Colloquialisms and translations question

TV & Movies K-Dramas
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@my_happy_place
I have volunteered on a couple different J-dramas now whose pre-subs themselves came with all the “Americanisms” including those you mentioned above as swell as the general tone you spoke of. The slang and colloquialisms were everywhere! I’ve even seen it in pre-subs for historical C-dramas! I can’t speak to the specific drama you’ve described and whether it came from a volunteer or pre-subs, but in my experience, it seems like a (disheartening) trend in pre-subs.

I believe @irmar said the video is here at RViki. I could be wrong.

On YT I have been a witness of many people that tried to emulate American way of speaking, and so called writing the American way by using gonna/wanna etc…

At first, I thought they were ‘‘ghetto talkers’’ trying to write subtitles on YT, but with a good research work; I found the Instagram of the people doing this atrocious subtitles, and most of them haven’t stepped foot in American soil.
They just learned how to fake sounding like a young American boy/girl as they write as if they are American. Most of them are in their late 20’s but love to imitate the young American kids. There’s even an Arab girl that has perfected this way of ‘‘talking’’ that she has millions of viewers (myself included). It’s amazing how good she is. I also found someone from Spain that loves to use a lot gonna/wanna etc., but I think that one was blocked because I can’t find his page anymore since I reported him a while ago. Unless of course, he has me blocked, and I can’t tell if that’s why I don’t see his page. Not that I care much either.

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I assumed it was, but the ones I was referring to are on Viki for sure. I don’t watch much on YT that has subtitles, but I’m not surprised that stuff like that happens.

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@my_happy_place

Is there any way anyone from RViki can find out who are the people writing these pre-subs to be displayed shamelessly in the videos here at this site?

I have seen pre-subbed dramas/movies that has been edited by viki’s volunteers so I know how terrible they can be.

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It is my understanding (which may be flawed) that pre-subs come from one of two places:

  • The production company of the drama or movie, in which case Viki wouldn’t really know who wrote them.

  • Or a Viki-paid subber, in which case Viki would obviously know who wrote them.

I think it baffles all of us how paid subbers break Viki’s own rules about the use of slang, informal speech (gonna, wanna), etc.

I guess I should leave open the possibility that some are done by machine translation, but for all of MT’s flaws, I’m not sure using things like “gonna, wanna, etc.” is one of them. I could be wrong.

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Even though some shows probably get translated by paid subbers from scratch, they also specifically hire people to edit machine translation for English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French.

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At least those in my latest example were done by a real person, a paid Viki subber, who -as I said- is otherwise good, if you forget about her domestication choices.
Here are some examples from a pre-subbed historical drama, again done by someone very proficient.

okay queen
okay queen1055×515 37.9 KB

okay highness
okay highness978×526 28.2 KB

okay
okay1035×508 35.9 KB

Not that we haven’t seen this sort of thing by volunteer subbers. We have, and a lot! But if you’re a paid professional, expectations are a bit highter, aren’t they?

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Hi @angelight313_941 :grinning:

Thank you so much for your really kind words. You have made my day. And please set your mind at rest. There is nothing that you need to apologize for. You have never once said anything that has even come close to offending me. I have always enjoyed our interactions :slight_smile: I’ve had a few health issues over the last year and a bit, and they have taken me away from Viki from time to time.

Please take care and thank you again for your uplifting message!
–manganese

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When I say “American”, I mean Korean-American, Chinese-American, Japanese-American. People who learned the language, sometimes very well, but don’t have enough English culture, in the sense of English literature, how people used to speak in the past, or how people who are more educated speak. (Not that everybody else in the country knows those things either!) Just assuming, of course. But that’s the impression I get.
What is sure is that they have been brought up with Hollywood movies and American TV-shows, where most people speak in a very casual way. And they seem to think this style is the “normal” way to sound natural. They also seem to think that this style is suitable for East Asian people, who in reality are much more formal, put much more importance on etiquette, hierarchy and so on.

