When it comes to Kristelrose translations in Swedish I can tell you that she’s good, and a pure joy to work with. There are some good and some bad translations here on Viki when it comes to the Swedish language.
I think a moderator helping out is a great idea, and I think an experienced moderator should try to help newbies. We are all different and I do understand that not everyone might want to help a new subtitler but isn’t the whole idea about a volunteer community that we want to have the best translations in our own language. And for that to happen we all need to help eachother out.
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This is what I mean, it is not fair to judge even a single translation with GT because tools are so unreliable. In my Swedish sentence “dig” indicates “you” which is not shown in the English translation with GT. Although, this sentence is not the perfect example of where subs can go horrible wrong when translated with a tool to English and yet still make complete sense in the OL.
I agree with you that it must be very difficult for CMs to know whether OL subbers are proficient enough to provide quality subtitles. To connect it with the topic OP brought up, it must be even more difficult when it’s a small language and you have very few “established” or “proven” contributors from that language that can vouch for their language skills (though this practice is not without fault either.) But I sincerely hope that GT hasn’t been used by people to determine a subber’s proficiency in subbing if the CM themselves are not familiar with the language, this could lead to a lot of unfair decisions.
I understand the desperation to resort to using GT to check the quality since we can’t know all languages in the world, and it is difficult to find proven and trusted people who know the language, especially if it’s a lesser known one, and who can vouch for the quality.
Also just want to add that I in no way doubt OPs skills in Slovenian, I don’t know the language so I can’t judge it, I’m just simply commenting on your method.
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I went a little off-topic with my earlier replies. But as @maria_lavendula_77 said… coming from a small language community just like OP, in some cases it can be difficult to find an active moderator to help out new subbers or even subbers who don’t want the moderator responsibilities. I finished my first project with Maria and had so much fun while learning a lot from her. Luckily she encouraged me and gave me the confidence to take on my own projects as a moderator which opened up a lot of more possibilities for me 
So to OP I just want to say, if you finish your projects and can’t find a moderator to work under, don’t be afraid to step up as one yourself since you are a QC. As you say, your language community is small which means that you probably will work alone on it, or take in 1-2 people along the way. It’s not like with larger language communities where managing a big team can be very difficult and stressful at first. The experience won’t differ much from being a solo subber on a project.
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It would be nice if you go to GT and give them Feedback about that word. I do it all the time, and what they do is that they analyze what you tell them, and if they accept your feedback the Swedish word ‘‘gid’’ will be changed to ‘‘you’’ and when I go back instead of seeing ‘‘to’’ I’ll see the ‘‘you’’. Every little bit helps; so we are doing a good thing by improving the GT tool. Is a process where you add your Swedish subtitle and submit the corrected word. It’s very easy, and satisfying to see the corrections you made are been used in the GT. If they get approved though.
kristelrose
I understand the desperation to resort to using GT to check the quality since we can’t know all languages in the world, and it is difficult to find proven and trusted people who know the language, especially if it’s a lesser known one, and who can vouch for the quality.
Years, years back I worked as a Moderator in a drama, and I had to recruit subbers in my Team in OL I didn’t know one bit; like French/Brazilian etc… I would let the subbers do the work, and on my spare time I resort to use translation tools, and thankfully most of my subbers were really proficient and the subtitles/translation were good. But I had a few that were deceivers, and I let them go from the team. When it comes to demanding Quality I was strict on that part, and back then we didn’t had that many OL translators like we do now. So translation tools back then were my helping hand.
What about in English? Why you chose Spanish? Show me the English translation given by that GT from your incorrect Dutch sentence. How you know is correct (right) in Spanish? I’m confused. I’m not understanding if the Dutch sub was written purposely wrong by you: why is it correct in Spanish?
BUT PLEASE:
Give them (GT) the feedback about that. It’s very important to make appropriate corrections so people using GT get a fair translation.
I usually check English first, and rarely in Spanish, but I did it just to confirm that the Slovenian translation from masakocevar36_3 in English and Spanish made sense, and it did.
You can go to her page pick any of her Slovenian subs she wrote, and check it out so you can confirm what I wrote before.
This sub is horrendeus and beyond saving. The google translate says it’s correct.
