Repetitions

While in certain fields—such as literary translation—repetitions are treated as poor style, in technical translation they are the natural way to write clearly and precisely. For that reason, repetitions multiply in technical documents. In addition to internal repetitions within the same file, there are also frequent external repetitions from previous translations. Think, for instance, of two instruction manuals for very similar machines.

Because repetitions are so common, CAT tools have been developed over the last decades to detect them and suggest re-using past translations. These tools—constantly evolving—have become essential for technical translators.

For repeated sentences I offer a 70% discount off the base rate.
Whether the repeated segments are clustered or scattered throughout the file, you only pay 30% for those sentences. The same applies to repetitions coming from previously translated material.

If you wish, you may opt not to have repetitions verified. In that case I will ignore them entirely and you won’t be charged for them. Caution: I don’t recommend this unless you know exactly what you’re doing. This practice can lead to serious errors; for example, I once had to revise a maintenance manual in which facilities was mistranslated as website because repetitions had not been checked carefully.

How are repetitions counted in a file?

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