Hello !
I’m currently subbing cooking videos. I want to advise French equivalent ingredients for American ingredients like cream cheese since our supermarkets are not exactly selling the same food.
I wonder if I can advise some brands in my subtitles.
Thank you in advance
As a general rule, the translations are meant to be as close as possible to the original, as long as that doesn’t interfere with the viewers’ understanding. If you really have to, I don’t see why not.
Are there no translations for the names of the ingredients? Because if there are, you could translate in and then in brackets say “(comme…INSERT BRAND NAME)”.
I hope someone more knowledgeable comes along to answer this, because I’m actually curious as to what the proper etiquette would be.
Hello youraverageangel !
Thanks for answering : )
I agree with you about subtitles rules for dramas. I thought that it would be the same for cooking videos but more I think about it, more I found that something is missing and it’s irking me for quite some time so why not asking ? : )
Since the videos are from a blogger, I think that they are made so that people can cook her recipes at home.
I found French translations for American ingredients looking in cooking blogs or Wikipedia but in their explanations they put some brand names so that we can find them in our supermarket.
For example, cream cheese is translated on culinary blogs and Wikipedia as “fromage à la crème”. In our French recipes, we don’t have just “fromage à la crème” on the ingredients list, in general they precise some brand names so we can understand what it is.
So viewers who want to try her recipe at home will wonder what kind of “fromage à la crème” I’m talking about. It’s like cheese for toast but there are so many and only some of them can work as substitute for cream cheese. I can’t find another way but to tell them brand names so they know what subbers are talking about and they could manage to do her recipe correctly with translations which are enough precise so they don’t have to look on other websites as I have done.
It would be quite a waste of time and less pleasurable to watch it on Viki if finally people who want to try her recipe can’t replicate it as the blogger wanted when she had done her videos.
Another example is digestive biscuits, it was the first time I have heard about them and I have the feeling I have to say the brand name about these biscuits otherwise I would never have a clue about it.
Yeah, I thought about putting brand names in brackets as you suggest. But I don’t know if I’m allowed to and if it’s necessary. I don’t want to make a mistake by putting brand names.
Thank you again and sorry for this long text but at least, my problem is more understandable ; )
In the case of Digestive biscuits, you should definitely put a a French brand name there. Translating it directly would confuse the viewers 
Haha 
Digestive biscuits are also translated as digestive biscuits in French xd I was confused when I was reading this https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digestive_biscuit. I was like are you serious, these are digestive biscuits ? I actually know them ! 
I think I will write brand names as a suggestion then since it seems it’s not forbidden.
Thank you for your help 
Ahhh ! I was wondering what is a “digestive biscuit” and I’m French ! We call it “biscuit à thé” and always put the brand name (“Lu”).
Thanks to you, I learn a new word. That’s why I like the vikian community.
I’m not completely fluent in French (I’m still studying), but I don’t think Digestive biscuits would be considered “biscuit à thé”. Their texture is very different from normal tea biscuits. If you grind them, the grains feel more coarse than normal biscuit. I believe they’re also harder.
I definitely agree with you that Viki is a great place to learn. People are always so willing to share things about their language and culture ^~^