I see countless times on Netflix in which viewers watching K drama are missing explanations they would get on viki. In Vincenzo, Vincenzo’s objective is to take control of a building, Geumga Plaza, which is built over a storage room full of gold bullion. The Netflix viewer is never told that geum means gold in Korean.
This week the main characters discuss a nickname for the unknown head of the adversary Babel Group and agree to call him Babo. This means fool or stupid, but there was no effort to tell the English viewers this until the next episode.
I was also interested in the Nx use of the term “stay of execution” when Vincenzo’s mother collapses from advanced cancer and is released from prison to be hospitalized. While “stay of execution” is a correct translation of the Korean term under Korean law I am assuming the majority of the English subs are for Americans for which “stay of execution” has a different meaning. What happened in the drama would be described in the United States as compassionate release. The execution of the life sentence for the character was not stayed because she has been in prison for years.
The tenants of Geumga Plaza decide to shame the adversaries so they set up a phoney television show called Kkabalrieo TV. The viewer is not told that means spill the beans or tell all in Korean.
I also think the QC at Netflix is not very good. I frequently see mistakes in use of English idiom, mixed metaphors and the wrong use of articles.
So many things get lost in translation. Even with the best intentions. So what if one doesn’t have the intention to be faithful in the first place?
A touch of Spice
I don’t think this is from NF, but it’s a 2003 Greek movie called A Touch of Spice. If you live in the US or have a vpn to pretend you do, you can watch it on Tubi. Anyway, this beautiful movie is about Greeks from Asia Minor, who were chased away from their ancestral land by the Turks. The film focuses on the Greeks driven away from Constantinople (now Istanbul) at the end of the 1950s and into the 1960s. These people went to mainland Greece as refugees, but were not welcomed with open arms. Locals viewed them with diffidence. First of all they were afraid that they would take away their jobs. Then these people used lots of Turkish words and expressions in their language, had a special accent, a different, richer cuisine and different habits and customs. For instance they were used to washing themselves often, and for this their women were labelled as prostitutes even when they weren’t - because of course who would insist on keeping clean unless one had a scandalously rich sex life?
Anyway, the movie, which focuses on cuisine (its Greek title is “Politiki kouzina” = Constantinople Cuisine) is FULL of cultural references, and most of them are not only universalized (for instance “Let’s drink raki” becomes “let’s have a drink”, “prepare some meze” becomes “prepare appetizers”, which is very innocent and decent as a translation) but oftentimes completely omitted. Whole sentences at a time.
Here is an example. The grandfather teaches his grandchild about spices using metaphors of the solar system. When he goes through the sun and various other planets, he comes to earth. Here is their original dialogue and the English sub translation:
- Grandpa ORIG.: Then there is earth. Where we are. What is there on earth? ENGLISH SUB: Then we have Earth. What do we have on earth?
- Boy ORIG: There’s Ms. Zoe . ENGLISH SUB: Life
- Grandpa ORIG: On earth there is life. Life is a different thing than Ms. Zoe, Tasoula’s mother, who died last year (boy laughs). ENGLISH SUB: Exactly, there is life on earth.
- Grandpa ORIG: And what does life need? ENGLISH SUB: And what do we need to stay alive?
- Boy ORIG: To eat. ENGLISH SUB: Food.
- Grandpa: And what makes food tastier?
- Boy: Salt.
Now the pun is that “zoe” (ζωή) in Greek means “life” but it’s also a female name (the lady mentioned by the boy). The boy makes a pun. As it was impossible to translate, they just skipped the two sentences.
Which, okay, isn’t an important part at all, just a humorous aside, but still the viewer sees the actors saying more sentences that are not translated, and may wonder, “is it something important that I missed?” And feels insecure. The viewer also sees the two actors laugh and have fun, while what the sub says is not funny at all. So he may feel left out and a bit confused.
We at Viki would have added a note.
I was reminded of the film and I searched for it, because I read about it in a paper, by a Greek professor, on the various strategies used to translate culture-specific items in movie subtitles. (I wanted it for my students of the Italian subber’s course)
https://www.academia.edu/23474904/Translating_culture_specific_items_in_films_the_case_of_interlingual_and_intersemiotic_translation
If you don’t have the time or inclination to read the whole thing, the juicy part is pages 60-64.
Four communication channels in video content
An important premise is that there are four categories or communication channels that form the filmic sign:
- Visual non-verbal: actors’ actions and expressions, background etc.
- /Visual verbal: credit titles, signs, inscriptions, SMS texts, writings, newspapers and posters…
- Acoustic non-verbal: background noises, instrumental music, sighs, groans, laughter etc.
- Acoustic verbal: the dialogue and songs. What we are translating.
These four sometimes overlap, and the same info may come from more than one, or even all of them together, each one in its own way. For instance someone sobbing and looking distressed, while looking at a woman’s picture, saying “Oh, my poor mother!” while we hear sad/solemn music.
So the interesting point is that the subtitles typically miss one third of the dialogue because of time constraints, but it’s okay when the other three information channels compensate for that.
