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Translation in History (Book)
Thread poster: Karine Macarez (X)
Karine Macarez (X)
Karine Macarez (X)  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:25
English to French
Apr 30, 2010

Hi everyone,

Hope I am publishing this post in the right category. I will need a professional advice from Translators having previously translating an history book for a publisher.
I am currently translating two chapters for a presentation to French Publishers. The author is american and she has translated into English some quotes originally written in French as she conducted all her Research work in French. If the book is accepted, all the book references and archives she use... See more
Hi everyone,

Hope I am publishing this post in the right category. I will need a professional advice from Translators having previously translating an history book for a publisher.
I am currently translating two chapters for a presentation to French Publishers. The author is american and she has translated into English some quotes originally written in French as she conducted all her Research work in French. If the book is accepted, all the book references and archives she used will need to be retrieved in French. This represents a huge amount of work besides the translation. I am thinking of hiring someone to help me to retrieve the source documents at the BNF. Now, is it something that you usually can expense to the Publisher or do you have to pay yourself a contractor to do it? There is a fixed rate in France for each page translated but I believe that it doesn't include all the Research work that you have to conduct in History if you want to make sure to propose a high-quality translation.

Thanks in advance for your help,

Karine ▲ Collapse
 
oxygen4u
oxygen4u
Portugal
Local time: 20:25
English to Portuguese
+ ...
My experience... Apr 30, 2010

Hi Karine!

I have translated a few history books and in my case the many pages full of notes and references were paid like translation work (there is also a fixed rate for each page in Portugal). As for all the research involved it really is our problem and not the publisher's. I don't think you can expense it on the publisher...
 
Karine Macarez (X)
Karine Macarez (X)  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:25
English to French
TOPIC STARTER
Translation of an History book Apr 30, 2010

Hi,

Thanks a lot. This is what I thought also but I thought I would check. Out of curiosity, how long did it take you to translate a 400 pages book if you ever did it before?
 
oxygen4u
oxygen4u
Portugal
Local time: 20:25
English to Portuguese
+ ...
The deadline is never long enough... May 1, 2010

Two months ago I finished a 495 page history book. The publisher gave me three and a half months to do it and I had to work every single day (saturday and sunday as well) to finish it. I did it in three months and then took a couple of weeks to proofread it. Mind you, before that they gave me a 300 page book and a deadline of three months, so it really depends on how urgently they need it...

Hope this helps!
 
JoFP
JoFP
Local time: 21:25
French to English
+ ...
Why pay someone else? May 3, 2010

Could you not just ask the author to provide you her copies of the relevant quotations (I'm presuming she translated them into English and now you have to put them back into the original French)? Surely that would be better than paying someone to get them for you.
 


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Translation in History (Book)







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