Viki as Translation Editors

Contributing
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I am watching “Reborn Rich” and I am actually quite proud of the translator(s). Sure, there are certain subtitles I find questionable but I don’t watch any Korean show expecting to agree 100% with the translation. I am not going to fault the translators for not getting the industry-specific terms perfectly correct, just as I don’t expect them to know all the latest slangs, acronyms, or four character idiomatic expressions. By the way, the show has a team of English editors who are volunteers.

As someone whose portfolio is heavily invested in the equities, I read a lot of business articles and had no problem understanding what “stock manipulation” meant. In fact, here is a portion from a Forbes Business Council post: “The Basics Of Stock Manipulation
Stock manipulation occurs when individuals or institutions attempt to alter the behavior of others with the underlying goal of making money from others’ misfortune. The sad truth is those market manipulators are often willing to artificially change or lie about prices, supply, demand and other factors that determine the value of financial securities.”

It also happens that I worked as a court clerk for a judge in a criminal court for 8 years. During the 8 years, I wrote many sentencing minute orders as well as the commitment orders for the Department of Corrections. Taken from the same above-mentioned article, "A suspended sentence is where a judge sentences a defendant to jail or prison time, but then delays imposing the sentence in order to let the defendant serve time on probation.

  • If the defendant completes probation successfully, the judge typically dismisses the case without placing the defendant in custody.
  • But if the defendant violates probation , the judge can impose the original sentence that was suspended (which may include jail or prison time)."

In other words, the criminal for whom imposition of sentence has been suspended is in fact on probation.

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“proud” from Oxford Language Dictionary: “feeling deep pleasure or satisfaction as a result of one’s own achievements, qualities, or possessions or those of someone with whom one is closely associated.”
I admit I looked at the legal discussion of suspension and probation with my viewpoint as a lawyer and so I was more concerned about this than an ordinary viewer. “Probation occurs when a court orders you to be subject to a period of supervision. There may be conditions placed on your period of probation, such as refraining from drug and alcohol use and taking routine drug tests or completing drug counseling. A suspended sentence occurs when you are sentenced to prison time, but the sentence is suspended. The convicted person does NOT have to spend any time in prison under a suspension and may not even be supervised as is the case with “probation” which usually includes supervision.” (Sorry, I lost the reference for the prior 4 sentences – not my creation!) As I said in my original post that sometimes being fluent in both Korean and English is not enough. Often additional research is required to ensure the subtitle is correct.
I stand by my point that “stock manipulation” is not a crime per se in Korea. In certain well defined cases market manipulation is allowed if the purpose is to stabilize the market. However, “Market price manipulation” is definitely a crime in Korea. ( As an aside, I have actually litigated cases involving large investments in regulated securities and even had the dubious pleasure of taking the statement of the Vice President for Research of a major investment firm at 1 Wall Street in New York City, so I do have somewhat specialized experience.) It is not that I didn’t understand what was being said, I was addressing the errors of omission and commission in what was said.
But we aren’t here to count the number of angels dancing on the head of the pin to argue Korean jurisprudence. The issue is, does viki need a translation editor? The subber left out “price”, subbed very incompletely the sentence about “connection”, left out “tax” which are all in the Korean dialogue. Is these are omissions in a five minute block of the video, we could ask, what else is being left out? These omissions do not require any specialized knowledge in law or in finance.
Whether there are multiple “English editors” or not is irrelevant. The English editors cannot and should not be faulted for the errors I pointed out except for the first (multiple words vs. one word). The issue is as stated in the thread’s title"Viki as Translation Editors" and that’s what I intended to address. Perhaps I didn’t write with crystal clarity but I hope most of my original post was on the thread’s issue. If an English editor is not familiar with Korean, how would she know about the omissions? If you don’t know what the original dialogue says, how can you tell something is missing in the subtitle? If you think you understand a misstatement, what good is that? That’s why we need Translation Editors who are not merely fluent but also willing to do a little extra research.

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The main question of this thread, though, is whether those TEs should be volunteers or staff.

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I second that, and like you, I felt there was nothing wrong in those specific terms used in the [Reborn Rich] drama s (with all respect) to Mrs. @cgwm808. I felt they were quite clear to understand, and in no way affected the Original to English translation.

@choitrio.
the criminal for whom imposition of sentence has been suspended is in fact on probation.

Totally agree with you on this one, and to confirm your point found this on…

Excerpt: Cornell. Edu.

