I came across this article while browsing through my Facebook group posts.
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I know what you mean! I keep our family genealogy and when people tell me ‘4th cousin, or second cousin twice removed’ It is useless! That does not tell me exactly how they are related! I ask them to give me their generational information so I can understand how they fit in. I wish English had proper terms for relationships but I guess relationships were not that important to the early speakers of English and like the majority of Americans, English is not our family’s ancestral language - it was the trade language that became a primary language with later generations. So a lot was lost due to acculturation.
And the general lack of formality and polite speech is a continuing erosion in the U.S. When I was confronted by hostile people at work, as an automatic reflex, I tended to revert to very formal speech but that REALLY 정말! triggers a lot of people here. 
A simple and old-fashioned, polite phrase, “Yes, Madame.” Similar to '아주머니 ’ nearly got my head torn off one time! That person thought I was calling her the madame of a whorehouse! 
She did not come from a background which used those words. So I have a problem here in the US with sounding too ‘hoity-toity’. (fancy and snobby) I have to be careful and dumb down my speech.
In the dramas, I prefer to hear the actual relationship terms like • 형 hyung, 누나 noona, 언니 oni, 오빠 etc. My persona; preference is to use exact words that tell you exactly how people are related. My thoughts are, people are watching Korean dramas, they should learn relationship terms and general culture. Just put in a T/N explaining what the words mean at least once per show so people learn what it means.
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I think I already said in one of my earlier posts that my personal preference is to keep the Korean relationship terms such as Ahjumma, Ahjeossi, Oppa, etc. since most viewers who visit Viki are at least somewhat familiar with those terms. Not only that, but I’ve seen “Oppa” translated as “Brother” in dramas where it turns out that the guy had feelings for the girl which may give the viewers the wrong impression that there is an incestuous relationship unless it is properly explained by a T/N. Same goes for “Ahjeossi”. I don’t think calling someone familiar “Sir” or “Mister” sounds right. But, this is just my personal thought…
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I always love when you work in dramas bc the translations flow so naturally and is a mark difference with certain people that ‘‘declare’’ they know Korean/English so well, but fail miserably in their translations. The difference between your translations and other team members are like night and day and it shows so clearly. The sentence are ‘‘backwards’’ and I just get so frustrated reading subtitles like that I drop the drama right away. What’s so hard in writing; You are not hungry? Are you hungry? They write; Aren’t you hungry? That aren’t started in the sentence first is so wrong and it annoys me a lot. .
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Thank you for the compliment, but I have to disagree with you as to the competency of the Kor-Eng translators. As a viewer and volunteer, I have noticed a marked improvement in the quality of the English subtitles for K-dramas. It may be true that the Vikiers who were around when there were not as many competent Kor-Eng translators had to rely heavily on the editors to make sense of some of the subtitles, but in the short time that I’ve worked as a Viki subber, I had the pleasure of working with subbers who are very much fluent in both Korean and English. In fact, I have noticed over-editing in many instances. Sometimes even the best translators make less than perfect word choices or make subtitles that are too literal, especially when we are under the pressure to provide the subs as fast as we can. In order to keep those translators who are doing an amazing job from getting discouraged, please cheer them on.
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Again, thank you for complimenting my work and I didn’t mean to say that you discourage others. By the way, I don’t have any particular team that I work with. I just wanted to share with you my opinion that I actually have noticed a huge improvement in the general quality of the subtitles, at least with the K-dramas. You are absolutely right that we should embrace and appreciate feedbacks though. I also agree with you that the subbers are stretched thin with increased number of projects. However, I think the competent Kor-Eng subbers are “between a rock and a hard place” in that they cannot possibly spend all their personal time subbing but being choosy with the projects might earn them the wrong reputation of being arrogant. Please know that I really appreciate you and please continue cheering on the good subbers, as you are doing with me.
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I had a similar conversation with @irmar about certain subbers taking on projects where they hardly contribute, or none at all. I absolutely agree with both of you that it is not a good practice to join a subtitle team and not make a minimum number of contributions. I still want to give the subbers a benefit of doubt but I agree that it is very frustrating. With regards to “team”, I think I misunderstood you. I’ve seen many Other Language subbers form teams to work together and I actually think it might be a good idea for Kor-Eng translators to do that as well. This way we would know we have each other’s back and we can also work on mentoring the new subbers. Just a thought…
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I though that you didn’t joined the team on your own choice, but collaborated with them whenever you could, but for what I’m reading here; you are saying the Korean/English subbers don’t form a team?
That’s so odd and makes no sense whatsoever bc if they have moderators for all other language, why not for Korean too?
