Interesting confusion, or was it conflict, on a Polish drama I saw in the other place. You know, it has an n and an x in the title.
Anyway, it was a very good thriller where the lead detective had two important details to her character. One that she was lesbian, the other that she had a gypsy grandmother, both of which arose in the storyline.
Now, she ends up falling out with a colleague, and when she tries to make up with him, he verbally abuses her saying [subtitles] ‘get lost … gypsy!’, but on the soundtrack we definitely heard the word ‘lesbo’, whereas gypsy would have been ‘se-guy-ski’.
I’m scratching my head wondering what sensibility the subtitler was was sensitive, especially as there had already been remarks by other characters cussing her for sexuality. Curious.
In this context (Viki) it’s even worse, because translators of other languages are left scratching their heads when they want to find an equivalent in their own language of a US colloquialism which 1) they may not know at all and 2) may have been used incorrectly to begin with.
In addition to this, when I was heavily involved in English editing, I formed the opinion that there were also people involved in translating from the original language into English who were completely unaware that they were using an idiom, colloquialism or even slang (in some instances). While this is understandable as even many native English speakers are unaware of the idioms they use regularly, when English editing, I think it’s important to have a more heightened awareness of language.
Keep in mind that most Ko-En or Chi-En translators are immigrants or children of immigrants, who learned English mostly from living in the country, sometimes also going at an American school (with whatever cultural baggage that might give), other times coming to the US after having done their schooling in Korea (or China). Very often their parents and other family don’t even speak good English, and they don’t speak English at home - or if they do, it would be better if they didn’t.
But then the translation editor should be someone who speaks the two languages reasonably well, so that he can decipher everything for the English editor to be able to do his/her job. That’s why the T.E. is such a crucial figure. Unfortunately it’s a disappearing species around here. And the Viki higher-ups do nothing to lure them to stay.
When I was working on a show yeasterday I had the words “don’t try to fudge it” so I had to look it up "When fudge is a verb, it means to avoid straightforwardly answering a question or addressing a subject : “Just answer my question and don’t fudge the issue!” Fudge is an American word from college slang meaning “a made-up story.”
I still find it facinating that there are so many phrase that I have to look up when I write subtitles.
When people “fudge” it implies they’re being slightly dishonest. The concept of “cheating a little bit” is closer to the meaning that I understand and use in conversation…
I totally agree with you. Doing subtitles is a learning journey and a very, very interesting one. Even though I’m only an English editor, I still find lots of things I need to look up.
Well, that slang has other meanings for Americans. For example; Fudge is a safe way to say F u c k So I use to say What the fudge? instead of What the F u c k?. It’s a ‘‘nicer’’ way of not cursing, but we really are cursing. I don’t understand why the subber wrote that (unless it was an American movie/drama) because we all know that’s mainly used as a curse word replacement. If it was an Asian drama the subber was very RUDE to have used that word in a subtitle.
I only write subtitles here on Viki so it was an Asian series and I did translated it like @manganese suggest. It was an old woman didn’t trust a young man.
maria_lavendula_77
I only write subtitles here on Viki so it was an Asian series and I did translated it like @manganese suggest. It was an old woman didn’t trust a young man.
Don’t worry about it too much. I was just letting you know the other meaning of the slang word fudge.
Although, I’m always against any word used from other countries in Asian dramas because we all very well know how strict that culture is, and we should use in a subtitle only words appropriate for the Asian culture. In my honest opinion, slang words from America don’t belong in Asian dramas. I see them a lot now in dramas and it’s a complete turn off for me.
I totally agree with you slang from USA doesn’t really fit in when translating something Asian, but I have realised that it’s fairly common here on Viki. That said it’s interesting before I looked up the word yesterday I didn’t understand what the meaning was, I have heard about “sugar coding” but fudge in my part of the world it’s just candy.
Actually, the English teams are not supposed to use any slang. Or at least that’s what I learned during my English-editor training from @worthyromance
Part of the reason for this is that English serves as a template for OL and we try to avoid the kind of confusion @maria_lavendula_77 was experiencing.
True but, as I wrote in my previous comment, many Korean-Americans or Chinese-Americans have learned English not so much from books or reading literature or newspapers but mostly by in a practical, unstructured way, by interacting with other people.
If they are young, an added reason is that most young Americans use slang routinely, so that’s what they hear all around by their peers, and they think they are being “cool” and “integrated” by sounding like everyone else. If they have been watching popular American movies, that’s the language they’ll be hearing from characters as well, and the impression is reinforced.
So they might not even know that this is slang, they think this is “normal” English.
USE PROPER ENGLISH
Avoid using slang English or shortened forms of words. For example, avoid using ‘LOL’ , ‘ya’ or ‘wanna’.
Avoid subbing any words that contain no meaning such as “Haha” or “Um…’
That’s the main reason why I stopped watching dramas/movies here at RVIKI because they allowed all these terrible subtitles in dramas/movies, and like I wrote before is a turn off for me; so I refuse to watch them. Worse yet, no matter how much the viewers (including myself), complain about it, nothing is done to fix it.
With all respect I don’t agree with this statement. The ones that can’t recognize ‘‘slang words’’ are people/subbers/editors? that are not proficient enough in the English language.
PS. I rarely see any slang words in US dramas/movies. Unless of course the drama/movie is ghetto (that’s how we call them when the drama/movie is full of slangs, vulgar, and cursing language).
I know for Korean drama there is an increase in the use of American slang because the dramas are subbed by paid subbers who do not follow any of the rules we use when we volunteers sub K drama to English. Often the slang is misused, perhaps because the subber might never have seen slang they have heard in writing or are not truly familiar with the slang. For example, last week, a character says “they are right now below our chins” when it should have been “they are right now at our throats”. Perhaps the subber uses slang to show fluency in English but when the slang is misued, it has the opposite effect! The slang means it is a vicious fight.
Takes a really good editor to notice all of them.