Hymn Translation/Adaptation Rate/Word

Sylvia Hanna wrote:
I am accepted to join a project of adapting English hymns (Christian songs) into Arabic. The church refused to pay/hour, which is the most reasonable approach as some hymns can take a couple of hours to adapt, while others would take one full day to make the hymn sing-able while maintaining the idea. Any idea how much/word I should charge the church?

Teresa Borges wrote:

How many hymns are we talking about? I don’t think this is a job to be paid per word. If they don’t accept a per hour rate, then what I would do is to adapt the easiest one and the more demanding one, add the time spent on both, divide by two to get the average, multiply by the number of hymns and present a total price for the project.

Sheila Wilson wrote:


You can't possibly charge per word -- it would be grossly unfair to one party and it could be either party. So let them know it could be them that loses out. OTOH, you can't expect them to be happy if you don't give them any idea at all. Do you have a feel for how long each one is likely to take, just by examining it for a while? If so, you could give a maximum spend, in terms of time, and say that you'll only charge for the actual time it takes, up to that maximum. That way, you'll be (a) putting a lid on the costs, (b) showing them that you're decent, (c) giving yourself an incentive to learn how to accurately estimate your work, and (d) making things as fair as possible for both parties. It's the way I invoice for all editing work, rounding up to the nearest quarter-hour (never down), and I find that after a while my clients stop asking for estimates as they trust me.

Good luck with the job! My husband is a singer/songwriter and he prefers to write a different song in another language. He says you can translate the lyrics, but not the song. Someone else tried to translate one of his once, and although it was apparently a very good translation (into Dutch), a professional Dutch singer had to give up and pronounce it unsingable!

Sylvia Hanna wrote:

Thank you for trying to help, Sheila, but they totally refused the idea of charging them according to the actual time spent. Any other recommendations?

Sheila Wilson wrote:
Good luck with the job! My husband is a singer/songwriter and he prefers to write a different song in another language. He says you can translate the lyrics, but not the song. Someone else tried to translate one of his once, and although it was apparently a very good translation (into Dutch), a professional Dutch singer had to give up and pronounce it unsingable!

Sylvia Hanna wrote:

This is not a task for a translator, but for a songwriter/poet who knows a foreign language well enough.

Lincoln Hui wrote:

Frankly, I don't see the economics working out. The professional will feel that they were underpaid, the church will feel they overpaid, and the product will be subpar. This is one of the things that I feel has to be done by volunteers, or if it has to be by a professional, it needs to be someone whose line of work is in songwriting, and not even just any songwriter, but someone who understands the metrical construction of hymns.

Translation is, for the most part, not even a factor in hymns. It's text set to specific meters on specific themes, and hymn "translations" are often just new text written to fit the same occasion. I don't know if it's actually harder than translation; for some people it could be easier. But how much of an understanding do you have of hymnody and its practices?

[Edited at 2019-04-30 18:09 GMT]

Sylvia Hanna wrote:

Hello dear colleagues,

I am accepted to join a project of adapting English hymns (Christian songs) into Arabic. The church refused to pay/hour, which is the most reasonable approach as some hymns can take a couple of hours to adapt, while others would take one full day to make the hymn sing-able while maintaining the idea. Any idea how much/word I should charge the church?

Thank you in advance,
Sylvia