I don’t think I explained myself well here. From my own experience, Kor-Eng subbers usually either get invited to join the project by the CM or CE, or we send private messages to them for each project. In a sense, we are freelancers. What I saw from comments is that there seems to be OL teams that take on projects as a team. For example, “I would like to be the Portuguese Moderator. I have a good team.” Of course, English editors have their go-to subbers and they send out messages for recruitment when the need arises. Again, speaking for myself, I pick and choose the project myself although I do get invitations from CMs and CEs. I like the freedom to choose, but sometimes, I wish I had a team that I can not only count on to share the workload but also bond with.
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I don’t want you to get the wrong impression that anyone is excluded from joining any English team. As far as I know, we just don’t have any pre-established teams in place like OLs, that’s all. And, thank you! You are very sweet.
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@vivi_1485
@zinniac1216
@mirjam_465
@angelight313_168
I laughed out loud at your posts about bowing at work, saying out loud Korean words, and phrases watched in shows, or after binge watching.
I’ve done the same! It’s so relatable! 
Since I also watch a lot of C-Dramas, the same also happens, so hilariously funny 
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are they only coming in with English subs or all languages? We might need other language teams hence the translation editor?
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@vivi_1485, @angelight313_168, I may be wrong but the recent dramas that are coming “pre-subbed”, such as River Where the Moon Rises, are different from the “English Subtitles Only” shows, such as A Good Supper. These “pre-subbed” dramas come with English translations only, so there is no real need for Origin-language-to-English subbers, but they still need to be translated to Other Languages. That’s why for these dramas, the English team is very small, usually consisting of only the TE, GE and CE to check for correctness of the translations and make any necessary edits. I think what will happen is that as Viki gets more shows “pre-subbed”, there will be greater need for editors and the English subbers who are not competent enough to be editors will have less opportunity to volunteer.
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I know, that Episode 6 ending was a shocker. I think there will be many more twists to the story as the show supposedly has 20 episodes. I will let you know if you should go back to watching it. No, Mouse does not come pre-subbed. I think we actually have pretty good subbing team and we have 2 TEs, and GE and CE who know Korean as well so I think there are enough sets of eyes to catch any glaring errors.
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Yes, I was thinking that maybe it hasn’t been edited yet.
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English also has 26 new Korean words. Banchan (side dishes) is an English word now.
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Oh wow! Thanks for sharing the article!
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If the drama is not presubbed:
- Channel Manager (or sometimes Viki Staff) cuts the parts
- Segmenters create the segments
- Chief Segmenter checks the segments (QC = Quality Check)
- English Subbers translate the episode
- Translation Editor (the only editor who has to know the original language) checks whether the translation is correct, without worrying about perfect English or formatting
- General Editor checks whether the English is correct and according to the rules, and also if the formatting is right
- Chief Editor does the final checks, including checking for consistency and whatever the GE may have forgotten, and has the end responsibility for the English translation
- CE might ask CS to adjust some segments
- Other Languages can start translating. How exactly they work, depends on the language and the individual moderators. The big languages usually have more hierarchy than the small ones.
If the drama is presubbed
- Channel Manager (or sometimes Viki Staff) cuts the parts
- The Chief Segmenter (sometimes assisted by one or more extra segmenters, but usually alone) checks the segments (with the subtitles already in them) that came with the show, and adjusts them where needed (A&C = adjust and combine) and adds extra segments for things like team credits and (in case they are not there yet) OST lyrics.
- If the presubs are very bad, some CEs choose to add some so-called “Presub Editors” to the team. These are often editors who are still in training, but sometimes also experienced ones. Their job is just to make extremely bad presubs a bit more normal so that the TE doesn’t have to deal with the mess.
- Translation editor checks the translation
- General Editor checks English plus formatting
- Chief Editor does final checks
- CE might ask CS to adjust some segments
- Other Languages can start translating
So the other-language teams don’t translate the presubs as they come, but a version that’s adjusted by the CS and the English editors.
Editors for Other Languages edit the subs made by their own subbers (and for the smaller languages, subber, editor, and moderator might be one and the same person).
Channel Managers don’t have to know the language of the drama, but they should know how things work in general. Sadly, that’s by far not always the case and then it’s usually the Chief Editor who has to explain everything and/or do part of the CM’s job. And that’s okay as long as the CM is a reasonable person, but sometimes that is not the case, either.
I think it’s okay for a CM to assign a role to him-/herself (in fact I don’t even understand why some don’t), but of course it should be a role they are actually capable to fulfill.
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