About french, my language, thereās something I donāt understand and even bother me. The french NSSA started this year and thatās great. The team makes us sharpen our skills and the quality of our work - and theyāre doing an amazing job. Thatās a good thing for everyone. Weāre able to offer better translation for the viewers. But in the same time, Viki makes the choice of speed instead of quality. Why ? Just, why ?
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Weāll soon be asked to become editors. Just like what happened to the segmenters.
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Because ā¦ priorities!
Vikiās priority is to keep paying customers happy.
Customersā priority is to have the subtitles as soon as possible because they canāt wait to know what happened in the new episode.
There are some who are not in such a hurry and prefer to wait for quality subtitles. But they are the minority.
Our work is for:
- that minority who is willing to wait
- the future viewers who will come to watch after the show is almost or completely fnished, even months and years later (and there are many such viewers). Or re-watch it, if they liked it a lot.
So our work is not in vain. I am reminding everyone and myself, for when we are overcome by pessimism and start thinking āWhy am I doing this effort?ā
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We do not accept bas presubs and support volunteers !
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Exactly ! French is a complex language. We use tu and vous on different people and different occasions. There is no way AI can get it right.
That is just an example, there are all kinds of subtleties in every language that are not machine doable.
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We do not accept bad presubs and support volunteers! machine translations is not the way to please viewers
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Machine translation is not the way to please viewers!
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As a volunteer Spanish subtitler, I cannot begin to express how disappointed and discouraged I feel whenever Iām interested in collaborating on a project and discover that the series already comes with pre-subtitles. I understand that the Spanish-speaking community has been very vocal about wanting subtitles available from day one, but at what cost?
At the end of the day, I know this is a platform that needs to make money, but in the long run, is making a quick buck even worth it? As someone mentioned above, we need to provide quality subtitles for people who havenāt joined the platform yet and for those who want to rewatch the series. This is what will ensure loyalty and subscriber engagement.
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We have no right to do A&C let alone delete
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We have indeed no right to delete it all and start from scratch, but we definitely have the right Ɣnd the moral duty to do A&C!
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Thatās not true. We are allowed to do A&C. Viki even writes this in the mail for the CMs.
The CM just has to make sure that the CS knows how to handle it. It is even taught to the students at the Segging Academy. The entire NSSA program has therefore been revised.
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NSSA has changed to adapt to the new normal on Viki, we have adjust only at Level 2 (thatās one of the levels I teach) but on higher levels there are A&C with multiple languages. At the moment Iām a seggers on shows with more than 2 languages (the one with most has 4) that is A&C not adjust only. Viki is changing all the time so itās easy to miss if you arenāt on d.scord or discussion reading things (or NSSAs page).
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The other day I burst out laughing and went straight to my daughter to share the laughter. You see, on YT they have Spanish translated only dramas, and when they translate the Spanish to English they always make tons of mistakes that are so laughable it hurts my sides.
Example from Chinese drama.
LARGO, LARGO, LARGO!
For fluent Spanish speaker, reader, writer: is easy to recognize that the translation was VERY wrong.
Largo in Spanish has several meaning and one of them is GET OUT! or LEAVE!
Iām guessing it was an AI translation and ANOTHER word for LARGO is LONG.
You guessed what they wrote in English?
LONG, LONG, LONG!
According to the scene FL was āākicking outāā the ML so the correct English translation should have been Get out or Leave (there may be many other words used in other countries).
Anyway, the point is that MAYBE if they had used the word [VETE] which means LEAVE the LONG translated version mistake could have been avoided.
I DONāT understand why RakutenViki is using AI for their Spanish translations when they have so many people willing and able to give better translation in Spanish, although we have abusers wanting to sub in the Spanish Language that they have no business translating (but thatās another topic). I donāt know whatās the RUSH for vikiās viewers either. Que sera, sera. We can get get blue in our faces and never get an honest explanation from this site.
PS. My daughter didnāt find it funny since sheās (trying) learning her forgotten Spanish, and sheās frustrated encountering similar situations. I believe she gave up already, and I have to thank these useless translations (mainly done by AI translations).
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It feels quite sad that my days as a Spanish subber is coming to an end, I think viki created the TE reward thing because they knew more languages were going to become presubbed. And as a viewer I have to admit I do like fast subtitles, so I relate to viki and the viewers.
I cannot relate to people wanting bad subtitle but fast. I am French subtitler, editor and moderator. When I am lucky enough to get a project to moderate, I have it subbed in as less time as possible with quality subtitles. I rely on a team to help me get the job done. I think Viki could change thing by letting us do the translation before it is available to the public.
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I think the problem is that Viki gets (some) shows later than other streaming platforms, so they try to make up for it by getting it out asap. You can make subscribers stay if they know the show will be available here soon AND with good subtitles in many languages, however if they have already watched it elsewhere and it happens to them more often, they will give up on Viki and move on.
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We have three cases
** KCW shows.**
KCW understandably wants to be the first to make its own shows available, so Viki has them hours later. In this case I can understand that every hour counts and they need to have the translation made ASAP.
** N-F shows.**
Those are available on Viki months after the first release, because of the license agreements between them. In that case, one day or two later makes no difference at all.
** All others (I think the majority).**
Those are shown very soon after airing. Here is the rub. Īere is the case when the viewers have a choice, wait a little bit for quality subtitles or not. And Viki didnāt want to leave them a choice to go watch elsewhere and maybe stop renewing their subscription. No matter how much we clamor, itās veeeery unlikely that something will change.
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Other examples of french presubs : Painkiller becomes antiacide (yes antacid), they changed the prescription. Rein (kidney) becomes rien (nothing) So heāll get a nothing transplant. And some sentence have so many negatives that it takes a while to understand. They also use old expressions that no one uses anymore. So please, donāt think we only need a TE to fix it.
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The Mr./Ms./Miss problem wasnāt the worst. When the 2FL was going to get more clients, the machine translated ä½ ęØäøŖęå°±č”äŗ" = You can beat them (potential clients) one by one." Women Walk the Line would have been better off starting with human subs rather than Mango subs. It was an editing nightmare.
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Unless those people were masochists, I donāt think this would improve the chance to make them her clients. 
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