Same for cultural references. Sometimes we are aided by what we see on the screen. When, however there is no other help from the screen (as for example when someone is mentioning a faraway geographical place, or a historical event or person), then the subtitle should be more explanatory and help the viewer in some way, since it’s the only source of info.
Footnotes or intertextual gloss?
Very often when the verbal message cannot be easily rendered, the visual message is able to make up for it. Bearing in mind the spatiotemporal constraints of film subtitling, the transfer of culture-specific items becomes even more difficult. To make matters worse, the translator is not able to resort to translator’s notes or explanatory footnotes to explain CSIs, as in the case of literary texts. Explanations of CSIs in subtitling usually take the form of an intertextual gloss,whereby an explanation is provided with an addition of a word in the subtitles, as a non-distinct part of the text, thus without disrupting the coherence of the text. There are some rare instances in which information is provided as an extratextual gloss, usually in parenthesis or in brackets.
An example of intertextual gloss. A character mentions in passing a famous person, just by name, without anything else. Because the listener will obviously know it. But the foreign viewer can’t be expected to, so we should help him with some little clarification.
For instance: “At the time of Sejong” may become “At the time of king Sejong”.
And “Why don’t we go to Namsan?” may become “Why don’t we go to Namsan mountain”? (Although this is redundant because “san” in Korean means mountain anyway, so to be precise we should probably translate “Nam mountain”)
Domestication and foreignisation - The Others vs. Viki
“The prevailing trends regarding the rendering of CSIs are domestication and foreignisation. Holmes observes that contrary to the trends of translating culture items in the previous centuries, among contemporary translations there is ‘a tendency towards exoticizingand historisizing in the socio-cultural situation’. However, there are somecultural elements that cannot be easily perceived by a foreign-speaking audience.”
See the various possible approaches here. It is obvious that NF, KCW and other such platforms mostly lean towards the right column list: universalisation, naturalization and deletion. Whereas I would say that Viki leans towards the solutions of the left column.
Yay for the ‘conservation’ perspectives of the left column. I take every chance I get to underscore how well Viki subtitlers do when compared to paid Netflix employees. Last year I kept submitting comments on the “Coming to Netflix” newsletters, pointing out the large gaps in translations that kept leaving out important plot points, which in effect turned the Netflix subtitler into a ‘content editor’ and changed the screenwriter’s and production team’s original intent. Things have improved since, but there are still a lot of substitutions which americanize the shows, when the viewers KNOW they are watching another country’s entertainment and culture. A big point for me is hearing a korean name on Netflix and then seeing the americanized name in the subtitles, which has reversed the order, printing the family name last instead of first (i.e. Min Ho Lee, instead of Lee Min Ho). Which causes confusion when we hear the korean name on the screen but then see something different. As if the american listener wouldn’t be smart enough to ‘get’ the korean name as it’s spoken. Same when korean characters toss out “Dude”, instead of “Oppa”. Subtitlers may think they are helping, but are actually missing the point and just americanizing the story. It strips the dramas of a cultural essence that we’ve all grown to love and appreciate because of our amazing Viki subtitling teams. I’m so proud of the intelligent, professional and respectful community who refuse to paint-over the korean language with easy english slang, but instead brings us layered and informative translations which bring us all closer to the cultural core of these wonderful dramas. Kudos!
I agree.
This said, it should be noted that this is not the subtitlers’ choice, it’s the policy of the organization. They have specific guidelines.
As for the condensation and omissions, they also have a rule about how many characters per sub. Which relies on old-fashioned data about the speed with which viewers can read subtitles. More recent studies have raised the number of characters one can read in one second. Maybe the newer generations of viewers have become more accustumed to foreign content and subtitles, so this may be a factor too.
As for the subtitle length, maybe there should be a differentiation between TV content and streaming digital content. The former you cannot rewind, so the sub makers have to err on the side of caution, whereas on streaming platforms as Viki viewers have the luxury of being able to go back if they didn’t get something.
@irmar wow, that’s so elaborate!! Very pretty but hard work, very interesting pattern indeed!
comparisons? I discovered NF has a different sub beside Viki, and for people for doing the voice subs, I noticed some sounded different, the other one is Prime time too, some their voices didnt match
I just finished binge watching “Arthdal Chronicles” on NFLX. I rather enjoyed Season 1 and I am now looking forward to Season 2.
As I was watching the last episode where Tanya gives the name “subjects” to refer to the people of the newly formed nation, I was thinking, if the show was on Viki and I were the subber, I would have added a Translator’s Note to give more depth to the scene.
백성 (baek-seong) does mean “the people”, “the commoners”, “the subjects” but it can also mean “hundred stars” in Hanja. I think this information would have given more depth to the scene. Tanya was thinking back to her conversation with her mother and also her own conversation with the village kids about how you can be anything, like the more than 100 stars in the sky.
I love so much your expertise in the korean language. Sadly, I don’t think we’ll be able to see Arthdal Chronicles here at RViki, and is really a shame that this site is denying us of that for whatever their reasons are for doing that (too expensive maybe?).
[Kingdom] has 3 awesome part series, and although is scary as hell, is definitely worth watching. I admire such a great story of zombies in the Joseon Era? Hope you watch if you are not squeamish bc it does has scenes that are hard to watch.
