My word count is different from client's, should I accept the work? Thread poster: cherrypick
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cherrypick
China
Local time: 21:59
English to Chinese
+ ...
Hi,
My client sent me a file, they say they use a CAT tool to do word count and it is ~2400 Chars, while in Microsoft Word it is ~2700 Chars. To me it is +10% difference. I wonder should I accept the work? Have you had similar experience?
BR,
Ado
| | | | Joakim Braun 
Sweden
Local time: 15:59
German to Swedish
+ ...
| Depends; minimum fee? | Nov 27, 2022 |
Totally depends on the material. If it's a scanned/OCRed PDF with lots of garbage the word counts could certainly differ.
If it's a plain text and this doesn't involve "fuzzies" etc. then I'd go by the Word statistics.
However, the main issue isn't the char count, but: Given what the material looks like, are you being offered a reasonable fee?
If this is chars (and not words), it's a quite short text, and you could consider applying a minimum fee.
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:59
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Placeables and so on | Nov 27, 2022 |
cherrypick wrote:
Have you had similar experience?
Paul Filkin discussed this issue a decade ago, here, although his post is specific to Trados.
If you're using their CAT tool, probably not an issue.
If you're not using their CAT tool, then it probably is disadvantageous to you.
Dan
| | | | | Discuss with the client | Nov 27, 2022 |
I would tell them about the discrepancy and then ask them why they think this discrepancy exists. They may or may not provide you with a convincing answer. They may also be willing to accept your word-count. Another solution may be for you to charge a slightly higher fee using their word-count. Regardless, the first step is to discuss the issue in an open manner, and then you can make a more informed decision based on your own priorities and assessment of the situation.
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Kay Denney
France
Local time: 15:59
French to English
I noticed a discrepancy recently with a MemoQ wordcount compared to the Word file. The client breezily assured me that it was because "MemoQ doesn't count numbers, only words". So I told them in that case I wouldn't touch any of the numbers, despite 2 000 needing a comma, and 3,14 needing a decimal point, and then I wouldn't run the QA either, because most of the time it threw up false errors like telling me I had left out the number 2 when the word "twice" sat merrily and even correctly in my ... See more I noticed a discrepancy recently with a MemoQ wordcount compared to the Word file. The client breezily assured me that it was because "MemoQ doesn't count numbers, only words". So I told them in that case I wouldn't touch any of the numbers, despite 2 000 needing a comma, and 3,14 needing a decimal point, and then I wouldn't run the QA either, because most of the time it threw up false errors like telling me I had left out the number 2 when the word "twice" sat merrily and even correctly in my sentence. They ended up tweaking something so that I was paid without changing the wordcount because otherwise their client would freak out.
Make sure to arm yourself with plenty of information about how you reached your total, and discuss it carefully. Tell them it's not a problem for just this one text but you need to be sure that it won't become something regular, because you are working towards a long-lasting, rewarding business relationship for both parties. If there's a chance of it becoming regular, you hike your usual rate to offset the difference. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 15:59
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
cherrypick wrote:
My client sent me a file, they say they use a CAT tool to do a word count and it is ~2400 Chars, while in Microsoft Word it is ~2700 Chars.
In my experience, the client's word count is almost always different from the actual word count, sometimes by as much as 20%. I don't have a problem with accepting the client's word count, as long as the amount of money that I get is reasonable for the amount of work.
Also, note that different word counting systems will count words (or characters, as in your case) differently. And since Asian/Korean text is "foreign" to most CAT tool vendors, you should not be surprised if their support for character counting is primitive.
Here's an interesting article that I found on Google that mentions Trados vs Word counting:
https://davidsmithtranslation.com/articles/how-to-count-chinese-characters/
Dan Lucas wrote: Paul Filkin discussed this issue a decade ago, here, although his post is specific to Trados.
Note that the word "Trados" in that article refers to Trados 2007 and not to the later versions of Trados, and that the word "Studio" refers to later versions of Trados. The article was written at a time when the company that owned Trados tried to get users to use the word "Trados" only for the older versions of Trados.
[Edited at 2022-11-28 10:37 GMT]
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