The Company
The British Centre of Jesi says it has been in business since 1977 -- though it still hasn't translated its own website into English.
They offer "fast, efficient service for documents of every kind (technical, scientific, legal, and business-related) in any foreign language," and, of course, they underscore their "collaboration" with native speakers.
The History
On January 8, 2008, the British Centre of Jesi posted a job to the Proz job board:
URGENT. ITALIAN INTO ENGLISH 1 PAGE
Though the job may well have been one printed page, the word count indicated in the posting was 550 words -- or approximately 2.5 "cartelle" of 1500 keystrokes each.
Payment was "15 usd" and the British Centre further promised:
"you will be offered other projects from our agency."
The rate quoted here, then, comes to approximately $6 per cartella. Note that, as of this writing, the British Centre's company profile on Proz.com indicates a "standard rate" of "0.04 Euro per word" for Italian->English translations.
Based on that, a job of 550 words should come in at a minimum of E. 22 or about $31.90 at today's exchange rate. There's no explanation for why this particular job -- marked URGENT! -- was priced so low.
I contacted the company about this job offer and their rates and received the following response:
you email, seems that you are quite bored. please just next time if u dont like the project and what offered, ignore them....and dont stress us with your tantrums.
The Company
NOTE: This post is based on information received from the colleague involved.
Network Omni Multilingual Communications offers "Interpretation, Translation, Training and Consulting Services" and further promises:
Translation and Localization
Getting your printed materials over language barriers will require more than just a word-for-word translation. It will require sensitivity to the local culture and an understanding of regional subtext—tastes, preferences, influences. A baseball metaphor will mean something in the United States, but nothing in most of the rest of the world.
Localization also encompasses the technical details that separate other cultures from our own: time/date formatting, page layouts, webpage sizing. That’s why NetworkOmni pays special attention to local relevance. It’s the best way to assure a truly global influence for our translation clients.
Their corporate information is:
NetworkOmni Multilingual Communications
4353 Park Terrace Drive
Westlake Village, CA 91361
Toll-Free: 800-543-4244
Main: 818-706-7890
Fax: 818-735-6305
The History
NOTE: The following is taken from information reported to the Northern California Translators Association listserv by a colleague whom I know personally and consider reliable; it does not come from my direct experience.
In August 2007, the translator in question was contacted by NetworkOmni for the urgent editing of a brief German-to-Italian translation. She edited the text and returned it to the agency on the same day.
As of October 30, 2007, and despite repeated reminders and requests, they had not paid and had failed to respond to her messages.
A search of messages on the NCTA list turned up a half-dozen other complaints, dating back to May 2006, regarding slow payments on the part of NetworkOmni.
See more on high-quality India English on the "Inglisc: Mèd Een Eetaly" site:
… maybe this explains why they only pay translators $0.01 a word.
.025 cent per source word:
Adith Multilingual (Chetan Kumar), transco@adithmultilingual.com, Bangalore, India - Posted on the "Go Translators" list: "Italian to English Translation work of approximately 1,00,000 words."
.015 cent per source word:
Shakti Enterprises (Amit Shirodkar), profiles@shaktienterprise.com, Mumbai, India - Posted on the "Go Translators" list: "We are looking out for a translator ( Italianto English ). We have around 100 + words to be translated in English. We can pay you immidiatly on recieving the translation through paypal. TOTAL: 15.00 USD."
The Company
Camignone di Passirano (Brescia)-based TRP Traduzioni Srl introduces itself thus on its website: "Founded in 1978 as one-man business and grown-up during the years, the current structure of TRP Traduzioni srl may well boast a twenty-year experience in the translations and annexed fields world. Our customers include clients based in Italy, Germany and Benelux, as well as a consistent number of translation centres in Europe with which we collaborate translating mainly from European languages into German. A staff of mother-tongue permanent translators guarantees qualified and punctual translations."
It continues in that vein ("The application of directives provided for by the UNI EN ISO 9001:2000 VISION regulation which we are certified to, is part of the company’s professionalism and reliability").
Evidently, their staff of "mother-tongue permanent translators" wasn't employed to translate their website into English.
The History
On 21 February 2007, a translator who had been employed by TRP Traduzioni wrote: "I advise caution in dealing with this agency: late payments, repeated requests ignored, etc. In the end, they did finally pay me."
