Annoying subtitles that bothers Me/Myself and I/ to see them here at this site

General Discussion
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@choitrio
“Word Play in K-dramas” thread.

It would be nice that if you have time, you can PLEASE add more ‘‘word play’’ in K-dramas thread because we all can learn something new from what I consider it’s an expert in that field. I always take notes so that maybe in the future I can feel more confident to work as an Editor instead of complaining about ‘’ those annoying subtitles’’ that thankfully others have taken notice as to the incorrect use of some of them in Korean dramas.

I feel I can contribute to improve those annoying subtitles with confidence and I’ll give quality work in the subtitles since I’ll be familiarize with such a complex language when it comes to getting the right meaning/phrase in the sentence without affecting the context or purpose of the writer using that word in the dialogue. My main concern being that we can commit a copyright infringement if we don’t do our translation correctly as the writer wants it to be used in the scene.

Basically my desire is only to give quality work in the subtitles combined with respecting any language, and the law that protects them. I feel by voicing these issues they start paying more attention and in the end we get the quality work viewers deserve when watching dramas/movies/shows etc. It makes what we watch so much more enjoyable and the biggest example of that (imo) was [One the Woman] since the great editing done in the drama made me enjoy fully each episode I watched from beginning to end.

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christina_
“One sec, please” (Give me one second, please) --> In Greek, I’ve never heard “1 second”. We usually say “half a minute, please”. So, what do I do here? I respect the “1 sec”?

You have to respect the target language you are translating it to; For example if you are writing a subtitle in English the logical and most sensible thing to do, is to write it the way the English viewers would/can understand the sentence; ‘‘1 second, please’’ quote/unquote.’’ Why would any Greek subber write in English ‘‘half a minute, please’’ when most likely English viewers have never heard such thing as ‘‘half a minute?’’ I’m in my 60’s and is my first time hearing/reading this information. Thanks for sharing that with us in this thread.

The same goes for Greek, your target audience is Greek, so you add the common knowledge to the Greek audience which in this case you said is; “half a minute, please” not ‘‘one sec.please’’
Why would you write in Greek; “One sec, please” when your Greek audience is only familiar with ‘‘half a minute, please?’’

When I worked as a moderator (way, way back) I wrote in Spanish the way my Spanish audience understood the sentence because believe it or not, we have words in English that doesn’t apply/exist in a Spanish sentence. This things happens in every language, but in here some people insist we write the words exactly as they were written in English from the Korean translation, which I refused to do (and made a lot of enemies) because my target audience was Spanish, and I have to make sure I don’t sound like I have some kind of learning disability or used a translation tool for my Spanish subtitles because they made absolutely no sense to my Spanish readers/viewers.

So when writing your subtitles in Greek write in Greek what will be easily understood by your Greek audience/readers/viewers since it means the same thing, anyway. In my opinion, you are not disrespecting the English way of ‘‘1 second, please,’’ but you are using the common sense that your Greek viewers don’t need to be confused when reading your subtitles that were translated from Korean to English and from English to Greek etc etc. As long it means the same thing, and is just been written differently, you are not committing a copyright infringement or doing anything wrong. If anything, you are doing all the right things, and giving quality work in your Greek subtitles. As a matter of fact, whether in English or Greek or any given language that we have the gift to know; it’s our duty to translate as close as possible/we can be, to our target viewer/reader without creating needless confusion when reading our subs.

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@angelight313_168, I’ve added some more words in the “Word play in K-dramas” thread for you. I don’t want to keep bumping up the thread, but I am always willing to answer any questions you or anyone else might have.

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You may ask why I’m putting this here, and I have to say because I have seen translations in English that are not being done correctly, and the translator is adding her/his own words that don’t even come close to what the Spanish speaker was saying in the video. When I add the translation/caption in my native language (Spanish), I in turn DO NOT write the wrongly translated Spanish to English sentence because I’m not going to break a copyright law; since two wrongs don’t make a right.

Excerpt from

www.plagiarismtoday and Google search

CAPTION AND SUBTITLE

What is the difference between caption and subtitle?

Both closed captions and subtitles are the text version of the spoken audio in a video. However, ''subtitles involve translating the video’s language into an alternate language, closed captions are in the same language as the audio.

Why Add Captions?

“There are a lot of good reasons to caption,” “and one is that it’s the law.” cites disability legislation like the Americans with Disabilities Act

Is Your Video Copyrighted?