We should never be basing our judgement of someone else’s subs based on google translate.
I personally don’t really care for google translate. It has caused more harm then good for me. If I had to report every single incorrect sentence, that I saw on Viki, that was caused by google translate, I’d never have time to translate anything.
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Why are you blaming GT when it was obviously a person that did a literal translation (you yourself wrote that) so of course GT won’t be able to give a correct translation based on a dishonest act this other person did when adding those subtitles at viki site.
When did you guys lost me? I think I said it over and over again: If the person is proficient enough in the Language when inserted on any translation tool (not only GT) the translation/sentence for us will make complete sense. Is the proficiency of the individual in any OL what contributes for any translation tool to help others get a good translation in English.
The reason why @mirjam_465 feel GT translate didn’t function well for her either was because she chose to add an incorrect Dutch sentence. That I’m still waiting for her answer as to why she did that because I just can’t understand what she was trying to prove to me.
zyxw
If I had to report every single incorrect sentence, that I saw on Viki, that was caused by google translate, I’d never have time to translate anything.
Proficiency is the key word here.
GT didn’t cause the incorrect sentence; the individual that claimed to know a Language they really didn’t know was the main cause of the incorrect sentence because I have also checked your subtitles in Polish, and I never had a problem in getting a CORRECT translation in English.
I’m not defending any translation tool, but give to Cesar what belongs to Cesar: If we didn’t had some subbers claiming they know a Language that they really don’t know, we wouldn’t see so many weird subtitles here at RViki.
The reason why you and I get frustrated is because we know these individuals are doing something wrong, and causing poor Quality subtitles in the dramas/movies etc., and when it comes to Editing this mess, OMG! the work and energy we have to put in to fix that mess is insurmountable.
My suggestion to give feedback to GT is voluntary only, and if we all share our knowledge with others, we are just being part of the solution to a better translation from TT like GT which can be a helping hand tool for those who need it.
Express reply on my thoughts on this current GT-debate: if we consider that Google Translate is not good enough to just use it for drama translations, I don’t see how we could consider that it’s good enough to ensure that someone is a good translator?
(/ In my view, one of the best ways to ensure that someone is a good translator in a language we don’t speak is to check what drama(s) they’ve been working on recently and contact the moderator for that language. On the other hand, I’ve never been a channel manager, meaning I never had to check this myself.)
This being said, it is true that in French (my mother tongue), we have great online translation tools for English-French (or vice-versa): dictionnaries, glossaries, for the technical vocabulary there’s often a Wiki page in English with a direct link to a French version, etc. I do use Google translate sometimes when I’m not sure about an English version, but that’s from the original language when it’s available: sometimes the English versions feel “too corrected”, as in it feels like a part of the meaning is missing or was added (from the actor’s tone, or because something said very quickly is translated in many-many words, or the contrary, etc.). Thus, if I couldn’t fully understand the original (I speak Japanese and a little Korean), I will check the original version in Google Translation, try to understand how the whole sentence was built, find the link with the English version, understand where the English translators were coming from with this wording, and try to convey a summary of all that in the French version. To sum up, it’s definitely an advanced use of Google Translate, and then, yes, it’s useful. But only as a “help/tool” among others, not for a full on translation or to decide on someone’s level in their language. At least not in my view, of course.
Going back to the initial post and question: If you do want to become a professional translator @masakocevar36_3, I would highly advise you to correct others. Because we learn a lot when we do: sometimes they will have a very good idea we wouldn’t have, it makes us notice habits that aren’t so good but didn’t pay much attention to before etc. You truly do learn a lot as a translator when you correct others.
This being said, you can be a moderator and ask someone else in your language to be an editor, this way you won’t suffer this part if you truly don’t want to do it?
I understand the issue when good dramas can’t be translated because there aren’t enough moderators, making hiring of translators impossible, but here it sounds more like you want to be able to work on (even) more projects yet you can’t as the projects don’t have mods. While, especially if the community is small, you -could- be moderator-editor-translator, so… no more issue?
You would be facing the number of projects limit of course, but this limit was set up so that volunteers wouldn’t be overwhelmed with the work on Viki, and it’s the same in every country: what truly matters is to complete projects, not to start a ton in parallel. Which is, once again, true for every country and one of the basis on Viki: I truly think there should be no reason to make an exception just because the community is small.
