Botched Love With Flaws translation

You are implying based on irmar’s words she doesn’t think it is important to put in correct translations, even accusing her of “personal sensitivities”. I will leave it at that, because this is not the way we usually behave towards each other. In other words we try to heed the community guidlines of Viki.

You can see on your topics history that quite a few have read it. However, only irmar, because she is especially sensitive to accurate translation answered to you.
She gave you the links to the people involved in the translation of the drama, so if you think the subtitles are not what they should be, write to them. Viki translator’s won’t copy subtitles from other sources though. This is the correct way, as neither of us can translate Korean, so please provide them with the necessary information. This option is available to anyone having concern about the accuracy of the subtitles.
We all try to be respectful towards each other and not to judge people because of their sexuality, religion or any other personal circumstances or opinions, and we hope to get the same respect in return.
Hope you can have a good conversation with the translators and editors.
Stay safe!

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What the hell are you talking about?

As a volunteer, I believe that every content deserves to be translated as well as possible.
Even a stupid web drama for teenagers, with a ridiculous, cliché, threadbare story and wooden acting by idols who have never acted before. If you commit to translate it, then you should do it right. Nowadays I try to choose projects that I will enjoy, but there are always surprises and disappointments with on-air dramas. But even if I hate the drama, I continue to do my best. This has been my stance for all the four years I’ve been here and dozens of projects I’ve been a part of. It has nothing to do with sexuality, it’s a question of work ethics.

Now you choose to narrowly focus on the gay content of the drama, when I haven’t even watched enough of it to reach the scene that you mention. Do you think, then, that the Viki team conspired to do a particularly bad translation of that particular scene because they hate gays? ROFL!

One could be excused for thinking that maybe you didn’t like my post because the suggestion I gave you involves a little more work than just ranting and belittling other people’s work.

(I am trying hard to refrain from making assumptions about you, but deep in my mind there is a lingering suspicion about your knowledge of Korean and your capability to even follow what I suggested).

@cgwm808

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Each show is managed by a team so anyone, irmar or I or anyone else, if we want that mistakes are corrected, we send messages to the team of this show. Why? Because no one, except the team, can modify the subtitles.
She or many people have done it like that on other shows and we still proceed the same way. She doesn’t tell you that because she disregards the content or you, she tells you what she would have done in your place to make your request heard by the people who can change the subtitles on this show.
There’s nothing more to it.

Having talked with irmar for more than months, I still am getting to know her, but I can tell for sure that she doesn’t deserve to be judged like that. It’s super quick to judge her before knowing her or hearing her opinion on LGBT matters at least. How do you know her stance on this or whether she doesn’t have someone in her surroundings who is part from the LGBT community or not?

The subtitlers and editors who are willing to subtitle it for free, I guess that they enjoy BL content to work on it, so I don’t think they will spend their time on it if they had something against BL. So it’s not out of respect for the LGBT, that the subtitles are not what you would like them to be. Perspectives, human errors, knowledge… there are so many reasons possible and I am sure it is not because they have something against the genre. On the contrary, they are really popular shows on Viki for viewers and volunteers who asked for more BL content or shared their love for the BL genre on this forum.

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I have certainly learned not to bring up a concern again.

If it really matters to you, you can contact the team and explain them with the timing.
That’s really the only way. The forum is visited by a few volunteers only, not everyone, so they might not be aware that this needs to be checked. There are so many teams and dramas!

I don’t see the point of getting upset over this. It’s a subtitle and if something doesn’t seem right, you can contact the person in charge of the subtitles, they will take a look and maybe correct it if that is wrong. It’s an easy task to do and that will solve your problem quickly.

If you feel upset, then maybe you wanted something else from this conversation, but what, I don’t know. You have to explain clearly what you wanted out of this topic. For us, we thought that you wanted that the subtitle was reviewed again by the editors. If that’s not what you wanted, is there anything else we could help you with?

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Hello edwardsebesta_621,

I’m the translation editor, awesomeharry.
I apologize you first if you got offended by our translation. It’s probably my edit that caused it.
Since I’ve been lacking in English skill, I didn’t intend to make someone get offended but made it just happen.
If you give a specific time of the part(s) that you think it’s a botch, I’m going to look at it again. And if you give some suggestion for the part’s translation, you’ll be very welcome as well.
I was watching Episode 23 for 10 minutes but I couldn’t stand anymore. I usually don’t watch a drama twice.

And if you become a volunteer at Viki like us, you don’t need to pay to watch dramas or movies and you can correct our translation in a less offending way. Therefore, please consider it.

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I was curious so I watched some parts of Episode 23. I think the scene @edwardsebesta_621 is referring to might be at time stamp 21:25 to 22:15.

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I’m curious; what was the offending part? You feel it was offending? I saw that drama but can’t remember any offending dialogue.

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I think it’s best to wait for a confirmation from the person who initially wrote the post. That’s why I tagged him. I think someone already made changes to that portion though.

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Ok, the thing is I know myself and if I had seen something wrong ‘‘botched’’ I would have raised hell in the comment section, and I didn’t. I hate to sense in the dramas prejudism over any issue. I have seen it happen in other movies/dramas, so it doesn’t surprise me either.

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I don’t want to go too deep into this conversation but from what I remember of the scene, you wouldn’t have noticed anything is amiss unless you are fluent in both Korean and English.