The answer is almost always; yes.

Does Someone Else Hold the Copyright to the Video? YES. Unless you are the original author/writer and have the copyrights of your work.

If you already know someone holds the copyright for the video in question, do you have no reason to fear a copyright lawsuit?

If you contact the copyright holder of a video and obtain permission to use it, you are safe.

IN THIS CASE, WE HAVE RVIKI AUTHORIZATION TO MAKE CAPTIONS/WRITE OTHER LANGUAGE SUBTITLES ETC. I STILL WOULD LIKE TO KNOW: ARE WE REALLY SAFE?

NO ONE HAS EVER SUED ANYBODY FOR MAKING CLOSED CAPTIONS.

BUT REMEMBER, THIS RULES APPLY FOR CAPTION.

WHEN IT COMES TO SUBTITLES, YOU ARE NOT BREAKING THE COPYRIGHTS LAWS, AS LONG AS YOU DON’T ADD YOUR OWN WORDS, AND CHANGE THE CONTENT OF THE ORIGINAL AUTHOR/WRITER’S WORDS. SINCE I DON’T KNOW KOREAN LAWS IN COPY RIGHTS MATERIAL, I FOLLOW THE AMERICAN ONES TO BE ON THE SAFE SIDE. BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY.

The strongest defense for video captioning is fair use?

''You don’t need to ask permission to engage in fair use. So if you’re in a circumstance where you’ve decided it’s too difficult to track down copyright holders, or we feel like that’s impractical in the circumstances we’re facing, you don’t have to ask permission.

Can You Get Sued for Adding Captions to Videos?

Technically, yes, it’s possible that someone could make the argument that adding captions violates someone’s copyright. But there’s no history of that happening in American case.

Further Information found by doing Google search.

Is it OK to plagiarize one sentence? NO

WHAT IS PLAGIARIZING?

‘‘It’s copying and pasting from an original sentence. If you copy and paste from ANY original sentence, it’s plagiarism.’’

What happens if you plagiarize a sentence?

Plagiarism is a form of theft, since it involves taking the words and ideas of others and passing them off as your own. … Plagiarism also hinders the learning process, obscuring the sources of your ideas and usually resulting in bad writing. Even if you could get away with it, ‘‘plagiarism harms your own learning’’ quote/unquote

Copying and pasting

This is the most obvious form of plagiarism. If you’re doing it, chances are you know it’s wrong. But here’s a strong incentive for you to stop: The Internet has made it easier than ever to catch this type of copying.

There’s a nearly endless list of tools that hunt out duplicated text. If your sentences match anything in the database, it will show up instantly.

So, for your own sake: stop copy and pasting from the sources from others without following the right protocol.

Are subtitles copyrighted?

Yes, movie subtitles are derivative works of the film itself, and are thus protected by copyright-even if they are community-generated.

How can you write good subtitles?

The 5 Attributes of a Good Subtitle

  1. Contextual. A good subtitle provides context for the title. …

  2. Attention-Holding. The title grabs people’s attention. …

  3. Searchable. If a great title is memorable, a great subtitle is searchable. …

  4. Easy to Read and Say. …

  5. Short and Specific.

Protect yourself by following/respecting the laws.

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Thanks @angelight313_168. I found your post very informative reading :slightly_smiling_face: I’m glad you took to the time to put it together.

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You’re very welcome. I changed it from the other thread because I felt it applied here much better.

It took me longer than expected because my Lupus flare up are at the highest level today. I am in so much pain (bc of all the packing), so by distracting my mind I can tolerate the pain when no pill is strong enough to alleviate it.

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I found with the help of @bozoli and @xylune an interesting fact, and that is that we may find words that we won’t find in the English Dictionary, but are real words that might have a different meaning also in [OL] Other Language.

That is the reason why we need to ask first, rather than accuse ANY subber that they wrote something incorrectly, when in reality in their language the word can be found in their Dictionary even if is not found in any English Dictionary.

I would like to add this information with their permission, so you can learn something new as a contributing subber for OL.

This is the link in German for the word autogram that @xylune kindly provided.

“Gramm” is a unit (gram). https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/Autogramm Here it states that it was formerly used for texts by famous people as well, but now those are reduced to the term “Autograph/Autograf” https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Autograf.