What -could- be done is that Viki would set up a list of “less active languages”, where the lack of moderators truly blocks projects, and accept that for these languages the channel manager would “lead” the translators. Of course not on the translation part, but the channel manager would “open to translation” the episodes little by little, close them when they’re done and checked (by the translator(s)), discuss potential translation issues with the translators (not the ones purely related to the target language, but when the translators aren’t 100% sure of what the English means here, and how about this different wording a bit later, does it have a consequence on the meaning, etc.) (yeah, I’m mad about translation details…), maybe set up “format rules” and check that they’re applied by the translators (make sure that the br are not used inappropriately and such details), etc. To sum up, everything a moderator would do… save for the language-part.
It would mean a lot more work for the CM, for sure, but precisely it would be the CM’s responsibility to accept the new translator, and everything that comes with it. And when the new translator is more experienced on how Viki works, they can become a moderator for the language, and hopefully little by little there will be less languages in that list, etc.
Edit: or maybe experienced moderators on the same project could do it. “Experienced” as in Gold QCs only (saying that as a “simple QC” myself, who probably won’t be “gold” before a few more months, and while I completely trust on my abilities as a translator and a team-manager). And if “IT issues” impose to appoint a “higher position in the language” before translators can be recruited, it could be “supervisor” or whatever, just something not as global as “moderator” yet showing that the role is about setting and checking some main guidelines.
Anyway, just an idea, maybe it’s a very bad one / it was already tried and abandonned!
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In English, it’s wrong, too:
My example proved that you can insert a wrong sentence into a translation tool and get a correct one in return. I applied Spanish logic to Dutch so it was only logical that the Spanish sentence came out as something that made sense but in Dutch, it’s still an incomplete sentence. So if the subber’s native tongue is Spanish or any language with similar rules and they claim to know Dutch, a lot of their subtitles might make complete sense to you if you put them through a translation tool.
It becomes a correct sentence in Portuguese, too:
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Also about GT:
I respect those who are in favor/against GT because we live in democracy.
But in my opinion, unless we want to check if a volunteer might be cheating here by copying and pasting from GT, we do not need any translating tool.
We can trust smaller communities are responsible enough and give them a chance. That was always the procedure here and it made sense, we can’t assume everyone is trying to abuse from the start.
A Marvelous day for everyone! ^^
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And even for that, it’s not reliable. Translation tools are constantly evolving so the moment the cheater put the subtitles into the tool, there may have been a different outcome then the moment we are checking it, making us think they did not use the tool.
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LoL Yes, you’re right. I was still stuck in the past 
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Normally I dislike laughing at the translations people make, because that might make them feel bad, but it is a google-translated sentence from a part which was fully gt, so I feel justified…
Almost all of the examples of translating mistakes that are posted in that thread were caused by blatantly copy-pasting google translate.
I was writing that post two years ago and those subs were made probably more then 4 years ago. At that time google translated sentences looked like that.
Why am I blaming gt? Because I copied English version into gt and it gave me the exact same Polish version that was written by this unfortunate subber.
When I encounter some sketchy translation, I always copy it into machine transtators first to see, if the the person who made them just makes such mistakes or if they use gt or something similar. I can work with a person, who is honest, but what’s the point of working with someone, who just copies? I can do it myself XD
And if the person is not proficient enough, it can also make sense, as we’ve seen above.
Those two words give the same result, when translated to English and Spanish. However one is used for men and the other one is used for women. Using them in any other way is a mistake. We can’t know, if the the right version was used based solely on google translate.
I mean, yeah, it’s not the knife that kills somebody, it’s the killer who does so.
I agree, I sometimes switch into the captions or search in the transcript for things. In one drama there was a translation "Team Leader Han said the reason for the fire at the scene is gasoline?” and it didn’t fit for me, as Mr Han has been already dead for some time. So I searched in the transcript and it indeed turned out to be more like “The Team Leader Han’s death was caused by gasoline?” XD
But going back to the topic: I don’t think the small size of the community is that much of a problem in this case. Once someone is able to become a moderator, they can just continue next projects as a moderator without problems.
