[Viki Community Team] February 2021 Updates - Editor Role Coming Soon!

General Discussion
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:sparkles: Site Updates

:memo: EDITOR ROLE

Many of you have been editors on Viki for a long time now, and as a vital part of the community, we want to make sure your hard work is recognized! Official rollout of the editor role is expected the week of Feb. 15.

This is a first step of many to incorporate more roles and appropriately count your contributions, and make your volunteering experience even better. Read more at the FAQ.

:film_strip: MOVIE RENTALS

As a heads up, movie rentals will be coming to Viki in March (select titles only). More details to come soon.

:gift: ANNUAL QC GIFT UPDATES

02-QCNL-qc2020badges

Badges: That’s right – QCs and Gold QCs get corresponding yearly badges! 2020 Badges will be applied to profiles by the end of February.

Digital Gift: We are finalizing details and they will be sent out soon. Qualifying 2020 QCs will receive the digital gift directly at their e-mail address at the latest, Mar. 5.

Physical Gift: Gifts are now in production! Including shipping time, qualifying 2020 QCs can expect delivery around the end of March. Once gifts are mailed out, tracking information will be shared.

Previously:

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I have a question.
Will those get this badge who didn’t sign up for QC gifts?

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I have read your announcement regarding the editor role.

Editor Position Requirement
General Editor Fluent in English + Familiarity with Viki’s subtitle guidelines
Translation Editor Translation Experience + Fluent in Origin Language + Fluent in English
Chief Editor Translation Experience + Fluent in English + QC / Gold QC (QC/QC Gold Status)

Do you mean that a person cannot be a CE if s/he doesn’t speak another language? There are many Chief Editors who only speak English and have not translated to other languages. You will lose many Chief Editors if you stipulate they must be able to translate another language. If you mean that they have subtitling experience and QC or Gold status, that is different! Please clarify this!

If you specify they must have translating experience, then I have worked with only one CE who speaks the origin language. If you really mean translation experience in any language, a person who translates Czech is not necessarily excellent in English grammar and punctuation! My hubby has translated documents to Czech, but he always has to ask me how to spell simple words such as “through.” He is highly fluent in English and can converse in philosophical to scientific topics, but he can’t spell in English! And someone who spells well in another language may not know the proper spelling or grammatical rules in English!

I am also very concerned about this: Each channel has it’s own channel manager who can decide what is best for the channel in regards to editing. If a channel manager feels that the channel only needs a Chief Editor, they can make this decision. Please note that recommendations for other editor positions would come from the channel manager or other editors.

I have seen subtitles that make no sense in American English because the team is European. Examples: they put the present in the boot (would be a car trunk in North America); they entered the lift (would be an elevator in North America). Imagine if you narrow down the editing team to only one CE who doesn’t speak the origin language but has translated a little-known language!

One-third of all pre-subs are incorrect. We are having this issue on one drama where the pre-subs are almost 90% incomplete or incorrect! We had to get the TE necessary assistance from a subtitler who can fix the pre-subs first!

Because many movies are coming pre-subbed, many CMs have no idea that they still need a Chief Segmenter and someone to check the translation. They only know that pre-subs are grammatically incorrect and missing punctuation. If such a CM would opt for only a CE, the movie subtitles would sink to a very poor state. Our subtitles would decline to the standard of YouTube, where anyone tries to sub, and pirated sites.

Right now, some CEs are doing up to ten shows at a time. I applaud that Viki buys lots of shows for its viewers, but volunteer editors are swamped! If you narrow down who can be a CE to translators, we will have even fewer proper Chief Editors and I really doubt their quality of English!

I know I’m one of the few editors who takes the time to second check my work. I find I missed a few errors whenever I do my second check. I can tell you honestly, most Chief Editors rely on the GE to be consistent with the spelling of character names and that the subs flow in proper English. When I am CE, I find that having a good GE cuts my editing time in half.

Giving a CM the option not to have a TE is just wrong, but to not have a decent GE will overwhelm the subbing community! Many North American viewers value the good subtitles on Viki. Please ensure this continues!

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Are you saying British English doesn’t count as English? :flushed:

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Translate in Viki is obviously subtitling. What else? You mean captioning?
I was surprised to see this, and I certainly wouldn’t make it an absolute rule. But individual CMs are free to not follow it. However what they say sort of makes sense. An editor has to know the pitfalls of translating into another language. For instance, since I’m learning Korean, and although I’m still in my first year, the little I have learned made me understand much better the why of certain recurrent mistakes Ko-En subbers make.

This decision is for the Chief Editor to make, whether he needs more help or s/he is capable and willing of doing all the work for him/herself.

What the %%%$#$#@#@ are you talking about? Why “SHOULD”? Who said that it should be American English? Minority Language? That’s what the whole of India and many other Commonwealth Countries speak and that’s the English that many European countries are taught (by the British Council, while studying for Cambridge Proficiency degree etc.) We often don’t understand your americanized subtitles.

As an Editor you may want to change this before people see it. I will also delete my mention of it as soon as I make sure you’ve seen it.