This is the link in Croatian for the word autogram that @bozoli kindly provided for me.
hr.wikipedia.org

Autogram

Autogram

Autogram

Prijeđi na navigacijuPrijeđi na pretraživanje

Autogram Martina Luthera.

Autogram Nikole Tesle

Glumac Eric Bana daje autograme obožavateljima na Tribeca Film Festivalu 2009.

Autogram (grčki αὐτός, autós , “vlastit” i γράφω, gráphō , “pisati”) je vlastoručno pismo, rukopis, pa i sam potpis.

Rukopisi znamenitih ličnosti imaju kulturnu i povijesnu, pa čak i novčanu vrijednost. Zato ljudi već nekoliko stoljeća sakupljaju takve autograme. Ima i posebnih prodavaonica i dražbi na kojima se autogrami kupuju i prodaju. Izmjenjivanjem autograma (duplikata) uspostavljaju se prijateljske veze među ljudima iz raznih zemalja.

U posljednje vrijeme sakupljanje autograma osobito se razvilo. Sakupljači se ne ograničavaju samo na rukopise i potpise znamenitih ličnosti. Sakupljaju i potpise svojih znanaca, rodbine i drugova. Takva zbirka može postati vrijedan spomenar, koji će nas sjećati na razne događaje i susrete.

Autograme značajnih ljudi možemo dobiti od njih izravno ili u pismu, možemo ih kupiti, a mogu nam u tome pomoći i naši znanci. Uz takve autograme u albumu označimo najvažnije podatke o osobi čiji autogram posjedujemo.

Autogrami se mogu sabirati u običnim bilježnicama, u spomenarima i albumima, na kartonima ili omotnicama. Naročito vrijedni autogrami pokriju se celofanom da se bolje očuvaju.

Neka velika industrijska poduzeća, banke, sudovi, policija i drugi imaju također zbirke različitih potpisa. Te zbirke imaju drugu svrhu. Pomoću njih provjerava se je li potpis na nekom dokumentu, čeku itd. originalan ili krivotvoren (falficiran). Iako se čovjek ne potpisuje uvijek na potpuno isti način, grafolozi – stručnjaci koji se bave proučavanjem raznih rukopisa – mogu pouzdano odrediti ispravnost svakog potpisa.

Partial English translation
An autogram (Greek αὐτός, autós, “own” and γράφω, gráphō, “to write”) is a handwritten letter, manuscript, and even the signature itself. Manuscripts of famous people have cultural and historical and even monetary value. That’s why people have been collecting such autographs for centuries. There are also special shops and auctions where autographs are bought and sold. By exchanging autographs (duplicates), friendly ties are established between people from different countries. Recently, the collection of autographs is particularly r …

I hope you find this as interesting as I do, bc that means this thread is serving the purpose of teaching something we all may not know.

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Another less literal, less funny translation could be simply: ‘My dog’s name is Goo Baek (900 in Korean), because I spend a lot of money on him each month’.


oriya
Doesn’t this still include the word ‘man’ which can be confusing for people unfamiliar with Korean? I was thinking maybe: My dog’s name is Goo baek (900 in Korean), because I spend 10 times 900 dollar on him a month.”
This keeps the 900 in the English subtitle, but maybe it looks too strange.
Another less literal, less funny translation could be simply: ‘My dog’s name is Goo Baek (900 in Korean), because I spend a lot of money on him each month’.

That still doesn’t explained is 900 won a month.

Separating those two sentence with a period is best because if not, the sentence is considered a run-on sentence, although the word because was added in the sentence which can unite those two sentence in an English sentence (rules of writing).

I suggest this way although would love to ‘‘hear’’ and ''know* the correct dialogue in Korean. There are some inconsistencies in the amount of money.

만 원 (man won). The first half 만 (man) means 10,000. The last is once again Won.
Goo in Korean had several meaning one of them was: price.

Baek other meaning was: the color white. Was the dog white in the drama?

@angelight313_168
My dog’s name is Goo Baek man won (10,000 in korean money). That is because I spend that much on him every month.

That keeps the joke intact, and makes more sense as a structure english sentence, and not a run-on sentence.

By the way, in my understanding I didn’t find 900 as the value of Baekman won. that interesting enough in USA money is now in the market: $8.24. the joke is that in reality, he’s not really spending that much. That’s a joke.

Since Goo in Korean also means price, the following makes more sense
Baek man won?

