I know that some countries are strict with swear words but at least when I translate into German I never censor them since swear words aren’t censored in German television.
What’s funny though is that sometimes content from the US get’s censored because we get so used to these dumb censors that make no sense because everyone knows that behind the censor is a swear word and most often they also know exactly which word was censored…
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I try to subtitle as closely to the original as possible. If a character swears, I’ll write that translation… If the editor has an issue with it or wants to add a censor, that is his or her discretion. I am here to translate, not censor content! 
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I think it depends on what the swear word is. Here in The Netherlands is confusing, sometimes they bleep things and sometimes they don’t. I think that’s due personal taste. For some swear words I think it’s ok but for others it’s best to sensor a little because there might be young people watching.
But then I think of my dad who was watching a gangster series last week and if they would have used sensor in there they could bleep whole dialogues. It was pretty hilarious like geez can’t they use normal works?! Why do the swear all the time?! Ohh there he goes again…
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I think it’s not the subbers’ duty (or right) to change the scenario.
If the writer makes the heroes swear, they swear and it gets translated.
Also, when the viewer recognises the missing words, starts wondering whether there are more censored/missing lines.
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You would NEVER censor to the point where you omit a translation, let alone change the scenario. Like, never. It’s just a matter of whether you write “shit” or “sh**”.
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Actually, I’ve taken to writing them wholeheartedly. It’s just viki has its own G-rated sensor so even words like idit are pending viki approval. -.-
I write’em as I see 'em. I use stars. Some of the worst Korean words when translated don’t look bad at all.
I do it to capture the feeling so as much as possible is transmitted faithfully to OL.
One of the worst Korean cursewords is foaming at the mouth and wishing typhoid fever upon your enemies. The most common are variants of body fluid exchanging activities that happen in the bedroom.
What’s annoying to translate are the 씨’s, the 짓, the 인간 the condescension in the speech, the polite/impolite feeling when English has no supeformal speech etc.
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The audience for sh** is different from the audience for shit, in my opinion.
I think we should choose carefully what we watch. If we can’t stand swear words, maybe we shouldn’t be watching something that contains them.
Swear words in rom-coms are different from those in gangster movies.
Therefore, a person who watches gangster movies should be able to take the uncensored version. Otherwise, they would be watching cutsey rom-coms.
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I think that younger people shouldn’t be watching something inappropriate for their age. If they do, chances are they are already familiar with the swear word.
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Yeah. Most korean dramas are ages 14 and up, says so at the beginning of every drama! It gives an age and some of the dramas w/ profanities has a clear “19” (mature, or 19 and up) rating on the corner of the video lol
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The teams I’ve worked with that have sailor-level cursing characters without any debate decided viki censors won’t let us post the uncensored version so we’ve been using these kinds of curse words like: s***
Even the word btch, uncensored doesn’t get shown in the TD. srsly so many of our comments/segs went to auto-mod because of the viki censor. Even idiot. So still whatever is actually shown is quite G-rated. I think I wrote F-word for yeot. But it made total sense! Never checked if the editor let it through censored as F** off.
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I have a list of alternative insults for my subtitlers to use. We hear those swear words all the time in real life, we don’t want to promote them in subtitles, because the spoken word is over quickly and does not have such an impact as the written on the subtitle, which remains to be seen for 4-6 seconds and thus registers more forcefully.
Moreover, there are young teenagers watching, they may know them or even use them, but why condone its use? I don’t use asterisks and such, I just put something milder.
It also helps educate viewers about the great variety of insults and exclamations, when nowadays everybody uses the same 3-4 words all the time (Gordon Ramsay, do you hear me?).
But of course, this is just personal opinion. When I am not moderator but subtitler, I ask my moderator about her guidelines on this.
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Seems viki censor only knows English… We are forced to use stars or else the subtitle won’t save.
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Good question. One I’ve always wanted to ask. Although I thought it would probably not be a question of ‘allowed or not’, but rather ‘appropriate or not’, and more importantly, ‘accurate or not’.
Agree. It depends on the genre of the drama. Yet, in non-gangster genre, I’d still prefer better choice of (alternate) words, and do appreciate the asterisking of vulgar words if used because seeing some of the awful vulgar words on screen is such a turn off for me, personally, and particularly when the genre doesn’t call for its usage.
