Translation question: words numbers in different languages?

[Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>]

Susan Hogarth wonders: <<I have a doc we are going to have translated  
to French from English. The procurement people tell me that the  
translators charge .16-.17/per word of *French* (the 'to' language).  
My boss wants me to tell her how much the translation will cost. I  
have the number of words in English (1,500), but no way to estimate  
how many French words it would be. Is there an easy rule-of-thumb?>>

I've never seen costs quoted per word of target language for English  
to French translation, though I'm told this is sometimes done in  
other languages. The standard practice is to charge per word of  
source text, among other reasons because this is the only way to  
easily budget costs and because it doesn't give the translator an  
incentive to pad the bill by adding unnecessary but justifiable  
words. If you have any control over the process, recommend that  
future translations be handled this way.

If you need a crude estimate, the French word count typically expands  
by between 10 and 30% above the English word count, depending on the  
nature of the topic and how concise the translator chooses to be.


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