Since she’s CM, she can take a look about what has been changed between the pre and final version.
I think as a GE, that subs come from pre or
from subbers, not many changes for them if it is to compared to segmenters and other roles.
Let’s not forget the last comment:
Modern dramas vs historical dramas
Chinese dramas vs Korean dramas
Metaphorical Vs modern talks
Population: Chinese subbers are not the same than Korean subbers.
If we only focus on 1 population (Kdramas), we won’t see the same thing in another population (Cdramas). It’s comparing apples and carrots.
If pre are satisfying for Kdramas and volunteers prefer pre-made (not only the GE or viewers, but also whole team and it is efficient (quality, time, quick), then no problem.
If pre are not satisfying for Cdramas, it is best to rely on people working or who worked on them.
And again, motivation.
Either the drama comes pre-made and the team decides not to waste time because it is there.
Either they are motivated.
The time for an editor to correct/not correct:
We don’t spend the same time correcting plural, etc vs a subtitle we just read.
In term of time and work: we don’t spend the same time correcting 1000k subs vs 10000k subs.
The 2nd case will take more time. For efficiency.
I’m not saying I prefer pre-made. I’m just saying that in the cases when Viki’s contract obliges them to have the pre-made from Kocowa or other provider, then it’s alright with me.
Pre-made are surely time-efficient and make for happy viewers, who can immediately enjoy the show. Of course correcting all the formatting and spelling is easy but tedious.
It also depends on the quality of the English team.
If the English team has very good subbers, editing Viki subs is a breeze and a pleasure. In some cases, the subber is also an inquisitive spirit liking challenges, so we have intense conversations about the best way to express something, which is enjoyable and enriching for both parties - we all get to learn new things from this interaction. I wouldn’t want to miss this!
If, on the other hand, the subbers are mediocre and lazy (you tell them a thousand times to put a space after the break but they still don’t, they don’t read the Team Notes and routinely get the spellings wrong), then it’s not that pleasant, your job is worse than correcting pre-made subs.
And if in the team most of the subbers are of the type who only shows up only for one part of one episode out of 16, so the drama lingers unsubbed for days, they don’t respond to messages, and you have to wait for them, in impotent rage, while getting (rightly!) insulted by the viewers, then it’s also not pleasant. At all.
What I mean to say is that, even if you only look at k-dramas as a separate realm, still you can’t create a rule which is true for every occasion.
It’s where it could have a diff because pre-made Cdramas and pre-made Kdramas are different, same for the genre.
TE is about the meaning.
Sometimes, depending on the team, the TE to be more efficient lets all spelling and formatting to GE.
If you know some TE, some don’t edit these types of things, hence their counter is not high because of spelling and formatting.
It’s also where we differ because:
I’m a volunteer first, I am not the company, nor an employee.
Time-efficient: faster for viewers and maybe some editors (GE for ex)
Not time-efficient: for anyone else
It depends on the role people have and on the drama again.
I would be happy as a viewer and as a volunteer to wait for a reasonable time if that means other volunteers got to contribute and take pleasure (we’re a team) and if that means the quality is fine. I can wait up to 1 year before a new season comes up on Netflix, so I can wait 1-7 days more no problem.
That’s where I think we don’t have the same opinion:
Yes, speed is good, but to have it, I am not ready to sacrifice some things like the team enjoyment or not letting volunteers participate or
I am not ready to sacrifice my own enjoyment from contributing either. If contributing is not enjoyable, I won’t.
I understand your definition of speed.
But I don’t see Viki like Netflix or like other illegal streaming websites with subs taken from here and there.
It’s made by volunteers.
I would understand better if no one wants to work on it or if it’s abandoned.
Just for this speed to make a part happy, I don’t want to have more troubles for me, but also for others in the same situation. It’s expectable that some give up.
It’s speed yes, but with some giving up in the way.
I have a question:
If it was subtitles from volunteers and edition by a third party that is not volunteers, would you agree?
Yes, we are aware and precised it was only for comparing 2 dramas and Cdramas and numbers were calculated for these 2 dramas.
Anna added that for Kdramas, the situation might be different.
More comparison is needed.
Same for segmenting, as a segmenter, if you don’t spend a lot of time A&C, it can’t be applied everywhere.
Same for italics or punctuation, it can’t be applied everywhere.
That’s why it’s always best to ask directly people who worked on them and look for more instances and at the end, having an opinion.
I think it’s also our roles that make us different.
I did the training to segment and I segmented.
Why did you do this training? Was it for editing?
We also have different focuses.
You focus on subtitles, fluency, formatting, notes and that everything is segmented (we don’t forget subs).