I hope my meaning is clearer now.

Also, there’s no point in naming shows or people here. Viki paid subbers have no names on the subtitles anyway - you just see “Viki”. But they are not at fault, they will do what they are told to do. If they were told to keep things like “nuna” and “ajeossi” they would do it, why wouldn’t they? Obviously these were the guidelines they were given.
The point here, then, is the extreme localisation trend, that many of us Viki viewers don’t like it one bit, because we care about correct culture representation. But Viki doesn’t care, and it wants to mimic what’s happening on NF or other platforms, thinking that it will make it more competitive or something.

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You said it here @irmar, this is the lost to many viewers, be they here, or on other media. Tsk! Such a sad lost.

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I agree 100% with this statement since they are getting paid: they should provide a much higher Quality in their subtitles, but some of them don’t. In the past, when it was a paid subber it said ‘‘viki staff,’’ but now you don’t see that anymore so I no longer can keep track on their subtitles (quality wise).

I believe they don’t even need a High School Diploma to be a paid subber which makes no sense to me since a HIGH SCHOOL degree should be at least a requirement to become a paid subber.

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Hello,

My name is Emsy Procter. I’m a student majoring in Korean and Linguistics and due to graduate this year. I’m actually here looking for Korean to English subtitle translators to interview for my dissertation and I noticed this discussion group.

I’m currently writing my dissertation on the topic of ‘The Influence of English on Korean Audiovisual Translation: A Study of Cultural Adaptation and Linguistic Shift in K-Dramas and Films’. I’m hoping to ask questions about translators thoughts and opinions on and around the topic as well as what methods they think are key to successful translation (e.g. to what extent should content be localised). I will then use this data in my writing. The interviews will be short and held online, preferably on the Microsoft platform Teams and the interviewee will be anonymised in the transcription.
Please let me know if you are interested and if you need any more information.

(Also if there are any other forums on here that you can suggest I post this in then I would really appreciate the info!)

Thank you!

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You might also want to interview English editors, since they are the one who make this kind of decisions on how the end product will look like.

Also, if you are in this field, you must surely know that “successful translation” is “appropriate translation”. Appropriate to what? Context, content and most importantly audience.
Nida (1995) once said:

“The target audience for which a translation is made almost always constitutes a major factor in determining the translation procedures and the level of language to be employed.”

Charles S. Draszewski (1998) also argues that

“the needs of the specific audience which the translator wants to reach via his/her work should be the overriding, determining factor in deciding just how he or she is to approach the specific translation project.”

A scientist won’t write in the same style for “Focus Junior” or “Time Magazine” as s/he will write for a scientific journal addressed to his/her peers.
In the same way, subtitles in popular streaming platforms with a diverse audience, one that consumes content from various countries without particularly focusing on one of them, cannot be the same as subtitles on Viki, a platform that specializes on East Asian content and has a dedicated audience passionate about the culture of those countries and thirsty to learn more.
Thus you will find that our Viki subtitles are much less localized than on other platforms. The same translator, if working on one of the other platforms, would follow a different set of rules. And of course in those cases, being paid work, it’s the client, i.e. the platform, that dictates the rules.
They are also a bit longer, because the Viki viewers are more used to subtitles (compared to people who habitually watch shows in their own language), thus have developed greater reading speeds.

By the way, there are no more Korean to English translators on Viki. Viki has eliminated them, because the viewers were complaining of the subtitles not being available immediately after upload. So now all the new dramas come pre-subbed by professionals: since those people are used to other platforms, the subs heavily localized, as if they had no idea of what Viki stands for, and we editors have to painstakingly change them back to “Viki-style subs”. Less condensed and less localised. Because that’s what our viewers are accustomed to and that’s what they want.

There are still Translation Editors whom you can interview. Those of the Ko-En subbers who know English better than the rest have become Translation Editors and are still working here. And, as I said before, English Editors can also be useful for your purpose.

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