I actually do appreciate this auto-censor mechanism on Viki. While I wholeheartedly agree with translating it as it is spoken/scripted, I do believe some level of restraint would serve a good overall purpose. Not that it is necessary a need to withhold vulgarity from the younger than 14 age group, since with the vibrant internet and its ease of accessibility, there really is no way to ‘censor’ to be ‘protective’. That lies squarely on the shoulders of parents. Still, a little restraint is a good thing. Besides, I think it is also a reflection of quality work or good taste.
Without any intent to offend or single out any specific site, I do cringe whenever vulgar words are used in subbing, esp when inappropriately used, or there are other options of words to use that can also reflect the spoken/scripted line. For instances, in the currently airing Drinking Solo drama, I thought these instances of vulgarity were pretty tasteless and not appropriate. I’ve noticed such ‘vulgar’ usage on this channel happens often, which is one reason why I thought Viki’s volunteer community churns out more classy/accurate subs and would be my first choice of site for any drama. No doubt, it’s also thanks to the auto-censor mechanism.
http://i.imgur.com/pFTcaRc.gif
http://i.imgur.com/IWx1n2t.gif
http://i.imgur.com/2sB7Dna.png
Choice of translation for the scripted 개 쓰레기 gae sseulegi (lit. dog crap/trash or SOB, 狗 屎/废物) , I thought it was better to be literally subbed as dog crap or alternately as SOB (개자식 lit. son of a bitch, 母犬子) than the vulgar word ‘a**hole’. The word ‘crap’ though also vulgar, doesn’t sound as bad. Even then, I thought if using such a vulgar word is inevitable, inserting asterisks would be less tasteless. Also, it has nothing to do with East vs West influence or conservative vs liberal leaning. IMO, it’s a matter of appropriateness and quality.
Again, instances posted are just for sake of discussion and happen to be timely too. (I’ve seen worse instances in the past). Absolutely nil intent to denigrate any site or any translation.
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I agree with you, although the asterisks look a bit ridiculous to me. I vastly prefer alternate words.
Just out of curiosity, since you know Korean.
You say that 개 쓰레기 gae sseulegi lit. means dog crap, so it is translated trash or SOB.
I knew that
새끼 is a generic offensive word, often translated as crazy bastard/jerk/punk/brat/son of a bitch/bastard, (not literally bastard in the sense of illegitimate son). It can be easily combined to form other words such as 씨발새끼! (f*g bastard) and 개새끼!(son of a bitch)
개새끼 gaesaekki is Lit. ʺSon of a dogʺ Derived from개[gae] meaning ‘dog’ and 새끼.(offensive).
So my question is, what does saekki literally mean? It will help me select the right translation.
Here is my profanities and slang spreadsheet.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13g5wl5eaC9bknf7u-OsNJw7liBRJfUUK0NmAckqV7JA/edit?usp=sharing
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I’m not as well-versed in Korean as I hope to be. But below is what I understand (please take with a pinch of salt):
개 gae = dog (having watched so many Kdramas, we know there are variations of dog-related swear words. Adding ‘dog’ to it makes it all the more ‘derogatory’, in korean terms.)
새끼 saekki = young kid, young dog(i.e. puppy)
자식 jasig = child/offspring
Hence, 개새끼 gaesaekki and also 개자식 gaejasig = SOB/b*stard.
Anyone, please feel free to correct.
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Have you also considered the option of caption reading?
Asshole is one word
Son of a bitch is four words.
Sometimes captioning space needs to be considered when words are chosen.
It’s interesting that you consider asshole more vulgar than SOB. If you translate SOB into German you have something that means “son of a prostitute” and basically you are offending the person plus their mother (plus in my opinion you shouldn’t even use that word to offend someone, upsets my feminist tendencies 
). I know that the English term also has that tendendy but in German it doesn’t have the 2 meanings of female dog/women but just prostitute/whore. So in my opinion “asshole” basically only offends the person in a very non-discriminating way. Does that make sense? Like everyone can be an asshole, there is no need to put racist, degrading or anti-feminist words into it because asshole is pretty neutral in my opinion. Am I seriously arguing about neutral insults here But yeah, therefore I definitely prefer going for idiot or asshole instead of SOB. Let’s go with “crap” then? I feel that that may be the best alternative
I can only say it again, there is no censoring in Germany so it it’s annoying trying to replace the subs when you only see **** there. Sometimes I just keep it, sometimes I try to understand and translate the word. I do not think it’s good to just use any word, of course the best and most precise translation should be chosen, but I also definitely disagree with using lighter words than actually spoken because that isn’t translating then, it’s changing the content.
