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CAT
Analysis: Repeats Count
While asking or bidding for a translation project involving this
or that CAT tool, it is customary to ask or quote a discount rate
for repeats.
But what is repeat, and what it involves. Simply put, a repeat is
a sentence or a "segment" which is repeated within the
document that the CAT recognizes as identical. Since they are
identical, translation is also identical, that is to say, once an
instance of an identical segment is translated, it requires no
further processing by the translator other than simply hitting a
key combination to accept it as a valid translation after seeing a
100% match. Therefore, and reasonably, outsourcers do not want to
pay full rate for such repeats. And they ask a (deep) discount at
full rate for repeats with which translators usually comply.
Unfortunately, the translator is required to quote before actually
analyzing the document himself.
The problem here lies not in asking a discount, but in determining
a fair discount that would benefit both parties. And it is not an
easy job as it might seem at first sight as the following simple
analysis will show. Precisely, the problem is to find the actual
number of unique segments requiring translation, since the CAT
tools give us a tally rather than a frequency distribution.
We can take two extreme scenarios in a any repeat analysis: the
best and the worst one. Let us examine both scenarios with a
numerical example. Let us say that we have document where a CAT
tool reports a repeat of 10,000 words. And the translator is
required to quote a discount for repeats. How much he should
quote? How can he fix a reasonable rate that is fair to both
parties?
Best scenario:
Repeats consist of only a single segment (a word, a sentence, or a
part thereof) which is repeated over and again. For example, a
sentence consisting of 10 words repeated for 1,000 times. In this
case, the translator is required to translate only 10 words to get
the whole 10,000 words translated! For the rest, he would only
press a particular key combination to accept the translation that
takes only one or two seconds.
Worst Scenario:
In the worst scenario, each segment is repeated only once.
Following the example above, half of the words (5,000) make up the
unique segments that require translation. Assuming, as above, that
each segment consists of 10 words, the translator would be
required to translate 500 segments.
Actual Frequency distribution:
In reality, the number of unique segments requiring translation
varies between the two extremes depending on the type of document
analyzed. In some documents, a single segment may be repeating a
hundred times. In general, number of repeats vary. Returning to
our example, let us say that the repeats have the following actual
frequency distribution:
2,000 words repeated two times. = 4,000 words
1,500 words repeated three times = 4,500 words
125 words repeated four times = 500 words
200 words repeated five times = 1,000 words
Total number of words in unique segments requiring translation
= 3725 words.
Cost Estimates based on Scenarios:
Now we can estimate costs on the basis of our hypotetical
scenarios, and determine the gains or losses incurred by the
parties, i.e., by the outsourcer and the translator.
In all calculations let us assume that full rate is 0.1
unit currency, and the translator offers 70% discount for repeats.
Table 1. Actual Number of
Words Requiring Translation and Costs
|
| Scenario |
unique words translated |
quoted price |
outsourcer's gain/loss |
translator's gain/loss |
| Best |
10 |
300 |
- 299 |
+ 299 |
| Worst |
5000 |
300 |
+ 200 |
- 200 |
| Actual |
3725 |
300 |
+ 72.5 |
- 72.5 |
|
As can easily be seen from the table, all scenarios other than
the "best" one leads to translator to suffer real
losses. The more he discounts, the more he looses. Therefore, he
should be careful when quoting discounts for repeats. In practice,
discounts more than 60% lead to losses for the translator.
Let us illustrate this with our above example, this time
assuming that the translator quotes discount on the basis of worst
scenario.
Table 2. Discount Quoted
on the Basis of Worst Scenario (i.e., at 50%) |
| Scenario |
unique words translated |
quoted price |
outsourcer's gain/loss |
translator's gain/loss |
| Best |
10 |
500 |
- 499 |
+ 499 |
| Worst |
5000 |
500 |
0 |
0 |
| Actual |
3725 |
500 |
- 127.5 |
+ 127.5 |
| And the last table for 60% discount
shows that this is the optimum level for both the outsourcer as
well as the translator.
Table 3. Discount Quoted
at 60% (i.e., currency unit 0.04 / words) |
| Scenario |
unique words translated |
quoted price |
outsourcer's gain/loss |
translator's gain/loss |
| Best |
10 |
400 |
- 399 |
+ 399 |
| Worst |
5000 |
400 |
+100 |
-100 |
| Actual |
3725 |
400 |
- 27.5 |
+ 27.5 |
|
In summary, we can safely conclude that the repeats discount
should not be less than 50% and greater than 70%, the optimum rate
being 60%. |
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