Backstory of your first experience when joining Viki Contributor. How hard was it to get a project when you first apply? I’ll go first!
Just a little back story, I was a newbie on Viki, having no project. It was really hard to find a project even though I had some experience with subtitling(on other websites). When I applied, people just didn’t reply to me, they didn’t even give me an answer if I could be on their teams or not. I applied for 1 week straight. And finally a CM replied to me and gave me a chance. At that time, my language wasn’t (and still isn’t) a common language. I was a solo translator, I have schools, I have jobs and no one helped (I mean I didn’t even think about someone was going to help me.) Because I didn’t have a Viki Pass, I couldn’t continue to work with the rest of the episodes. I started finding another project, this time, I was a Trainee. Another 1 week without anyone replying to me. I started getting bored. And then 2 CMs came to me and replied to me back. Then I did those projects and gained myself contributions, enough to continue my other project. Until now, I’m still working on it (as a solo translator of course) and I’m trying to balance all of them. I really appreciate the first few CMs that trusted me and gave me a chance to work for them.
My story goes like this when I started to learn segmenting I was recommended to do some translating if I spoke more than one language as it can taia while whilst waiting for a sensei… I didn’t really think about that advice as I wanted to wait for a sensei… In december someone here asked for a Swedish subtitler there wasn’t any demands but it was said that you can do as much and whenever you want. My priority was and still is segmenting (I really hope that I will be finished in the academy one day) so it sounded interesting so I’m still involved in my first project it takes time to translate and it has many episodes (we aren’t many working on the translation). When I’m done (think it’s 15 episodes left it’s a series with 62 episodes might I add) I think I want to work with unfinished series.
I must say that it’s surprisingly interesting in translating because I sometimes have to search for a flower, bird or anything elses namn because you can’t just take the English word and translate it straight of.
Hi, some of us have already answered your question a few years back in this topic
If you mean specifics about how long it took before I got a project as a subtitler or segmenter: I had sent out a couple of messages too, before someone responded. This goes for both subtitling and segmenting. I think in both cases I got to work with a sensei from the NSSA on my first projects
@giant_sean
You may want to merge this topic with this one.
This user is new and she doesn’t know we must first search whether the topic we want to create exists already.
Yes! Same here. It is important to get the right words. I mean… we are not like a dictionary. Also it’s hard to translate words-to-words as sometimes they don’t really make sense.
Yes you guys are right, I understand. And sorry because I wasn’t being detailed enough. Thanks for letting me know and thanks for the advice, I will make sure to never make this mistake again. Once again, I’m really appologise They are quite similar, however, I want to be more specific.
To add-on, what I mean is like your first experience when joining Viki Contributor to be specific, and how hard was it to get a project when you first apply. Sorry for not being detailing enough.
I did a few subs as a freelancer, captioner and subber for my language for YT videos, that’s where I got my experiences. Websites like Freelancer would help alot. There are also a few sites that help/practice your subtitling skills. If you want more websites, DM me and I will give and explain more in detail.
Idk if I would call it luck , but in my experience segmenting Sensei’s do make an effort to invite new graduates if they are Chief segmenters on a project, since students may have a hard time finding projects. And if you put in practice what you’ve learned and are active, you’ll keep getting invites for other projects after that. I’ve only been CS one time, but I made sure to invite new graduates as well .
I think they do the same in the subbing academy.
I mean… you are lucky that you have so many chances to practice, and your language is available for practicing/learning. My language is quite rare on Viki, so you are luckier than me
No big deal and no need to apologize, you didn’t know, that’s all, nobody is bashing you for it.
How to find a project has been covered quite a lot, in many threads, because it’s not really straightforward, and the Project Finder is perfectly useless.
Try here:
Swedish is my language but I must admit I have realized that we have a much bigger vocabulary than is used from day to day… and working on a historical drama makes it more intersting… I really hope that you stumble apon something like I did, I thing my language-mod is easy to work with so I hope that we will work again on something when this is over… The day I get to start segmenting on a real thing and not the assignments in the academy is the day I will be even more greatful for my old senseis starting from the Sandbox. Segmenting is my dream even thoug translating is fun. One thing I have learnt is that it really is so much behind every thing here on Viki allot of people has dedicated to giv it to us all.
My first experience finding a project to contribute here on Viki was similar. I wrote and no one answers back at that time. It took me about 7 months to really find a project to start contributing when I was about to quit at all…
Hey guys, I hope this will be helpful for those who are looking to subtitle (ESPECIALLY FOR THE LESSER COMMON LANGUAGES) but have not found any projects:
My experience:Less than a week ago, I joined the Viki community. Much like others, I found no success when applying through the ‘Project finder’. Now, thanks to the kind moderator of Persian, I am subtitling a J-drama in Persian! Also thanks to @mirjam_465 for recommending the lovely moderator to me.
Just to echo what everyone else is saying: kindly message the moderator for the language you are interested in. There are three options,
Message an active moderator of (a language) to say you are interested in subtitling (in said language) and they might be kind enough to give you a list of available projects to choose from.
OR
You can go to the main page of drama/film you are interested in subbing, scroll down and select ‘Subtitle Team’. You can find the moderator for each of the available languages. If your language exists on there, you can respectfully message the Moderator and they will be happy to let you know if there are sections you can help with.
If the drama you want to subtitle does not have an existing moderator for your language and you have less than 1000 contributions (QC status), you won’t be able to subtitle (unless the Channel Manager is kind enough to make you mod, but that’s unlikely). If this happens, don’t worry! Once you reach QC status, you can apply to become a mod for your language in the drama you’re interested in. And then you can start subtitling!
Hopefully, this will help the newcomers (trust me, I’ve been there and I know it can get a bit frustrating at the start). If I got anything wrong or inaccurate, feel free to kindly correct it. I just wanted to help
How hard things are usually depends on the size of the language community. If you’re aiming for Spanish or Portuguese there are lots of people, if you go for Vietnamese, there aren’t. And Viki nowadays actively tells us CMs not to add people if there is no moderator for said language: Subbers Without Mod are Not Allowed Anymore? - #27 by vikicommunity
Of course, there are CMs who don’t respond or hardly respond - but Viki prevents us now from adding inexperienced contributors. Instead, they are supposed to contact fellow moderators or Viki directly if there are none available.
To be added as a moderator, you need to have 3,000 subtitles in the language you apply for on your name. Nowadays, Viki has made it technically impossible for us to add moderators if they don’t meet that requirement so even if the CM is kind, they can’t add the person because the system won’t let them.
Viki is hoping that this way, all new subbers will get guidance from an experienced moderator, but of course, this makes things very difficult for new volunteers in less common languages.
I’m happy to read that things worked out well for you, though.
Well, I’m new and getting a new project was hard for me.
Some times they don’t even read applications and almost half of the projects are full but available at the Project list and some had Viki Pass projects.
It genuinely pissed me off but I’m here with my first on-going project. “Modern Marriage”
They are quite similar, however, I want to be more specific.
, but in my experience segmenting Sensei’s do make an effort to invite new graduates if they are Chief segmenters on a project, since students may have a hard time finding projects. And if you put in practice what you’ve learned and are active, you’ll keep getting invites for other projects after that. I’ve only been CS one time, but I made sure to invite new graduates as well 
I thought QC started at 1000 
but I guess that’s too soon 