That it’s more or less correctly segmented (it’s segmented, not abusers but could have been better), it’s relative for a GE and it’s not a GE’s job and full hands already.
I was an active segmenter who segmented only to segment. My focus was segmenting.
That it’s more or less segmented correctly, my reaction won’t be the same because like you when you edit, we all take care in doing carefully our job.
This is also my impression. It happened very often with different dramas with English subs done by VIKI volunteers that the meaning was wrong/unclear. Sometimes I read official subs then (e.g. on the official pages of certain production studios) and then even when the sentence may appear quite simple and less ‘metaphoric/lyrical’ the meaning is easy to understand and an easy to understand English sub is also easier to translate in another language what means the edit for another language than English would be also shorter (plus doesn’t need new translation bc the other language translation is correct then in it’s meaning. Sometimes subbers of other languages get the strange English written subs wrong and then the whole thing is wrong and needs to be retranslated not just edited with grammar or syntax).
One of my friends who is a native speaker liked to try to do some subbing (he was not sure how good his German is since he only know it for over a year; so I said let’s try I’ll check and edit it if necessary). In the end the editing takes way less time than the editing of some German native speakers who translate from English to German instead of Chinese to German. The reason that the editing takes less time was that he always knew the meaning of the origin dialogues and everything he wrote made sense so I only had to edit few grammar things or missing commas but never rewrite the whole sentence and rarely the syntax because he usually used German syntax while it often happens that German subbers stick to English syntax and then the German syntax is wrong even when the words itself are written correctly.
I don’t know in which amount or if the syntax problems exists in other languages that translate from English to their native language but for German language the biggest problem I see is usually a syntax problem.
No. You seem to use a rhetorical question to “catch” me, because you consider me only an editor. First of all this is not true. I’m a translator as well. I’ve done tons of Italian and Greek translations.
More importantly, I say “no” not because I happen to be an editor. The reason is, of course, that we Viki volunteers want to be the last ones to pass, so that the end result can fit our standards and we can take the responsibility for it. Therefore, since editing IS the last thing to be done, that has to be in our control.
I wanted to segment, and I did some segmenting. But I found that most dramas come out to be segmented at a time when I am ready to go to bed. Remember, I’m two hours ahead of you and although sometimes I do sleep late watching a drama or reading a book, if I’m sleepy I cannot guarantee a quality job either in segmenting or translating or editing or anything else needing a clear mind.
Moreover I did segment an episode of a variety show which was a nightmare and sort of ruined my enjoyment.
I was actually thinking about this the other day. That I’d like to take a segmenting role again.
LOL. Most if not all the TEs I know are swamped with projects and they typically don’t even come on time, but after everyone else is finished. They are relieved to have less boring work to do. If their subtitle count was an issue for them, they would come on time, just after the subbers have ended - when it’s not presubbed. Which very few of them do.
I am presently Italian mod on an on-air drama where episode 8 is 100% subbed yet only 4 episodes are released, since the rest haven’t been TEd yet. So, in your opinion, should the other English editors wait while all viewers have already seen the unedited version of the episodes?
Sorry, I don’t mean it takes them 24 hours. I mean it usually takes a day for us to receive notice that an episode is ready for editing. I’m sure they do it in much less time than 24 hours. Perhaps because I live across the world, they work while I sleep so I get notified early next morning
You can change the word “standards” if you like, and put “style”.
If it’s an outside editor, who is not a Vikian, s/he won’t know our conventions, how we and our viewers like things done.
The formatting, the not leaving out anything (permission to make longer subs), the leaving of certain terms as are in the original, the cultural notes… Of course we could train that person. But then s/he would become one of us, part of the team, and we wouldn’t be talking about “outside” editing.
Mmm, is it because you have encountered such situations on Kdramas where either English subbers were not knowledgeable or enough careful, either TE were gone missing or came later and blocked your translation in other languages?
Is that why a Korean pre-subbed content seems better for you when you are a GE and/or moderator and/or a subtitler in another language?
I can understand more what you mean if that’s the case.
Mmm, I meant by mentioning the counter of a TE in answer to that:
I understand that the counter of a GE can rise because of the corrections cited above.
But because of how the team works (it depends on the TE), some TE won’t bother to correct what a GE would correct, because the GE will correct.
That’s why the counter of a TE is rising not because of the same reason the counter of a GE is rising.
And so the numbers cited above: we can’t say that 18 K of corrections from a TE are italics, breaks, spelling.