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There are many things wrong with VIKI as a streaming platform, but I have always appreciated the hard work and commitment of our fellow Vikians. However, I do love myself a good drama :wink: so could you please share a side-by-side video comparison? Links to the scene from both the VIKI and YT versions will do.

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As I said earlier, I think someone already made some changes to the Viki translations.

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Happy to hear it. Translating is a difficult job, after all, so I don’t think it’s right to criticise those who are doing their best. Fighting! :heartbeat: :muscle:

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Everyone, I think you miss my original point. There are out there collections of these episodes of the gay side story of this drama which you can watch. I have watched and rewatched them maybe 3 to 6 times.

What surprised me is that there was no recognition in this group how popular this side story is or how important it is. It was disappointing to see that. It was surprising to me that I was the first person to recognize it and now I realize the first person to bring it up. Yes you have BL stuff, but BL and gay is very different.

I was concerned that in the future that there would be a recognition that gay content is important even if you aren’t gay. Instead I am portrayed as being ungrateful for the hard work of the translators. Or just a meanie. I always pay for my material and refuse to watch bootleg copies. If I have accidentally watched a bootleg copy I will go find it and pay for it anyways. However, maybe I am a meanie.

I am a researcher who watches East Asian dramas as a form to escape. I am a published author of university press books on hate groups. I have two groups asking for help with some matters right now. So I am not going to come back to this topic. The issue is not whether you fix this translation or not, it is what is going to be the awareness going into the future.

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We definitely missed your original point.
We thought that there were flaws in translation (post title) and as a result, you didn’t want to watch anymore because the translation might be a hash because of 1 scene (1st post) and then I thought you got upset because people thought this genre didn’t deserve correct translations (2nd post).

Maybe that’s why you haven’t got answers you expected.

The answers you got were because the question or the topic title led us to think that…
The LGBT matters are not from this century. Recognition through media, in TV, literature, law, society…
Same as racial matters, religion matters, gender equality, abortion, homoparental family…
There were also white discrimination, gender discrimination… from each group.

Must we categorize? Should we if we want some semblance of equality?
Is it not highlighting the difference or perpetuating discrimination if people expect a difference in treatment between LGBT and not LGBT? Do we have to throw rocks between each group or tell people from one group that they didn’t… so they are… Should we condemn each other like that?

I don’t think that on this forum, there are people from any haters groups that categorize people by gender or their love preference or judge people the way they live their life. There will be a need for recognition or we would recognize a great advancement if we associate ourselves as being part of a discriminated group or if we recognize ourselves as being discriminated or we’ve been victims of a haters group in our life and we’ve lived it as a bad experience that either stick to our identity or will reappear each time a situation related to it will remind us this bad thing (TV…).
If it’s part of your job, then sure, you would want to talk about it, but I hope people won’t condemn other people because nobody talked about other people’s field on this forum yet or tell them that they are haters because we’re not part of a minority or majority or a lambda group.


The topic could be heavy to talk about or lead to talk about more personal things or life or… I don’t know whether the regulations on this public forum would allow it or not, because that could be a sensitive topic. I don’t know!

But there are also many forums if you need to talk about the recognition of LGBT in media hopefully.

I don’t like this word “g” because it is also associated to an insult in my country, so I used “BL”. “Male homosexual relationships”, that’s quite long to say.

What’s the difference between BL, “gay” and “yaoi”?

I don’t know the difference, but if you’re looking for more content of this genre, there were other topics on BL or MHR on this forum:




There’s also a fan chat club for fujoshis in the last one if you’d like to talk about it or open a new thread with a title that says BL or MHR recognition in media, I don’t know.

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As a Kor-Eng translator, I am sorry that this experience has left you with a negative impression of the Viki translators, and Viki site in general. Having watched most of Episode 23, I can see why the episode is so beloved by the gay community.

I understand your frustration but I ask you to please continue to share with us your views/insights and help raise awareness for, and sensitivity towards, the gay community.

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So now the correctness of the translation is no issue for you, right? That’s a 180* turn, not a misunderstanding. If everyone who replied to you misunderstood, it means that you either don’t know how to express yourself in writing or that you purposefully misled us.

Hm. So option 1 seems unlikely, doesn’t it? Which leaves us with…

Here we are all translators and editors, passionate about what we do. You threw a bait for us with your thread title and first post, when in reality you didn’t care about the translation and just wanted to promote your agenda. That’s not cool.

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It’s okay, Irmar.
Everyone can make mistakes and there are people who don’t really know how Viki works or would admit it, so… It’s nothing out of the ordinary for Vikians.
He can open a new topic about his real center of interest. This one could be considered closed, since the translation was edited again.

Thanks for raising this issue, thanks to the editor and thanks Irmar for searching the correct contacts in the team.

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Here is something for those who can read Chinese. This is a link to the very first Chinese language gay liberation book. I purchased back in the 1980s 3 copies from Sam Sasha, “25 Questions About Homosexuality.”

It turned out that none of the universities in East Asia had the very first edition, they had the 2nd edition which was “30 Questions About Homosexuality.” So my three copies went to Taiwan and one each give to the libraries of three top universities. They digitized one of the copies and you can download it. It is free.

Sam died some years ago, and I am retired and I am deaccessioning a lot of my collection to archives and university libraries. Anyways here is the link. It is free.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iBWHxwfhl6ZTsOtoJf0ceu52xsgtFDv2/view

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