This whole discussion is amazing to me. How wonderful to discover a concentration of people passionate about making communication in any language better.
I have worked on and off throughout my life as a proofreader and editor of English texts of various kinds, and I have, as a result, been recognized (not always affectionately) as a nit-picking, anal-rententive crank.
This discussion is . . . can I say . . . like eating braised pork belly after a lifetime of cheap ramyun. Yum!
I didnât think of that, yes, perhaps you can do that too.
@irmar
Although if possible, I donât think itâs wrong to write to the original translator because they should have the chance to learn from their mistakes as well. Also, they (or the translation editor) might be the more direct route because the English editor, like the CM doesnât have knowledge of the original language. So unless itâs just a grammatical error, itâd be more direct to go to the original translator.
Their grasp of English might not be great, so they wonât know where it went wrong. But they know the original language and meaning, so they should be able to explain (maybe not in great English) what the original dialogue mean and you can take what they say and suggest a translation thatâs grammatically impeccable and stays true to the dialogue. If you just go straight to the English editor about a nonsense subtitle, sure, you might end up with a grammatically correct subtitle, but itâs meaning might be miles away from the original dialogue.
I donât think subtitlers will be offended, at least I donât. Unless youâre just saying âYour subtitle is wrong, correct it.â Iâd totally reply âwhatâs wrong with it? Itâs perfectly clear, thatâs exactly what it says in Korean (Chinese, in my case)!â After all, how would you know if itâs a correct translation or not when you donât know the original language.
You can say âI donât understand this subtitle in blah blah blah, would you be able to explain it in more detail? Can I say it like this instead since itâs confusing when you say blah blah blah.â Something like that.
@entwyfhasbeenfound
English editors are people with a perfect or at least good grasp of English (not necessary to have any knowledge of the original language) and they do the following:
Also, in Chinese, thereâs no differentiation between mermaid and merman since they both use the same word çžäşşéąź (literally: beautiful human fish), and since mermaid is the more commonly known word (The Little Mermaid, anyone? 
), some might not even know that the word merman exists to be able to use it.
For he and she, we actually do use different pronouns äť (he) 弚 (she) ĺŽ (it). Although, they are ALL pronounced as ta. So in speech, thereâs no need to think about the gender because itâd sound the same no matter what.
Generally speaking, when you discover a missing or what you believe to be incorrect subtitle, politely asking a Chief Editor or the English Editor or Translation Editor would be far superior to other methods of âcommunicationâ I have recently experienced on a project.
For example, someone posted a highly-offensive remark to the on-screen comments that essentially called the subbers a bad name for having missed a ONE CHARACTER SUBTITLE 10 minutes earlier in the episode. Whatâs more, the episode had not yet been edited or English released.
Still another chose to argue a point of translation of an animal that was commented on in comment block of an episode and essentially bury the possibility we could examine the question, thus it was left unanswered for a month.
So if you really are wanting to ask a question, whether it be of a technical point like âbows, not arrows being damaged by heavy rainsâ as I once did 
or what line should say or does not correctly say, I have found editors here to be generally friendly and helpful and truly wanting the work to be correct. You do have to be patient when asking questions, teams are often very busy both here and in the real world.
There are some amazing people who edit both as English editors and Translation editors here who may surprise you by having a reasonable command of more than one language, so do not assume on that score. I can think of two TE who have excellent English skills on top of being great with Chinese, for example. On the other hand, I can think of at least one former English moderator whose skills were so poor in English AND the original language (!) that she should not have been associated in any way with anything that should be released in EnglishâŚ(sigh). So unless you know your audience, e.g. have communicated with them before, do not assume - but write courteously and carefully with as much clarity as you can give them on the subject you are writing about.
The written word can convey a great deal, emotions, unintended meanings, and itâs necessary to be very careful writing to those we have yet to meet here in the vikiverse. Editors really are making sure the intentions of the translators are not lost, yet make sense to the many people taking the water from the deep well to the rest of the world.
Banshee Maxima
Here you go:
http://nssacademy.weebly.com/channel-roles-guide.html
This is way more comprehensive than what I remember reading before. It explains to you in detail every single step we go through before releasing a drama to be translated into all languages non-English. It even has pictures and annotations!
To answer your original question way up there~~ The reason why some subtitles are very formal is because people are speaking superformally!
In Team Discussions (TD) section yesterday I went through parts 1.1-3.5 noting which timings had German, Latin, or Italian OST. BTW we are hiring someone who speaks latin for latin ost translation in the k2. It is here that @irmar pointed out that Iâll literally go about posting formal, informal, superformal, condescending, uses âitâ form to refer to her, she is called child because protagonist 2 feels she is beneath herâŚ
I put a lot of these notes because it is helpful to the non-English in finding words and maybe having less lost in translation. So much gets lost in English because we would never say that or⌠that shade of meaning doesnât matter at all. However in languages like Hungarian, Finnish, Chinese, Japanese the structure is quite similar to Korean and⌠have been told these languages also do not use so many words.