It would be a strange interpretation of these numbers lol even for me
We can try to see with the Cdrama Queen Dugu:
If we try to extrapolate by borrowing the 20% of edits due to italics, breaks, spelling, let’s imagine a TE would correct them:
In theory, for spelling, breaks, italics:
The Queen Dugu = 30588 subs / 50 ep = 611 subs/ep
20% of 611 = 122 edited / ep (it represents the 20% edited because of italics, breaks, spelling)
What we can observe for a TE:
18916/50 = about 378 edited / ep = 3 * 122
Even if we hypothesize that a TE would correct 122 subs because of italics, breaks, spelling and we substract them (122), it’s still 2 x 122 = 2 x the normal amount of italics, breaks, spelling edition
In this hypothesis:
=> 1/3 of what the TE corrected = italics, breaks, spelling
=> 2/3 of what the TE corrected = something else.
Compared to something done by volunteers:
Following this hypothesis: all the blue part above the red part = not italics, breaks, spelling
How can we explain it?
It’s just for this drama, but still these numbers are quite strange compared to what people usually have.
The difference is a little too big on this drama.
For English viewers:
If I remember correctly, you (GE) pass before the TE if he takes time to come?
There was a special organization?
So normally, with your intervention, it should be fine?
If you have no TE and some sentences are weird, then of course, the other editors will suffer. Without TE, of course, release, what choice do you have?
But is it really impossible to find a TE?
For other language viewers: to wait for the TE or no?
Mmm, it depends on the subs already.
Check who the subbers are, the subtitles and how much the TE has already corrected.
Anna and I often talk about Cdramas in a good way because we’re used to be spoiled by Chinese-English subbers and English editors from there. It depends on the Cdrama, I agree, it’s an overall feeling.
Even if we wait, it’s worth waiting for their precious work and it’s a joy to translate.
Releasing without a TE checking:
It means that there will be little changes then if the TE comes after releasing, you have to be sure of that.
Some mods won’t edit it.
And in that case:
If it’s released too soon and a lot of subtitles will change a lot… the moderators won’t be happy, the editors in other languages neither if they have the chance to have ones that will stay.
Some mods can’t always afford to do once or twice an edition that would require us to modify 65% of the subs (Queen Dugu for ex). Nope.
That’s why some will let the version as it is.
Here we can say that all viewers will see a version edited yes, but not the final one, especially in meaning… and it will stay as it is.
No, I mean not needing to wait for editors since they won’t be volunteers, but formed and paid.
Could be formed by watching how subs are made on Viki and the editing guides.
Yes, you need 3 CEs or GEs or TEs in each group, Content Provider vs. Viki Volunteers, to make some proper statistics (standard deviations and p-values).
I have to say I’m loving the analyses and usage of graphs in this thread!
a big difference in % for TE’s edition for all presubtitled dramas compared to dramas done by volunteers, even if we take a % of error = 20%-30%.
Indeed, between 65%-83% of the presubtitles are changed by the TE.
More time and more energy for TE and for segmenters globally.
If I pass before the TE, of course it won’t be fine! Yes, it will be correct, natural English, correct formatting, consistent flashbacks, name spelling, job titles etc etc. but, not being knowledgeable in Korean, I have no way of being sure whether the translation is correct. The characters may be saying something different altogether!
If some sentences are weird and I cannot make sense of them, I ask one of the more experienced subbers in the team. There usually is at least one of them. In most instances, I am able to get help this way.
I also go to pirate sites and consult the “official” provider subtitles. At least the sense is, as I said before, 97% correct and it helps me guess at least what is going on. Then I make necessary changes by using as much as possible our subber’s wording.
If I am lucky to work with a CE who knows Korean very well, as cgwm808, then I make a list of those strange subs for her, and ask her to pay special attention to them while doing her editing.
The whole point of my presence as a GE is make the CE’s job lighter, to leave as few things for her as possible. She once told me that she considers someone a good GE when she doesn’t have to make more than 50 changes per episode.
Of course this number is valid only if there is a TE coming before the GE!
Of course it’s not impossible. But, as I said, there are very few and those are swamped with projects. Moreover, I don’t know about the Chinese people, but Korean subbers take coming and translating as an optional, they don’t see it as a commitment they have taken, an obligation to be there at least for one part a week. At the end of the project I always have at least 3-4 subbers whom I eliminate because they contributed zero subtitles, and this without any warning message. I know that stuff happens in real life, but you can write and say “Sorry, but I won’t be able to make it this time”. When they say “Yes, I’ll take part in this project” what they really mean is “If I have the time and inclination I may come”. It’s very different than what happens in all other languages!