1,000,000 is 백만/baek man. Let’s practice how to conjugate these big numbers. 1,000 won is about 1 US dollar * . 1,000,000 won is 1,000 US dollar.

If we get the correct Korean translation in the drama, then, we can know the real amount in won (korean money) the owner is spending in the dog.

This is the main reason I say that certain Korean sentence makes no sense to the English speaker/reader (that doesn’t know Korean) because the Korean translation has flaws, and the subber has not done enough research to give the most close as possible translation from Korean to English.

In my opinion, @choitrio always accomplish that in her translations since her English proficiency is really good so she’s able to catch those things right away.

Her input would be very useful here, too. I COULD BE WRONG since I don’t know the Korean Language, and I just did a short ‘‘research’’ which can be half and half right or wrong.

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Go = 구 = 9
baek = 백 = 100
mahn or man = 만 = 10.000
Such large numbers and amounts of money are written in Sino-Korean numers.

So it is 9x100x10.000= 9.000.000 Won per month, around 7.380 Dollar. It’s a luxury dog.

Is it about the dog in Military Prosecutor Doberman?

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@spaufler_89

I have no idea what drama is that from since it was mentioned as: It’s a funny mistranslation in a drama line.

Thanks for adding that information here since it explains the large amount of money (won) the owner is really spending in this lucky dog. A Doberman can eat large quantities of food, so it’s very possible they are talking about the large food consumption expenses coming from the dog eating.

Can you check the link and get more info? Thanks in advance!

PS. After all that is cleared the joke can go back to being a joke since it’s really losing the funny part in many of the subs/sentence in English suggestions (including mine).

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Its from The Legend of the Blue Sea

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That explains the large amount of money spend in ‘‘the dog’’ since the plot story of [The Legend of The Blue Sea] is mainly about the ‘‘Extremely Rich way of living’’ (although the wealth was coming from stealing money from others). Even the poor mermaid was stolen from by making her ‘‘cry’’ and stealing her precious valuable $$$$ pearls.

Wonderful drama! From beginning to End. Not to mention the QUALITY in those subtitles, and I was so PLEASED with it, in more ways than one.

The amount of Goo Baek man won (900 X10,000) varies so much from different sources, and is sad there’s not one ANSWER without doubting its content in here or the other thread.

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Important mention (from several sources) when we write [because] in an English sentence. The do’s and don’t. A bit mention of run-on sentence me, myself and I, see a lot in some of the drama’s/movies, English subtitles/sentence.

You should not use a comma before [because] when it connects two clauses in a sentence. Because is a subordinating conjunction, which means it connects a subordinate clause to an independent clause; good style dictates that there should be no comma between these two clauses.

Michael went to the forest, because he loves walking among the trees. - Incorrect

Michael went to the forest because he loves walking among the trees. - Correct

Mom went on a shopping spree, because I told her I was having a baby boy.- Incorrect

Mom went on a shopping spree because I told her I was having a baby boy. - Correct

I can’t make my favorite sandwich, because we are out of peanut butter. - Incorrect

I can’t make my favorite sandwich because we are out of peanut butter.- Correct

When you start a sentence with [because] you need to add a comma.

We do not commonly put a comma in front of [because] in mid-sentence. However, when starting a sentence with a dependent clause ( you need to do it when starting a sentence with because (you must add a comma after the first clause).

EXAMPLES:

Because she wanted to feel healthier and save money, my aunt quit smoking.

Because I was feeling down, I had to go outside to get some fresh air.

If you noticed there are also times when is not necessary to add a comma before the word and…(but I’m not discussing that here now).

Excerpt from Walden University.

Run on sentence examples

A run-on sentence occurs when two or more independent clause (also known as complete sentences) are connected improperly.

Example of run-on sentence: I love to write papers I would write one every day if I had the time.

There are two complete sentences in the above example:

Sentence #1: I love to write papers.

Sentence #2: I would write one every day if I had the time.

Excerpt: Wikipedia

What is an Independent Clause?

An independent clause is the combination of at least [one subject]=the person or thing doing the action or being described in the sentence, and [predicate]= state, affirm, or proves something about the subject of a sentence. It expresses a complete thought

Example:

The waves crashed into the sandy shore.

Subject: John ate the pie. John is chubby.

That’s it for today’s lesson.

