Von: Christopher Köbel

Hello Colin,
I am reluctant to throw around productivity figures, both because I am not used to the „per word“ counting scheme and because words/characters per hour vary widely with each project: True, some jobs can be written down effortlessly, but for others, I need to research some obscure terminology or I might spend an hour or two to optimise a marketing text’s key line – such activities quickly spoil any „top speed“. With some jobs (marketing!), CAT can be nigh-useless for leverage and only help with the QA, with other jobs (product catalogues, I am looking at you!), they can take care of 40% of the text with all those price tags, article numbers, similar product descriptions and recurring „Buy now!“ and „-x% off!“ yells. With one 120 page technical text that I would have spent 2-3 weeks of work with, I could align prior versions into a TM and deliver in just 3 days. I still hit the keyboard, but I know colleagues who use speech-to-text technology to dictate their translations, and they achieve 3-5 times their typing speed in certain circumstances.
My average speed when translating, with CAT, on a low-match (0-10%) text? 2500-3000 words per hour, I might guess. But as I said, this varies widely. Hope that helps!