Output Challenge 2016 Registration Thread

[Serpent]

Thought so but how many of those newbies actually complete it?

[arthaey]

Thought so but how many of those newbies actually complete it?

No idea on actual stats there. But I'm a veteran who usually ends up not "winning" for various life-gets-in-the-way reasons. It's still fun and useful, despite that.

[Dani]

LANGUAGE: Chinese

CHALLENGE: Full Challenge

CURRENT LANGUAGE LEVEL: B something

WILLING TO CORRECT LANGUAGE: Yes, German

COMMENTS:
How does the writing part work for Chinese? Counting characters is much easier than trying to count words, but most words are made up of two characters. Do I just write 100.000 characters instead?

[rdearman]

LANGUAGE: Chinese

CHALLENGE: Full Challenge

CURRENT LANGUAGE LEVEL: B something

WILLING TO CORRECT LANGUAGE: Yes, German

COMMENTS:
How does the writing part work for Chinese? Counting characters is much easier than trying to count words, but most words are made up of two characters. Do I just write 100.000 characters instead?

OMG. That is a good question and one I hadn't considered. I've done some research and there are a couple of "rules-of-thumb" which are commonly used by translators (who charge by the word)

Most of time, we quote based on English word count, because many clients feel they have better control over the cost this way.

However, what if the original document is in Chinese characters? You don’t know how many words there will be after the document is translated into Chinese. Then you don’t have a control over the final cost?

Actually, these is a basic ratio between the English word count and Chinese character count. To our experience, each 1000 Chinese characters will be translated into about 600-700 English words, or each 1000 English words will be translated into about 1500-1700 English words (depending on the nature of the text).

Another Japanese translator uses the formula, 2.5 * X characters, so for him 1000 characters = 400 words.

I'm thinking we should set the formula at 1.5 which would mean that for every 1000 characters you get to count 667 words. Does this seem fair to you?

[Dani]

OMG. That is a good question and one I hadn't considered. I've done some research and there are a couple of "rules-of-thumb" which are commonly used by translators (who charge by the word)

Most of time, we quote based on English word count, because many clients feel they have better control over the cost this way.

However, what if the original document is in Chinese characters? You don’t know how many words there will be after the document is translated into Chinese. Then you don’t have a control over the final cost?

Actually, these is a basic ratio between the English word count and Chinese character count. To our experience, each 1000 Chinese characters will be translated into about 600-700 English words, or each 1000 English words will be translated into about 1500-1700 English words (depending on the nature of the text).

Another Japanese translator uses the formula, 2.5 * X characters, so for him 1000 characters = 400 words.

I'm thinking we should set the formula at 1.5 which would mean that for every 1000 characters you get to count 667 words. Does this seem fair to you?

Thank you! Yes, that seems fair to me. I'll probably only count characters during the challenge and will convert them into "words" on a monthly basis.

[Xmmm]

LANGUAGE: Russian

CHALLENGE: Full challenge

CURRENT LANGUAGE LEVEL: A1

WILLING TO CORRECT LANGUAGE: Yes, English

COMMENTS: Given that I'm an A1, I believe my novel is going to contain a lot of sentences like "мигуми обычно играет в теннис по воскресеньям".

[Spoonary]

COMMENTS: Given that I'm an A1, I believe my novel is going to contain a lot of sentences like "мигуми обычно играет в теннис по воскресеньям".

Sorry, the joke is completely lost on me. I just wanted to say, you know you don't actually have to write a novel, right? I mean, you can if you want but...

[rdearman]

You don't have to write a novel. But complete sentences are preferred.

[Xmmm]

COMMENTS: Given that I'm an A1, I believe my novel is going to contain a lot of sentences like "мигуми обычно играет в теннис по воскресеньям".

Sorry, the joke is completely lost on me. I just wanted to say, you know you don't actually have to write a novel, right? I mean, you can if you want but...

Sorry: "Megumi usually plays tennis on Sundays" is taken from Day 28 (?) of Glossika's Fluency 1 GSR files ... was suggesting that when the pressure was on, it would be a temptation to raid courses for complete sentences rather than generate 100% fresh content.

[Ogrim]

I am not a big fan of quantitative challenges, but on the other hand I do need to "get a grip", stop procrastinating and work a lot more on my Russian writing skills. So after much toing and froing I've decided to sign up to this challenge, and then we'll see how it goes.

LANGUAGE: Russian

CHALLENGE: Writing only (I just don't like listening to my own voice )

CURRENT LANGUAGE LEVEL: B1

WILLING TO CORRECT LANGUAGE: Yes - Norwegian

COMMENTS: I'll most likely seek corrections on Lang-8, which I haven't visited in a long time. And even if I just manage to do 1/2 of the target of 500.000 words, it will still be worthwhile.