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Hi,

I don’t know if this is the right thread to ask in, but here goes:

In some dramas, random song lyrics pop up in the subtitles. What the heck is that all about? For example, in one episode of a drama there was no music playing at all and no dialogue, across the screen the subtitles were showing the lyrics for Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk”. These mysterious random lyrics has ruined the mood in several dramas.

Does anyone know why this is happening?

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It’s probably because that’s the actual music being used in the original drama. Viki may have lost the licenses for the song, so the songs have been removed. That’s why there are subs but no music. There’s a discussions thread dedicated to this somewhere…

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I tried to find a thread about it but couldn’t find one.

Your explanation sounds plausible but I’m pretty sure that the “Uptown Funk” lyrics were subtitled in the K-drama “The Veil” which is very serious and grim. Can’t really see that song fitting with the narrative at all…

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If you come across really strange things like this, I encourage you to contact Viki directly through “Help” because it could well be a sign of a much bigger problem (such as site hacking).

image

My experience is that Viki like to know about things that are clearly “weird”.

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@cobrajab_93, @manganese, @vivi_1485,

The problem with the translated songs but no music was very noticeable in the short k-drama Here’s My Plan in which all music was removed. There would be lyrics, but no singing/background music at all and it looked bizarre. The Greek and Polish teams must have noticed this because their subtitles are done 94-97% at most. (Okay, 1 episode was subbed until 81%, but I don’t believe songs make up 20% of a drama’s subtitles)

From a subber’s perspective, I don’t like to translate and subtitle songs, especially if they are in the middle of a conversation and the seggers only could put a few segments for them between the actor’s dialogues which causes the viewers only to see/understand a few bits here and there. Intro and outro songs are okay, because they will not interfere with any dialogue and they are the same for every single episode.

Unfortunately, the expectation is that episodes get fully subbed eventually, which means translating every single segment. Thát’s why I still translate songs and put the credits in every episode. However, if there is a real chance that songs might be removed later and you’ll have sillly looking song lyrics without any (apparent) reason, I don’t understand why subbers should still bother with translating the songs.

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I guess its hard to predict when a song will be removed and when it won’t… or maybe the CMs should be active enough to notice and have the segs removed.

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I so agree with you about ANYWAYS @angellight313_608. I’d like to see subbing kept pretty basic and true to the culture it’s translating, and not turn it into a slang-fest where all the characters sound the same. When I watch K-movies or dramas on the ‘other’ huge streaming service, I resent all the “dudes” used to describe Oppa…or all the “sh*t” words and the f-bombs that turn up onscreen. A bit lazy I think. Also, when subbers translate according to their own culture’s perspectives, often this has the sad (although not intended) effect of interfering with the the original message that the korean scriptwriter meant for us. It can skew or tweak a story so much that the subber often becomes an editor instead of a translator, ultimately interfering with the creative voice and plot of the story the korean author shared from her ‘inside voice’. I’m still missing the sad loss of “We shall eat well” (‘Chal Mokehsumnida’) around the family dinner table, or “I’m leaving first” (Monjo Ka) when a group meeting or office supper is just brreaking up. These phrases are all windows of understanding that help us see a culture better and help compare it with our own. Translating “Thanks for the meal” or “This looks good” is not the same as “We will eat well” which underscores how ‘eating well’ has been an important exchange of information historically. Saying hello in Korea between friends is important, but more often the greeting most often exchanged on the street is: ‘Shik hashawsawyo?’ “Have you eaten yet?” which reflects the care and concern Koreans give each other about food. Historically when times were very tough, this phrase was a real question, and if the answer was no, the person asking would offer food. Today it’s more of a greeting, but still shows concern for one another’s welfare. Saying “I will eat well,” also underscores how appreciative family members are for the food on their table. This conveys a slightly different tone than “thank you” or a compliment about the taste of food.
All in all, I’m a fan of the single-author dramas abd the deptg of detail and continuity they give us.
Viki subbers are’ the best’, in my opinion, because they each come from so many different cultures worldwide. They are the Teams who go ‘the extra’ to make sure the small cultural quirks and dialogues are explained so we can get a better grasp of them. In this way Viki viewers even become better citizens of the world overall. I feel so proud of Viki subbing volunteers when one stops to spend the extra time ito add a side-note explaining why a young man will turn his head to the side out of respect before drinking at a table with an elder. All become such treasurers of information about why and how Koreans live their lives.

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