TEs are much more responsible in their attitude than subbers, because they know they are the only one (rarely there’s two of them in 16-ep. dramas), so there is nobody else to do their job. But still, as I said, they often come VERY late. When all the interested viewers have already watched the badly translated episode! When in theory, they should be lurking, and go directly after the subbers, not even waiting that all parts are 100%, but as soon as a subber is finished and leaves a part, immediately go after the subber, edit and fill in any missing subs.
For those who don’t understand English, the choice is between watching the episode or not being able to watch it. It’s that simple. And, from my experience, most would prefer to watch it, even if imperfectly translated.
Waiting fifteen days to watch an on-air drama, when English subs have been at 100% for fifteen days and other languages have been sitting rolling their thumbs because everybody is waiting for the TE… that’s what you’re proposing? Again, all the viewers who understand English (even if not perfectly) will have already watched it as it is, do you think they will wait? But if their English comprehension is not that great, they won’t enjoy it that much.
Is it really so? I have been reading, over the years, countless threads on this discussion board, desperately looking for TE for c-drama, and other threads saying that the English team has been stalling for months because of the lack of TE.
On the Italian Facebook groups for Asian drama aficionados, I read a lot of those complaints as well. People who ask “why is this drama stagnant, and the translation is not going on?” and the moderators have to reply “we are waiting for the English team, they are as slow as a turtle”, or “it’s been months that the English editors haven’t visited this project, so the episodes haven’t been released”
You will probably tell me that those are a minority. But I do see that a lot, especially on long historicals-wuxia!
I am currently in a Chinese drama myself, Suddenly Last Summer. The Italian moderator has graciously allowed me to use for my Italian subber training. I was astounded to see the poor quality of the English. Many sentences that didn’t make sense, wrong gender, wrong verb tenses, missing words, and a lot, a great lot of typos. Plus formatting issues like missing dashes for dialogues and so on.
The Italian mod explained that the project has been abandoned for a year, it hasn’t been edited and the CM doesn’t reply to messages, so, since OL viewers were complaining and asking for translations, OL mods decided to go ahead and translate anyway.
This makes it hard for my poor trainees, who are inexperienced anyway. On the other hand it’s a good exercise for them too, because in the future they will often find themselves in the position of having to guess and mentally “fix” bad English before translating, or be alert not to copy formatting mistakes but do everything correctly in their translated version according to rules.
Frankly, I was tempted to ask to at least do some GE to fix all this, because it hurts my eyes to see it. But then I gave myself a smack on the head. Why would I do this boring job for a very boring and bland Chinese drama? Am I crazy? We’ll just do our work as best we can and that’s it.
This can only mean that the professional Chinese translators hired by content providers are very bad compared to the Korean translators?
Who knows, I am not one to make assumptions when I don’t have personal experience. The ones who would probably help us in this discussion would be the TEs themselves. Ideally a TE who knows both Chinese and Korean, but that’s a rare bird! Even a single-language TE could at least tell us, in her experience, what percentage of her changes are
formatting, typos and such,
adding things that were skipped,
cultural notes that we add on Viki
real translation (comprehension) mistakes
English grammar, syntax, word order and fluency (making weird sentences more natural)
Could you tag a number of TEs so that they can intervene? Their input would be really important.
Yes, we have different opinions.
It depends on the drama and the situation. I don’t sit in the place of a viewer, because 1 week now or later, they don’t have more work to do and they don’t edit.
On the team side, it is different with practical questions such as:
Who is willing and going to make a list of changes in the team?
Who is going to do a secound round of edition for the same ep again in your language (in some cases, without a list)? Or a first round of edition, discovering the editor has to spend a lot of time to recheck all subs and correct many subs…
If this goes on for 50-60 ep of 1 hour to go back again, some can give up and ask “why do you release when you change a lot afterwards?”
In the end, I will have to do it if no one is here to do it or does it.
It’s only convenient for viewers that want speed, but not at all convenient for the team or for the quality criteria.
Everyone (volunteers and viewers) has to understand that for quality X => Time Y
If you reduce Y to skip, be quick and release, you reduce X in all languages and maybe permanently because they are not going to take a second look.
The work you did to understand a sentence, some won’t do this job, so it will remain forever unclear for them and viewers.
I am not going to downgrade the quality until a certain extent, just because of viewers complaining.
Viewers also have to adapt to Viki and understand that to have this quality X, we need time Y.
We can adapt to viewers, but until a certain extent. We’re not magicians.
Not because viewers want A, you have to seek for A, because you know that we’re not magicians and it is tedious for all the team as a whole.
So I prefer to be careful when an episode is released, because either it is released and not much will change, either it’s released, but it’s a headache to translate and edit => my team will flee and I will have to finish alone => I will spend more time, not viewers.
This won’t be only my situation, but OL’s too.