A suspended sentence is where a judge sentences a defendant to jail or prison time, but then delays imposing the sentence in order to let the defendant serve time on probation . If the defendant completes probation successfully, the judge typically dismisses the case without placing the defendant in custody.

cgwm808
4:18 sub: “Manipulation of stock, misconduct and embezzlement”
Accurate and complete: “manipulation of stock prices, breach of fiduciary duty and embezzlement”
What the heck is stock manipulation? No such animal in the criminal code!

No such animal in the criminal code?

By any chance, do you mean no such thing in the Criminal Court System? I disagree with this statement because…

Can you go to jail for stock manipulation?

If you willfully engage in insider trading, market [stock] manipulation, or make false or misleading statements, the potential penalties are: Up to ten million dollars ($10,000,000) in fines, Up to 3 years in prison , or both. [USA].

Although I’m not familiar with SK laws on Stock/Market Manipulation, below and hidden for respect and privacy to the accused; you can read about a case in South Korean of an indictment over stock manipulation or market manipulation (still means the same thing).

Summary

ASIA MARKETS

South Korean prosecutors indict Samsung heir on stock manipulation charge

PUBLISHED TUE, SEP 1 20201

Reuters

  • Prosecutors decided to indict 52-year-old Lee due to the gravity of manipulating the capital market over a controversial 2015 merger of two Samsung affiliates that helped him assume greater control of the group’s crown jewel Samsung Electronics.

At this point, I feel that the CEO’s/Higher up’s need to work out a solution that can be fair to all the good quality volunteers they had for many years, as well as the new paid subbers working here now, so a middle ground can be reach with open communication between both groups of people. They need to open doors of communication so they can work in complete harmony that will indeed bring forth, greater Quantity and Quality work in the subtitles here at RakutenViki.com. But most importantly; they need to take the power and control of any group of people that works here whether as a volunteer or paid subber.

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You make it sound like a dictatorship…

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Stock as cattle. Hence the animal reference :wink: I thought it was witty!

With regards to “stock manipulation” vs. “manipulation of stock prices”, taking it from a OL mod point of view, I would argue that both expressions could be preferred, depending on the context.

A. If two characters, previously established as businessmen, talk about stock, I would correctly interpret stocks as shares, because the economic context has been clear from the start. So stock manipulation would have been enough to understand the crime.

B. If an unknown character is talking on the phone and mentioning this term for the first time and without any other context, I would prefer to see the longer term in the subtitle, particularly if it does not crowd the sub. Any latter repetition of the same expression could be abbreviated.

C. If a law professor and a student are talking about a law, then one could refer to the law’s name in full. However, two students discussing the same law could take it a bit more casually.

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As a translator myself, I feel certain closeness to the community of translators. I understand the difficulties involved in the translation process and appreciate good (not necessarily perfect) subtitles regardless whether the subtitles are provided by paid translators or volunteers. For me, it does not matter so much whether the TE is a Viki staff or a volunteer. What matters is that the subtitles are accurate.

Perhaps I should have been more clear when I said that “Reborn Rich” has a team of English editors. The team includes a couple of volunteers who have previous experience as TEs and I am sure they will do a wonderful job.

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There is a marked improvement here in the ENGLISH subtitles in the dramas; so I know the volunteers now ‘‘Editors only’’ with TE experience are doing an extraordinary job. I also know that we have paid subbers that are providing great quality work; although certain people keep complaining that they are not.

Ironically, when in the past we only had a group of controlling people that were always TE and CE, the subtitles were sometimes a mess (like when I saw often times in the subtitles the word ‘‘anyways’’). Since these controlling groups wanted to ‘‘hog’’ more dramas, they didn’t had the time to correct the mistakes in them, and left them as is no matter how much we complained. I personally feel at least 2 to 4 Editors are needed in the first place because once the K/E or C/E etc. translations are done, the editors available in the teams, the more chances they have to ‘‘catch’’ any mistakes in the subs translation, instead of leaving them in the drama as is like they did in the past. In my opinion, someone would have edited the often times annoying ‘‘anyways’’ added in dramas (which thankfully I no longer see).

I’m hoping the paid subbers do open the door of communications with the volunteers because there’s nothing better in this world than learning from each other. There is no need to feel that one group is better than the other, and both groups can feel proud of their great accomplishments, there is nothing wrong in that, as long as it stays as a shared team collaboration that in the end will only bring so much more quality in the drama’s subtitles.

Sadly, the controlling groups are emerging again, and I hope the CEO is very aware of that happening here since these controlling groups of teams, do more harm than good to this site. By the way, I don’t know German/Dutch/Serbian/French etc…, for those who keep forgetting that.

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