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@irmar
@worthyromance
I have no quarrel with people using “British” English in subtitles but probably over 99% of the subtitlers from Korean to English use American English so this is the reason we don’t see the use of British English in our English subs. It’s not because the British English has been edited out. The number of people who use the “King’s English” who sub from Korean to English is miniscule so in the several thousand hours of Kdrama episodes I have edited, I don’t recall anyone ever using the word “boot” for the trunk of a car or “loo” for the bathroom!
I too think that having subtitling experience is useful for editing at viki. I think that experience gives a perspective on how comprehensible the English subs are for other language subtitlers which I think is important for a Chief Editor. I think this perspective is more important than being a good speller (we have auto spell check in the sub editor) or grammarian (we can use grammarly).
What is a “minority language” at viki? Is it a language that few people speak? Or a language for which we don’t always have subs? What about Hindi which is the fourth most spoken language in the world after Mandarin, Spanish and English. We don’t often have Hindi subs on Kdrama. Is Hindi a “minority language”? What is lacking in an editor who acquired her QC status subbing Kdrama from English to Hindi and demonstrates in her correspondence with me her excellent command of English?
I have had several persons with thousands of subtitling subs in languages other than Korean or English serve as my co-editors on K drama. And I know of several other incredibly intelligent frequent contributors in languages other than English at viki who are fluent in English, their native tongue (and sometimes other languages) and have extensive knowledge of Korean and/or Chinese who are very qualified to be Chief Editor of the English subs. Contrast this with the editors I have seen over the past 11 years at viki who make a mistranslation perfectly punctuated and grammatically correct.

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Nevertheless, it should be clear that non-American words should not be deliberately edited out of English.

To “correct” a lift into an elevator would be disrespectful and against the spirit of Viki, which is trying to bring various cultures and languages together. Not to mention that we often use romanized Korean words in English which are definitely more foreign to an American watching the drama, than a British word would ever be. If we are readily embracing the Korean words, why are we shunning British words?

Another point is the audience. When the English team creates English subtitles, they are not creating them just for the North Americans. They are creating them for the entire worldwide audience, those coming from English-speaking countries and those coming from non-English speaking countries.

And just imagine the implications this would have on other languages. French French vs. Canadian French, Brazilian Portuguese vs Portuguese Portuguese, Mexican Spanish vs. Spanish Spanish.

We simply can’t go there. We are better than this.

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@bozoli Agreed. So what I am saying is I never edited British English out – I just don’t encounter it – even from subbers who live in the UK!! For example the word “lift” is not used by subbers from Korean to English because the Korean word for elevator is 엘리베이터. For those of you who are unable to read Hangul, the pronunciation of the Korean word is el li ba i teo – say it fast five times and what do you hear?
The word “boot” is not used by subbers because the Korean word for trunk is 트렁크. The Hangul is pronounced teu reong keu. Say it fast five times and what do you hear?

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@cgwm808

You are amazing. Thank you.

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I’ve noticed these things :blush: Another example is cheese, which to me sounds something like chi-zeu.

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@bozoli - you have a great ear!

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I’m not sure if there are words similar in Spanish in Korean, but since English and Spanish has a lot of cognates, it could be possible. Also the main reason for English words pronounced in Korean is because Koreans learn English at an early age (like most other countries that don’t speak English natively). So if there is an English word that doesn’t translate exactly into Korean or if there is a new item that doesn’t have a Korean word for, they may switch it out for the English word. And some Koreans will just switch random English words out as a funny joke since knowing another language sounds smart.

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@angelight313_168
Linguistic scholars say Korean is 5% loan words but I think for young people (say under age 40!) the percentage is probably higher. The Korean words for elevator and trunk are borrowed from English. Korean borrows from many languages. So the word for part time work/ worker sounds like the German “arbeiter”.
60% of Korean is called Sino-Korean and is derived from Chinese. Only 35% of the language is considered “native Korean.”
Several decades ago, a linguistic scholar catalogued 11000 loan words – about 9000 were from English. 700 were Japanese, 500 were German, followed by French and Italian. Spanish was only 31. The high frequency for English and Japanese are understandable from modern history – but I don’t understand why German was third.
English is a required subject in schools in SK starting in third grade but it is fashionable for those who can afford it to send the children to preschools offering English. English is a part of the Korean college entrance examination. At one point in recent history, the government tried to place 1 native speaker of English in every middle and high school and the government recruits teachers from many English speaking nations. The pay is quite good and includes housing, transportation allowances and health insurance Many young Americans have been able to save as must as $10,000 US each year working in the public school system in Korea. More financial incentives are given to the teachers from the U.S. and Canada (I have no idea why) but there is recruiting from the UK, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, (PS – this was my topic for an oral presentation given in Korean in my third year of study of Korean) If I listened to what I said then I probably wouldn’t understand me!

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I think it comes from the era of japanese occupation, too.

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Maybe the German words came from Japan, in the 19th century Japan heavily orientated on the German medicine. Many German words found their way into the Japanese language, so maybe while the oppression of Korea by Japan, some of these words made it to Korea?
An option but I am not too sure about it, but I know that since back then Germany and Japan had relations, with the “unlucky” turn that Japan joined the 2nd WW and became a German ally.

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@lutra
I know the Korean word for part time job comes from the German but that’s the only German loan word I know. See if you can recognize this lutra.
아르바이트 ah reu ba i tu

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From Arbeiter. The Japanese loanword is Arubaito.
It simple means worker.

But among these german words are some of greek or latin roots, but Germanized and completely assimileted (Allergie, Neurose, Gaze, Proletarier, Proletariat).

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Yes, it’s A-r-bei-t, syllables in German Ar-beit. I don’t know much Korean, but I know about the silent “u” at the end of a word that ends with a consonant.

In my early days in Asian drama I would always hear the German word “Warte!”, as someone following another person, trying to keep the pace or catch up. So my brain, thought, wow, could it be? But I did not find anything about it, maybe I should ask EoJin66 about it, do you know/remember her?
Because I think I heard it more often in J-drama than in K-drama.
Do you recognize the word - Wah-reu-teu? Perhaps?

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There you see the trace to the medical education. The same with Nr. 5 on the list - Gips (cast).

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I always smile in me when i hear Mama in korean dramas. In German it´s the word for our Moms :smiley:

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