For the fourth year in a row, Rosario Traducciones conducted an Annual Survey on Argentina’s Translation Industry. Translators, editors, and project managers living in Argentina weighed on their professional profile, work situation, technologies, and tools, among other attributes. We are sharing here the answers we received from translators and editors.

 

The first attribute to consider is that 89% of the respondents are professional translators, and 90% are women. Noteworthy, 69% are between 31 and 50 years old, and 73% of them have been working in this industry for more than ten years.
 

 

 

Professional Profile

The most common language pair is still English-Spanish, with 90%, and Portuguese-Spanish comes in second, with 8%. Also, 8% of respondents work with two language pairs.

 

 

The five most translated subjects are*: medicine (52%), legal (39%), technology (38%), marketing (38%), and human resources (31%). 39% of respondents said they translate 2000-2500 words a day.
 

66% of translators also do editing work. 41% state they edit up to 3000 words per day.
 

59% have already done post-editing jobs, and 60% claim that their daily output is up to 5000 words per day. 61% of translators that have not done post-editing work yet are willing to give it a try. 

 

Actuals vs. Projections

49% of respondents indicated that in the last three years, their volume of work has increased, and 31% reported there was no change. Also, 46% estimate that their workload will increase in the next three years, 44% think it will stay the same.

 

Technologies

On the expected impact of technology on our industry, the five more desired outcomes are*:

1. More efficient tools 56%

2. More user-friendly tools 55%

3. Improved MT quality 47%

4. Increased leverage 34%

5. More robust tools 29%

 

 

We also asked about the relevance of social media in their professional life. 47% state they assign little significance to their profiles.  

 

Translation Tools and Training Goals

This is the CAT tool ranking based on frequent use: Xbench (87%), MemoQ (52%), Wordfast (50%), Xbench (48%), and Memsource (36%)*.

 

And when surveyed about their preferences, participants responded: Trados Studio (70%), Xbench (34%), MemoQ (31%), Wordfast (29%), and Memsource (14%)*.

 

Finally, translators declared that the tools they should learn more about are: MemoQ (34%), Catalyst (25%), Trados Studio (23%), Wordfast (22%), and Memsource (21%)*.

 

The most requested training areas are translation tools (44%) and quality control (43%), followed by Spanish language grammar & rules (40%), audiovisual translation (33%), and Post-editing (28%)*.

 

Client Relationship

53% of respondents work with overseas companies or agencies; 51% work with local companies or agencies; 49% have local end clients, and 22% work with foreign end clients*. We can conclude that translators have multiple sources of income and work mainly through translation agencies or companies.

 

 

98% of translators are freelancers, and 95% are paid via wire transfers.

 

The most important aspects of the client relationship are rate, prompt and timely payment, a good relationship with the project manager; long-term work; and feedback on their completed work.

 

 

80% would agree to performing a translation test of up to 300 words before starting a project. Finally, 57% are members of a translators’ association.

 

 

Please note this survey was conducted early on March 2020, before the COVID-19 lockdown in Argentina.
 

Note: *Respondents were allowed to choose more than one option, so that the total percentage might be over 100.