The problem might be reaching enough subs. I think many people here would be willing to bend the rules a little bit, if they heard of someone from such a small community that there isn’t even a single active moderator for that language.
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I think it’s a very sensible idea.
I actually had thought that the CM could appoint him/herself or some other moderator as that language moderator temporarily and guide the translator - but then I remembered that you cannot be added as moderator of a language unless you have already done 3000 subs in that language. I recently experienced this when I wanted to add someone for traditional Chinese but most of their work so far was in simplified Chinese, Impossible to add the person, although it’s the same language, the script is different. It gave me an error message.
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@mirjam_465
My example proved that you can insert a wrong sentence into a translation tool and get a correct one in return. I applied Spanish logic to Dutch so it was only logical that the Spanish sentence came out as something that made sense but in Dutch, it’s still an incomplete sentence. So if the subber’s native tongue is Spanish or any language with similar rules and they claim to know Dutch, a lot of their subtitles might make complete sense to you if you put them through a translation tool.
Is een tafel according to you is an incomplete wrong Dutch sentence. Since is wrong: why is it wrong? An incomplete sentence is not a wrong sentence: it’s just an incomplete sentence. Es una mesa is also an incomplete sentence too. More things have to be added there to make it a complete sentence. ES UNA MESA is wrong too because it should be ESO ES UNA MESA.
Eso es una mesa/That’s a table [Complete]
Es una mesa/It’s a table [Incomplete]
By the way, this is not logical at all because no one in their right mind that Knows Spanish would claim they know Dutch. Some Language are too complex to even dare to claim one knows it, and Dutch is Definitely one of them.
Portuguese on the other hand has some similarities with Spanish and a Portuguese subber implied to me they could do Spanish subtitles, and when I tested the girl she failed the test. I told her to stick to making subtitles in Portuguese which was her native Language.
BUT there are Portuguese people that are very fluent in Speaking and understanding Spanish, but when it comes to writing a sentence since they are not familiar with the Spanish grammar structure the sentence/subtitle halfway through are wrong; although it makes perfect sense to them.
Only when the person has lived in a Spanish country for a long time, and they go to School there they can be very proficient. I had a FRENCH subber didn’t know English, but knew perfect Spanish and French (his native language) so I allowed him to sub in both Language. That worked out fine for me. He passed the test I gave him (a French girl helped me to confirm his French skills).
But we are going off topic so I’m done.
We are talking about It is a table here, not about That is a table. The word it should be omitted here in Spanish and Portuguese, but not in Dutch and English.
Es una mesa = Het is een tafel.
Eso es una mesa = Dat is een tafel.
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mirjam_465
Is een tafel according to you is an incomplete wrong Dutch sentence. Since is wrong: why is it wrong? An incomplete sentence is not a wrong sentence: it’s just an incomplete sentence. Es una mesa is also an incomplete sentence too. More things have to be added there to make it a complete sentence. ES UNA MESA is wrong too because it should be ESO ES UNA MESA.
Eso es una mesa/That’s a table [Complete]
Es una mesa/It’s a table [Incomplete]
[/quote]We are talking about It is a table here, not about That is a table. The word it should be omitted here in Spanish and Portuguese, but not in Dutch and English.Es una mesa = Het is een tafel.
Eso es una mesa = Dat is een tafel.
No matter what; you proved my point. If the information given to GT or any translation tool in any OL for that fact, if is written correctly you will get from GT a correct sentence. You chose to add an incorrect Dutch sentence, and that is why the Spanish sentence was also wrong/incomplete sentence. You can not continue to say is correct in Spanish because is not: It may seem correct to you because when you read it makes sense to you, but to me a Spanish speaking, reader, writer person is wrong because is incomplete just like the Dutch sentence was incomplete. You can Not say it was correct in Spanish nor @zyxw in her example because is not correct.
BUT I won’t argue anymore about this subject because it went way off topic, and there’s no point in debating this anymore.
No, it is the way you and other Spanish and Portuguese speakers speak even in English. You tend to leave out the word “it” in English, just because you are used to doing so in your own language. For me, it doesn’t make sense at all cause in my language, you absolutely can’t leave it out.
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