So I’m going to ask a question I imagine has been asked so many times everyone is sick of hearing it, but alas, I must ask it, because I must know. The information I’m finding is not helping me.
I would like to volunteer to edit (ie. fix grammar and spelling mistakes) English subtitles. I do not speak any languages other than English, so I would not do any translating, but I do have an English degree, so I’m positive my editing skills would be useful.
My problem is I have no idea how to go about this or if even such a job exists. I’m looking through Viki’s help page, scouring the discussions, I’ve even seen ninja academy’s guide to all of the different roles on the site. But when I look on the site itself, it does not talk specifically about language Editors. I have the submit a request page pulled up, and I’ve selected that I want to contribute/language self-evaluation. But then under languages, I cannot choose just English. It’s either Chinese/English, Korean/English, or other.
So I’m confused. What am I supposed to do? Am I missing something?
You don’t need to know any other language to be a General Editor. Find a drama you like and contact the CM and/or English Moderator and express an interest in general editing. You can also contact an Editor (Found on the drama’s front page) and ask if they have any projects you can help with.
You are right, the English Editor does not have his/her own job description in teams.
You only read about it on the cover page. Otherwise they are called English Moderators. That’s why, in a team, you find more than one English Moderator. Because they are basically Editors. One or more will be the fluent in the source language people, and they will be Translation Editors. And some more will be English Editors, and one will be Chief Editor. That’s the one you want to contact if you want to do this job.
Not really. They should be enthusiastic viewers of Korean or Chinese or… dramas enough to have picked up mannerisms, ways of speech, some few words here and there which help understand the mood and so on.
The most important thing is excellent English grammar and especially syntax, to be able to make the English sentence sound… ehm… English. And a very good knowledge of the viki community guidelines regarding the formatting most teams use in subtitles.
Respected senior editor gwm808 has compiled this https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fe3dj5IWenyG6OHylvEEMCu2QwmQ5Rwiv_44NtaNcEQ/edit
which I have tried to revise and expand coming up with this https://docs.google.com/document/d/17yiuOkFXkrF7a-jUazj5Rh4_YyqVYEggJX_hey_0_xg/edit
If you decide to have a look at mine, be sure to enable the navigation pane at the left, as it has become a bit long
What editors should do when a subtitle seems unable to translate so a subtitle may not be smooth and hard to understand if you don’t understand a culture? Actually my point is what if a subtitle makes sense to a group of people but doesn’t on other group of people. For example, PLEASE NOTE THAT MY EXAMPLE COULD BE A SPOILER, when Tan Er is about to consummate the marriage with the prince, she said, “my aunt is coming.” It really confuse people if he or she doesn’t understand a culture.
Well, I guess the “aunt” is kind of international, but depending on the development it is not longer that much in use in my country as it was about 20 or 30 years ago.
In most cases translator either literally translate with an (explanation), or translate it to be fully understood and add (the literal one) or don’t add it.
I understand that term because I am a fan of “Chinese love story”. If i say “aunt” to my female friends who are not a fan of that, they don’t know. In short, young people could know more than old people because young people read that “Chinese love story” but old people don’t.
I don’t know the drama but as far as I could follow the scene, she wanted to “avoid” the wedding night. So she just said she had “a visitor”, be it the aunt, the Marquis, or whoever …
I thought there was a note on that line. She wanted to avoid the wedding night by saying her monthly had come. I’ll recheck.
I checked and thank you, I must have gotten distracted and left the note out! Corrected.
Thank you for posing this question – one I also have. While I know two languages fluently I also only want to be an editor. Honestly, it is so frustrating to see so many misspellings and incorrect grammar in my favorite dramas! I hope to find answers in your “replies.”