Some other emotional equivalents or at least the âitâ as a person exist in French and Italian. I was told it was ça. In Korean there are levels of âyou.â
You also sound like you suffered from professional/teacher kid syndrome as my mother did. Thanks to her⌠I learned high level Korean and some really easy proverbs transliterated from Ancient Chinese stories (ęł ěŹěąě´) in my daily life. Being a child of immigrants, my skill level in Korean is pretty uneven. I learned literally everything by ear and then google/naver supplied the rest.
If you would like to be an English Editor you should ask the chief editor of the drama in question however~~ these spots I have been told go fast so you kind of need to do it when the shows are âfan channels.â
Another route is the NSSA (Ninja Segging and Subbing Academy) English Academy. It is a 1:1 peer mentoring community program where you get nurtured into an English editor. I joined too since I found my grammar not at the place I want it to be.
The NSSA trains many of the competent segmenters you see today. They work tirelessly to provide subtitle presentation (disappearance of and appearance of, length of appearance) that are âon-time.â
@angelight313_168 Non-English teams were always welcome on TD for the projects I have participated in or how else would Russian moderator point out we made a boo boo or an Italian mod that the hard captions which were what we used to translate had messed up the order of the original Italian (she redid all of them for us). They also ask us good questions in TD which then⌠is floated to the editors. I was asked a question via private message (pm) that I could not answer so I posted on TD and told chief editor. She then modified the subtitle in question. Then I responded back to the moderator.
@irmar I was told that the other editors really really like the whole trail of notes I leave at the in person ajumma meeting hahahaha. They encouraged my habit. @joysprite is constantly snapping things up and posting in team notes (TN).I think we all utilized this habit when we started working on super-hard jackpot and then Saimdang. How else would we keep things consistent??
@kuraimegami I believe chatter existed after TD so we use that more⌠we needed a communication device we could easily see as we are subtitling. Some Spanish teams seem to really hit it off on chatter and I know French teams prefer google sheets. Some people may find the whole list of part 1-6 available with IDâs and hello goodbyeâs annoying but there is always the âhideâ button to aid with scrolling. Many people didnât know of the hide button. Just last night I said hi to my Spanish contributors. We are friends.
@deadliftdiva_548 hehehe yes I directed you to the translation editor (TE) of the drama. I also go through all of timed comments (TC) and comments section to flag/remove/respond to these comments. I agree with @irmar that going to the editors, especially TE is the fastest solution. @entwyfhasbeenfound we are very thankful when these mistakes are caught: (she never bothered showing her fact (face). anyone?)
@glykeria I prefer Korean subtitles whenever possible for Chinese shows specifically because it is closer to the original! However rare and far in between on this site.
About the TD @kuraimegami I do the same thing as @irmar does. I organize the work with the subber through other means and check regularly the TD to check for the release of an episode and sometimes ask about some terms or unclear translation. I also write in there (if itâs an on air project) if I notice missing subtitles or other kind of problems.
In general, if I found missing segments and/or incorrect/missing captions I contacted the CM giving the proper info (which show, that minute, what was the problem and so on) without getting (most of the time) a reply. Now that Iâve read this discussion, probably I should have contacted directly the chief segmenter or chief editor depending on the case. Even so I think that CM could contact them, but rarely I saw any improvement.
About gender pronouns in Chinese.
First, love âbeautiful human fish.â Feng Shaofeng certainly is perfect for that, is he not? He conveys otherworldly flower boy beauty plus a good amount of non-human, cold intelligence.
Second, in pinyin, what are the inflection markings for each gender pronoun? Because they obviously each have to be pronounced a different kind of TA.
And if you want a good and embarrassing cross-cultural pun, there is the term now frequently used in English to refer to womenâs breasts: âShe had her ta-tas hanging out in that skimpy dress.â
One wishes to thank one for oneâs most illuminating information. One remains oneâs most obedient servant.
(Ninja princess mode of address)
The above is a very formal way in English of saying, âHey, thanks!â
And from the beginning of modern English (from maybe 1400 CE until maybe 1900 CE), somebody would have trotted it out in formal settings without seeming completely from another planet.
The idea is that if itâs a translation issue, you tell the English editor who may then contact the original Ko-En translator for elucidation. But more often than not, the translator jumps in and responds.
After all, the Editor has had a role in it. S/he left something incomprehensible - sometimes because of being in a rush, or in some cases because s/he knows Korean and thus it didnât seem strange! Thatâs when knowing the source language can be a handicap instead of a good thing, when looking at the end result, whether itâs fluent and comprehensible English or not.
The way I do it - Iâm not saying that itâs the best one or even a good one! - is that instead of p.m., I post in Team Discussion, under the English editorâs post where s/he says âEnglish Edit completeâ. So that the editor will see it (since itâs a reply to her/his last post), but also the other people may see it and sometimes I get several helpful responses and elucidations, cultural side notes, and learn new stuff. If itâs a typo or inconsistency or other technical thing, then it is for the Editor to correct. If itâs a translation thing, then the original translator, whoever it may be, will probably see it as well, and typically s/he will reply to that, saying âOh, it was me who translated that. I meant XYZâ.
One of the Ko-En subbers Iâve met, while doing this, who was super helpful and cooperative, is gripstar. Totally lovable lady.
