Hourly rates for transcription vary from 25 to 35 EUR.
5. Video subtitling
   • Video subtitles are stored with the time codes in text files, which can be displayed by installed or online video players. For the production of subtitles, employees use special software.

8. Other factors of pricing

1. Translation of handwritten texts
   • Handwritten texts must be made machine-readable for computer-assisted translation, and since each handwriting is individual and changeable, character recognition software cannot be used here. That is why such orders sometimes have a transcription part. The advantage is that the customer can then use the source language variant.
2. Whether the corporate client provides terminology
   • In industry, tens of new words are emerging every week. Companies that pay attention to terminology continuously build their glossary, which saves time and effort for each future translation. If the company provides a terminology database, the translation agency can offer better deadlines and prices.