I do feel you with the cringing though. And that’s simply because I don’t use these harsh insults in my personal life, I am one of these persons who always makes up these weirdest insults that have no bite at all because I am not a person that likes insulting people.
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So, the worst insult I’ve seen, saekki, which can be combined with everything other, when used alone is just “young kid, son, puppy”? (Rolls eyes!) How can this be an insult?
Wait, then gaesaekki would mean just son of a dog, not a female dog, without the bitch=prostitute connotation (because female dogs go with many male dogs when in heat).
This means that the Korean insult does not also insult the morals of the insultee’s mother.
It just says that his parents are dogs.
And it seems that dogs are very hated in Korea. No wonder they don’t mind eating them. I see the trend changing, but traditionally it must have been the most despicable animal.
They have the same thing in Arabic, I think.
Hmm. Interesting.
@ajumma2 could you confirm this? What are your views?
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I didn’t really notice Viki censoring cuss words while subbing in English. I’ve only noticed it when I am making comments in the Subtitle Editor, Team Discussions tab. For instance, I was able to subtitle the word “poop” in but it wouldn’t let me use that word in Team Discussion and my comment went into the la la land of “waiting to be moderated” or something like that. Having said that, I honestly can’t remember if I tried using the cuss words without asterisk while subbing.
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Not that I’m an expert in cuss words or anything, but as a person who is bilingual in Korean and English, here is my understanding.
irmar is right that when you call someone 개새끼 (gae saekki), there is no prostitute connotation. Gae = dog; Saekki = off spring/child/pup. It could be short for Son of Dog or for Dog-like-being (개같은 자식//새끼 Gae Kateun Jjashik/Saekki). So in the second sense, parents are not involved and you are only insulting the offending guy.
It’s not that Koreans hate dogs more than other animals, but when you are calling someone a dog, it’s basically saying you are worse than human. As for eating dogs, a lot of Koreans actually do not eat dogs. It’s mostly the older generation (mostly men, but some women as well) who enjoy eating dog stew. Some Koreans believe that dog meat is great for men’s stamina and others believe that eating hot dog stew helps you overcome the extreme heat in the summer, etc. Koreans believe in 이열치열 (以熱治熱) - You overcome heat by eating hot food, and overcome cold by cold. I honestly think that Korean started eating dog meat long time ago when they were so poor that any meat would help them survive. And even though who do enjoy dog stew, it’s not like they just kill their own puppies or pet and serve them for dinner! That would cause an outrage. Koreans love their pets, too. For those who want to eat dog, they have to go to a specialized dog stew restaurant (which isn’t a lot as it’s not that popular) and eat the food there. I personally never had it, nor do I have any desire to try it ever! Well, if I’m starving to death… maybe… hmm. Let’s not go there. I digress…
Let me get back to the main topic.
The thing about keep the curse words the way it is while translating is that there often isn’t a one-to-one relationship between curse words in Korean and curse words in English. For example, saekki means “off spring.” In Korean, it could be used like bitch, son of bitch, asshole, jerk, punk, and yet, depending on the context, it could simply mean my lovely child, or just a playful term between friends. Another example is 년 (nyun) or 미친년 michinnyun (crazy girl/bitch). It could mean something like bitch, crazy biatch, or it could just be a sarcastic or playful or scolding term used by her own mom and obviously her mom isn’t calling her a bitch! So I really hate it when people just blankly sub Nyun as Bitch and Jjashik/Saekki as SOB. I honestly don’t think Koreans in general doesn’t curse as much as Americans, unless if you are part of a gangster or something. So that’s why when I translate Korean cuss words, it always turns out a bit milder in English. It’s not because I’m trying to sanitize or censor cuss words but I try to translate based on the connotation of what is being said in that context and it usually turns out to be milder terms in English.
Well, I hope I didn’t confuse you more.
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