P.S. I forgot to add that putting it in Discussion helps moderators and subbers from Other Languages who might have been too shy (or too lazy) to ask.
He is! He was absolutely gorgeous in Lanling Wang too, who according to historical legend, had to wear a grotesque mask whenever he went to battle because he had such a pretty face, it wouldnât be able to strike fear in the hearts of enemies. Plus heâs a great actor to boot 
Thatâs the thing, they have the exact same inflection. So theyâre pronounced exactly the same. Without the written Chinese word, there simply isnât any difference between them. Usually when I translate, and itâs not obvious who the âhe/she/itâ is being used for, I generally use he.
Haha, and just so coincidentally, ta-tas is exactly how the _ta_s are pronounced. So those boobs could be male, female, or it or a mix 
@irmar that works too! I think itâs great and everyone can learn from it
We tend to also say person but it is more common than tÄren etc. TÄren we use when we are referring to someone with distance in intimacy. Yes it is hard to tell without context, whereas English demands specificity. Most of us do check to see if he or she. Sometimes we are in a rush and put in non-gender specific pronouns. (Of course these are edited over)
I totally understand because going through at times 30 subtitles is annoying 
channel managers are inundated with idiotic pmâs daily. If say you are a chief editor on 12 different on air shows these idiotic pmâs could spam out the inbox as many as hundreds!! a day. They would block legitimate inquiries like yours.
Most of the English team I think prefers TD. It generates discussion Like I had to say what kind of brother someone was because that was needed in a non-English language (OL).
So, the thing that pops in my head is âthere,â âtheir,â and âtheyâreâ all sound alike but are spelled differently. In some parts of the USA, there may be very slight variations in pronunciation among the words, but they are not really that noticeable, so they are, for all intents and purposes, pronounced alike . . .
So, I sort of get it, but since written Chinese is not a phonetic language, how three different words could end up being pronounced exactly the same is an intriguing mystery.
Oh those are just homonyms. I had no idea that the tÄs look different before @amypun and @moonandstars listed out the characters for me.
We have homonyms too in Korean. It is the context that allows you to tell. One contributor that was asked this said if you are fluent you can tell!
I imagine Hanyu pinyin (romanization system) could be like a phonetic alphabet. One can only tell which tÄ for example based on context. For both Chinese and Korean the way you really can tell is from the chinese characters be it simplified or traditional.
All Chinese words have homonyms. Some of the more popular pronunciations have maybe 30 or 40 other homonyms? Context usually allows you to differentiate what is what. But, sometimes the context can be ambiguous.
Like I remember in particular for When a Snail Falls in Love, we thought that one of the syndicateâs bossâs name was a code name or the name of the gang itself, and we translated the nameâs meaning instead of just transliterating the name. At that point of time, that syndicate boss was just a shadowy figure manipulating everything in the background, so we happily figured they were referring to a shadow organization. Only to find out a few episodes later that it was actually a personâs name so weâd to change it back. (But honestly, who is called Golden Armour? 
)
Also, if you familiarise yourself with Chinese characters, you will realise that certain of these words with the same/similar pronunciation share similar strokes, that can give you a hint that it shares similar pronunciation.
With this I completely agree, in fact when the channel is still fairly active I tend to write into the TD 'cause I know that there is a possibility that the CM or the chief segmenter or the chief editor that Iâm writing to might get spammed with PMs from various channel and my own message could get lost.
However, when it has been already a year or so since the drama ended, even thought all team member where quite active while it was on air, when I tried to write into the TD it was the same: I didnât get a reply. Maybe I was just unlucky, I donât know.
oh⌠if the drama ended you need to contact the translation editor or whoever is the most active id. Very annoying.
OR!! If it is to understand a subtitle then you can alternatively try to find someone who knows the native language to explain to you. @irmar has done this to me before.
I didnât think about looking for the most active id now that I think about itâŚ
Generally I wanted to point out missing segments and, at times, suggest a translation for missing or incomplete subtitles from the original language (KR).
Iâll try again contacting the translation editors / chief segmenter!
I think I actually read a discussion about the nyang currency, if Iâm not confusing ids, which was really interesting actually.
When I was in college, I had a friend from Nigeria, from the Yoruba tribe. He was a Christian and had an English name he used which was the name of someone in the Bible. His Yoruba name meant something like âvictory comes in the morning.â He said he was born at dawn after his mother went through a long and difficult labor. Now thereâs an amazing name, but not one that would be popular in English.
Donât actually know of anyone with a name with that meaning in Chinese, but wouldnât be surprised to find someone whose name does mean that.
On a related note, donât be surprised if you find a person called ĺ´ć, transliterated Wu Yu, the meaning of the name would be Stupid Wu, since Yu [ć] means stupid. But because ĺ´ is a homonym of ć (not), the meaning of the name also sounds like Not Stupid. So for people whose surnames are Wu or Mei [ć˘ which sounds like 沥, donât have in Chinese], they sometimes have negative connotative names so that their full name will be something with a positive connotation. Like imagine being called ĺ´ć, transliterated Wu Ming, Ming [ć] means bright, totally a good thing. But placing them together, it would be like saying youâre Not Bright.