Sometimes the first subs are written hastily because the show is popular or they are simply badly written (auto-translated etc) because the subber is sloppy. Most times, mistakes get caught at editing but some of them may remain for a long time and get edited much later.
I was wondering if you ever re-visit your old projects to correct the glaring mistranslations, the missing sentences, the names etc or you just forget about them.
Also, do you go back and add a more accurate term or edit a revised name for people and places?
If I’m not the moderator, I don’t revisit projects unless I’m asked to, because I don’t want to mess up their process.
If I’'m the moderator, I might revisit the first few parts, if later on a meaning of a sentence or a name becomes clearer.
However, I don’t tend to revise my work in general. I do the best I can, edit according to my abilities, and move on.
If a project has bad subtitles, I tend to wait for an editing of the original team. If that doesn’t happen, I do the best I can and move on. However, if the original team sent a message after a long time that they did some serious editing, I would revise my subs for corrections.
I think some projects get released with Google translated or otherwise bad subs, which shouldn’t happen, but there is a certain amount of time I can spend on each project. Our involvement has to end at some point.
“Glaring mistranslations” can only be glaring if you know some Korean. And if you do, you wouldn’t translate incorrectly in the first place.
Missing sentences are a different story.
Names I decide in the beginning how they should be spelled and follow the pattern blindly.
I think if a CM decides to improve English translations, the entire team should be informed. But, as @glykeria said, our time is limited, and new projects keep coming.
You wouldn’t translate incorrectly if you were indeed translating from Korean to English. But what if you were just google-translating or churning out sub-standard subs?
Should I go back and edit my “other Language” subs to match the video dialogue, if the wrong ones ever got corrected, or should I just hope the viewer will get the general meaning?
Of course I have no intention of following old projects to their graduation ceremony and first grand-child! I have too many hours of watching ahead of me to find time for tweaks.
About the names, I do that also. I meant like a name for a place or something. If at episode 18 I happen to finally understand that a place mentioned in episode 1 has a special meaning for someone speaking the original language, then I think the subs in my language should reflect it. Or inside jokes that I’m too slow to catch early. I want to give the viewer who uses the Greek subs an experience as close to the native speaker as possible (ideally, realistically I’m not even close).
I think if the original Kor- Eng moderator doesn’t let you know that they caught a cheating, lying, unworthy volunteer who was claiming to know Korean and just Google translated (yes, I have strong feelings about this), which resulted to a new volunteer in a shining armor having to rewrite the whole thing, you have no obligation to check back on your projects.
But if a moderator informs the other languages teams that the English subs were completely changed, preferably with specific instructions and not “just redo the whole thing”, I think we should try to revise our work, if we have the time.
Oh, about the name I think the OP means names that are mistranslated in the first place. I have encountered some really bad subs, where “her” meant Woman 1 and the translator wrote Woman 2. It wouldn’t really make sense, but I don’t really speak Korean, so I couldn’t be sure. But in a later episode, in a flashback, it was another translator and they gave the correct name of Woman 1. I happened to remember and went back and corrected it, but it’s not easy to do that.
And the glaring ones, for example where the Evil Googlater wrote “I’ll kill him” when the hero said “I’ll save him”. If I don’t watch the series, and just do my part, I might never know that I translated the wrong thing, because someone else wrote the wrong thing.
Sometimes the English subs are correct, but difficult to understand. These the English language editors call rough subs, and it’s their job to “fix” them, make them more fluent and natural sounding. That’s when I wonder if I should go back after some time. But I generally let them go.
Hahaha!
YES! Ugh, and don’t get me started on sub quality control!
Automated online translations like those from google, some times give completely wrong or hilarious results. Especially between languages with very different structures.
Many people use them, though, and they don’t even check the outcome. They just use the translation as is. I suppose they may not even know the language and don’t realize they are producing bad subtitles. I’ve watched quite a few shows like that.
As a subtitler, if I can understand or find out the meaning, I try to write a sensible sub in my language. If I can’t, I translate what I see and hope nobody catches me
I’m not talking about difficult wordings, spelling mistakes or “brain-melt” mistakes. I do them, too, in quantities. I’m talking about unintelligible subs that don’t make sense at all and that I have to either reproduce or skip.
As for sub quality control, don’t get me started on one-liners that get “corrected” out of context!
You are not allowed to use Google Translate to sub (or any other online translater). Yes, you can check certain words you don’t know the meaning of but it’s against the rules to copy paste Google Translate translations. If you saw someone did that contact the language moderator, CM or report it directly to Viki with proof.
A CM, Mod or Viki cannot keep an eye on this all the time so when it comes to this it’s best to inform people it happened.
But when I’m in the editor, and the eng sub is obviously google translate, for example “Am killing tomorrow hers”, I can’t know who wrote it, so I can’t report them. I can PM the mod or the CM, but it’s not like they are always available. Sometimes they’re been inactive for years, or they might have more pressing IRL situations. So things can get through the crack, it’s inevitable.
@glykeriaare If the english subtitles are not locked you can change the from -> to language thing to see who made a sub. If it’s locked PM a CM or a mod who’s in charge of the language which is messed up. He/she can unlock to see who the culprit is.
I had cases in channels I manage of people using 3rd party subs and where people translated in an other language on purpose… like let’s say adding Spanish subs in Hindi (not that it was the case). I was always so glad when people told me or took it directly to Viki and PM me about it too.
