Poll: Do you feel the translation market/industry has changed a lot over the last 6 months?
Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
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Oct 1, 2020

This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Do you feel the translation market/industry has changed a lot over the last 6 months?".

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Jan Hanna
 
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 09:08
Member (2007)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Not at all Oct 1, 2020

Work was scarce in May but nothing out of the usual ups and downs…

 
Kay-Viktor Stegemann
Kay-Viktor Stegemann
Germany
Local time: 10:08
English to German
In memoriam
There are obvious changes Oct 1, 2020

The main change I see for the translation market is the demand side. When an industry suffered due to the Covid crisis (for example, the tourism industry), the demand for translations by this industry dropped extremely. Other industries that boom due to the Covid crisis (for example, online services or videogames) create higher demand for translations. And of course there is a lot of translation work directly or indirectly related to Covid (not only medical content but also content regarding to ... See more
The main change I see for the translation market is the demand side. When an industry suffered due to the Covid crisis (for example, the tourism industry), the demand for translations by this industry dropped extremely. Other industries that boom due to the Covid crisis (for example, online services or videogames) create higher demand for translations. And of course there is a lot of translation work directly or indirectly related to Covid (not only medical content but also content regarding to all kinds of business transformations, newsletters, events that were canceled or moved to online events, safety measures, disclaimers, whatnot).

On the supply side, I believe the translation industry was probably better prepared for this crisis than many other industries. Most of us are used to working at home anyway - not only we translators, but also LSP project managers and other contributors are used to working online or at least can move to online working easily.
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Nuno Rosalino
Aline Amorim
Liena Vijupe
Jorge Payan
Josephine Cassar
Naoko Orito
Clement Cheung
 
expressisverbis
expressisverbis
Portugal
Local time: 09:08
Member (2015)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
"A growing change" Oct 1, 2020

Take a close look at the number of registrations with ProZ.com in these last six months due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Am I wrong to assume that now professional translators have to face competition from a number of other large "players in the game"?
I really hope I am mistaken.




[Edited at 2020-10-01 10:52 GMT]


Mervyn Henderson (X)
Clement Cheung
 
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:08
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Shutdowns Oct 1, 2020

question "Do you feel the translation market/industry has changed a lot over the last 6 months?"


A lot of Italian agencies seem to have gone out of business. On the other hand I've been getting more direct clients.


 
Christopher Schröder
Christopher Schröder
United Kingdom
Member (2011)
Swedish to English
+ ...
Hard to know Oct 1, 2020

It’s easy to speculate about how the industry might have been affected, but there is no way of knowing for sure.

Even if there had been major changes in the amount and types of work coming my way (and there haven’t), it would only be my personal experience in a tiny, tiny corner of a minor language pair.

And attributing those changes to Covid would be pure conjecture.

But if we’re talking about gut feeling, I would say there’s less crappy work from
... See more
It’s easy to speculate about how the industry might have been affected, but there is no way of knowing for sure.

Even if there had been major changes in the amount and types of work coming my way (and there haven’t), it would only be my personal experience in a tiny, tiny corner of a minor language pair.

And attributing those changes to Covid would be pure conjecture.

But if we’re talking about gut feeling, I would say there’s less crappy work from cheapo agencies about, and an unchanged or slightly increased amount of high-end work.
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Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Philippe Etienne
Philip Lees
Katrin Braams
 
Liena Vijupe
Liena Vijupe  Identity Verified
Latvia
Local time: 11:08
Member (2014)
French to Latvian
+ ...
Some, but not a lot Oct 1, 2020

expressisverbis wrote:

Take a close look at the number of registrations with ProZ.com in these last six months due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Am I wrong to assume that now professional translators have to face competition from a number of other large "players in the game"?



[Edited at 2020-10-01 10:52 GMT]


I'm pretty sure most of them won't last. Also gyms are usually crowded in January, not quite the same a couple months later.


Dan Lucas
expressisverbis
Maria da Glória Teixeira
Felipe Lacerda
 
Kaisa I
Kaisa I  Identity Verified
Canada
Local time: 05:08
English to Finnish
+ ...
Some, not a lot Oct 1, 2020

In the subtitling world, the use of NMT-systems assisting translation work seems to have become the norm this year. With this comes the pressure to lower rates, though 75% of my clients have not even hinted at that. However, there is one agency who threatened demanding a 30% decrease in rates in the spring (claiming their NMT speeds up translation by 30%, of which there is absolutely no evidence, quite the opposite in fact) but assured this would be negotiated with linguists. Then suddenly just ... See more
In the subtitling world, the use of NMT-systems assisting translation work seems to have become the norm this year. With this comes the pressure to lower rates, though 75% of my clients have not even hinted at that. However, there is one agency who threatened demanding a 30% decrease in rates in the spring (claiming their NMT speeds up translation by 30%, of which there is absolutely no evidence, quite the opposite in fact) but assured this would be negotiated with linguists. Then suddenly just the other day, they went ahead and decreased their offered rates anyway, without any discussion. I had already dropped them as a client in the spring after their initial threat.

Still, this is just a continuation of a trend that started in the 90s, not a big change in the industry.
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Jocelin Meunier
 
expressisverbis
expressisverbis
Portugal
Local time: 09:08
Member (2015)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Let's see... Oct 1, 2020

Liena Vijupe wrote:

I'm pretty sure most of them won't last. Also gyms are usually crowded in January, not quite the same a couple months later.


I hope they not get very far.


 
Barbara Cochran, MFA
Barbara Cochran, MFA  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 05:08
Spanish to English
+ ...
Depends On Your Specialization, I Would Think Oct 1, 2020

Literary translation has really gotten clobbered, and in a very abrupt manner in my case, as of April, since, with the exception of 2018, I had been working for several years on a mostly full-time basis.

A translator friend of mine is working more than I am, even though he has been affected work-wise, also. I think it's because he mostly does legal translations.


Muriel Vasconcellos
 
Felipe Tomasi
Felipe Tomasi  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 06:08
Member
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Somehow Oct 2, 2020

I think that in terms of demand is quite the same. What I see is that many newcomers, mainly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, are trying the translation career because they think that basic knowledge of a foreign language is enough to become a translator.

[Edited at 2020-10-02 01:45 GMT]


Carla Catolino
 
Anastasia Naoumi
Anastasia Naoumi  Identity Verified
Greece
Local time: 11:08
English to Greek
+ ...
Yes... Oct 2, 2020

Sadly yes. And legal translation most of all, especially as courts remained closed for some time and due to travel restriction business between partners of different countries has not been flowing well since March.

I have also lost lots of direct clients and private individuals as most have canceled their travels and business in Germany.


 
Paul Lambert
Paul Lambert  Identity Verified
Sweden
Local time: 10:08
Member (2006)
Swedish to English
+ ...
Yes, without a doubt Oct 5, 2020

I was not able to invoice for a single project in August. This situation is actually quite scary.

 


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Poll: Do you feel the translation market/industry has changed a lot over the last 6 months?






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