An ad on Get A Freelancer website (a bit like "Get a Slave"), really:
"Translation of a big number of pages is required from Arabic to English, with high Quality.I hired a number of translators in the past but the quality of their work was very poor. My policy of payment will be in instalments after checking the quality of the work. I am happy to pay around $1 (one dollar) per page, but I am also open to any other suggestions. from Arabic to English.please bid per 30 pages(around 500 words each)"
Well, of course! For a $1 per page, you are getting rhesus monkeys, not translators. I even know where you are getting them from - Mr. Kumar of the Scandinavian fame. He emailed me today, offering services in broken English.
If you want a proper translator doing proper work, you are paying around $25 per 100 words (so $150 per page) for straight translation, and much more if I have to localize your flowery Arabic drivel into snappy English.
The name of the poster, by the way, is Souk. Meaning "marketplace" in Arabic. I assume it reflects a certain bazaar mentality, like standing atop a teabox or a banana crate and shouting atop your voice "One dollar cucumber, err, page; one dollar page..."
Shish, I am becoming so politically incorrect, it isn't funny.
And for his 30 pages, equivalent to the grand total of $30, he is too scared to pay in advance but will pay in installments? Why is he torturing himself for this? Why not just run the stuff through any MT software and then have it proofread for .... lets say 1c per page... and be done with it? Not sure how he'll do the 1c installment payments though...wait until the account has reached the dizzying sum of $1 and then pay it in three installments? Or...how about...never mind.
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