Arthdal and Kingdom did an AWESOME job in the make-up and wardrobe Department respectively. Arthdal has a wardrobe choice that was so admirable, and Kingdom had a souch real make up done on the extras that it blew me away with fear of how real it looks.
I also like the mastery in special effects in ‘‘Memories of the Alhambra.’’ Hope you check it out.
I forgot to mention that I was FURIOUS beyond words on how badly ARTHDAL series on Netflix was translated from K/E bc they used too many informal speech, modern day words, and even slangs/sayings that didn’t belong in that Era. I did send a feedback, and they changed the subber so it got a little bit better. I’m going to see if they fixed the subs bc that really bothered me, but I completely forgot about it.
I usually don’t like to watch kdramas on NF and I’m not a fan of their subbs. I watched my first kdrama on NF, it was my first contact with korean culture and it made me really confused with the language and the names because they use the first name and I couldn’t hear them saying the name. I kept thinking “How is the pronunciation of this name that I simply can’t hear ir?”.
Sometimes it creates some inconsistencies, for example, in Romance is a bonus book, the FL is a single mom who just divorced, is broken and trying to get a job after a lot of years being a housewife. During those years everyone called her, unnie, omma, jagiya… but never by her name. When she gets a job and a business card she says to the ML that she is really happy because there are people who are calling her by her name and this moment is really beautiful and important to her and I just didn’t understand it because in the subtitles everyone was calling her by her name all the time. I just understood this after a second view recently.
Moreover, as a segmenter the flashy subtitles really bothers me.
I agree that there are a lot of inconsistencies with how they sub names and how people address each other. Like you said, sometimes they use the person’s actual name when the person speaking to them is using other means to address them, or sometimes they put the surname first as they do in Korea, but sometimes they format names in the western style of surname last. It’s never the same from one drama to the next.
I have noticed they don’t put a lot of effort on Asian drama’s subtitles, but I mainly blame the one that is doing the translation, in other words, the subber. If they know the Korean language and culture; why they don’t do what is suppose to be done right when they are subbing an Asian drama/movie etc?
I have noticed SK dramas/movies have the worst translations compared to dramas from other countries. I consider the Japanese subtitles to be very close in their translation, and even the Chinese dramas, too. So this issue with Korean dramas/movies has become very disconcerting to me, and I keep sending feedback messages when I’m able (On Netflix).
It’s funny because I’ve noticed what you mentioned here about that drama in regards to calling her name and all that, but I knew why it sounded wrong all along since Netflix don’t use unnie or ajuma etc. since those have no translation from Korean to English; so they avoid using them and always use the full character’s name. In the case of that story plot in the drama it didn’t work out well because they always used her name from the start so it made no sense when she said that line.lol
I have never noticed any problems with the segments on NTFX, and I call them jumps ‘‘hiccups’’ (the fast, sudden jump in the screen out of the blue). I only see segments issues when I watch RViki on my TV using the viki application, but in that case; I only blame RViki.
I HONESTLY have no preference between Netflix or Viki subs since I feel they both have many issues that need improvement, but I’m guessing both streams service don’t feel that is so important to work more on that so viewers have better quality subtitles.
That one really stands out in all the mistakes that I could see because it isn’t something that would be better done in other way, it is something that just didn’t make sense at all and it is frustrating that a professional did this.
I’ve noticed quite a lot of them, including timing issues. I think it is easier for me to see them because I use larger letters and a black box as a backgroung for the subbs (my eyes are bad) so when there is a gap a giant black box flashes on the screen. Or maybe it is just because we watch different shows.
I’ve seen this a few times, find it soo weird
I think one huge factor here is that most volunteers are drama fans who want everyone to have as much fun as they have while watching. We keep thinking about whether WE would like the same subs, or how we would like our subs to be. In the case of the drama example @lari_sferreira42_336 gave, I(and most volunteers I know) wouldn’t have been able to sleep peacefully at night without it bothering me 
“It makes no sense! It takes all the fun out of the drama!” would keep drumming around in my head. For someone who is doing it just for the pay, it wouldn’t be such a big deal. The show has been translated. Thats it.
To be fair, I think most Kor-Eng translators who are truly bilingual or know enough of Korean culture, regardless of which streaming site they are working at, would prefer to use “Oppa”, “Unnie”, “Noona”, “Ajumma”, etc. instead of proper names. However, it is not up to the translators. I believe it is NX’s policy to use proper names in lieu of these honorifics. Even here at Viki, subbing rules differ based on the CE’s preference.
Find the mistake:
The German subtitler just repeated what the English had already written.
I am not sure what the English subber or German subber wrote but 남궁 (Namgoong) is the surname and 찬 (Chan) the given name. It is unusual to have two character Korean surname but Namgoong is one of the more well known ones. Namgoong Min is one of my favorite actors.
This may be true, because when they talk about the boy, they only say “Chan”.
And the cast at Wikipedia lists Namkoong Yi-hwan as the father.
My bad, I should have look it up.
But for the names vs. titles thing, it’s the same as always throughout the series.