And this, they don’t understand or see it or don’t care.
That’s why we have to weight what want viewers, what it’s possible for us (the team) to do in a reasonnable manner with all the pros and cons.
And motivation: I seriously don’t want to subtitle while scratching my head and I don’t think other subtitlers want to. I probably won’t ask to participate if I see no editors in the team or editors that don’t come or if the first ep released have typos, mispelling, strange sentences. It’s not enough motivating to contribute and I would spend more time looking for it myself. No, thank you.
Ah yes, as said above, each drama is different, some are blocked.
If ppl try to apply the same speed rule to Kdramas to Cdramas, it’s weird.
From the stats above, a historical drama needs more time to edit (compare Evolution of Love workload for an editor and the other historical dramas done by volunters or even presubbed) and the same team of editors have to be available for many months because some are lengthy.
It’s case per case.
I don’t know for this drama and I have not looked for it.
Why the quality was poor when it was not edited?
Maybe because as you said, it was not edited?
That’s why editors are important and as a subtitler, it is a headache to see what was not edited lol
That’s why it’s not motivating to work on something not edited or partially edited and it could get longer to translate because of this quality problems and because everyone gives up, including the subbers and you finish subtitling it alone (which makes it longer than having 4 people translating at the same time, yeah!)
It seems so, cf. what Anna said in her first post.
If Viki wants to have many teams’ input, I think best would be for Viki to ask directly the English teams where it happened (including every editor TE, CE, GE), but also segmenters and Chief segmenter. And they will answer if they want to.
I don’t know all the dramas falling into this category, but being thorough, it would be best to ask everyone.
I don’t know all TEs, GEs, CEs or seggers and CS that got to work on presubbed and I don’t want to personally bother English editors or segmenting teams for that, but if Viki asks, maybe they will be more enclined to answer (and it would show that they somewhat investigated the matter).
The CE clearly tells the Other Language Moderators:
“We are releasing now so you can start subbing, but be aware that it hasn’t been TEdited, so there may be changes. Your choice whether to start subbing or not. Or you may prefer to sub but not edit yet, and for your editing wait until the TE and subsequent CE has been done”.
So if you don’t want to go back again and update, you have the choice of waiting before editing. Your viewers will be happy because if they are impatient they have their subs, but you don’t have to come back to a finished episode.
Another thing:
If the GE and or CE have already passed through and taken care of the little things, the TE won’t have to make more than, say, 30 changes. Of these, the 15 will be unimportant, just changing the wording in English but not the meaning. These need not concern other languages.
The ones that concern the Other Languages will then be really minimal, less then 10 changes. In my experience much less than that, rather 5-6.
If there is a list with exact location, changing 5-6 things is not a big deal in my opinion. But if you still don’t want this, as I said before, you can wait and edit only after the TE is done. Your choice.
Some French teams don’t work like that because of the same argument as the one for an English-speaking audience (just below):
It depends on subbers in the team and how they subtitle.
Do you remember our last call? (No need to talk about it here)
editors have to follow the story, update the formal/not formal speech and the vocabulary so subbers can continue using the same voc.
the mod can continue and finish subbing alone, so to be efficient, we watch and edit at the same time. If I don’t follow it and I arrive at ep 30 without following it and without subbers coming, how do I do? I still have to watch it and if I begin to watch it, I will edit it at the same time to gain time.
10-15 is too many changes in my opinion, because in the long term, it would be:
15 x 20 ep = 300 subtitles to change, almost 1 ep.
10 × 20 ep = 200 subtitles to change.
As an editor in my language, there is no one after me, so I have to take care it is correct.
Yes, we can forget, but if it’s recurrent and many in the same ep, I still have to review my edition and back to the basis, it will be problematic for an editor to let some mistakes and it impacts the quality for someone who watches while subtitling and also understands English.
We could exchange the word “viewers” by “volunteers.” I’m also a viewer lol
Why do we talk about that lol what was the point already?
I must say, I’m loving seeing the data points in this discussion! Based on a cursory glance, am I right to interpret that the Chinese provided subtitles tend to need more work than their Korean counterparts?
Not sure I’m reading this well!
Absolutely! The idea is to open up the floor and talk about challenges and issues to see if we can come up with some solutions to these long term issues and the academies are a very important piece of the puzzle! I will be working on a form to collect interest and the best time to meet.
We can also run a few of these forums to make sure we cover all timezones for everyone who wishes to participate!
That’s the idea! We can discuss potential solutions as well and reach a consensus or experiment with various workflows. There are internal resource constraints but we can find a happy medium.
Funny that you mentioned that @cgwm808 as we are looking into this again. It is on the roadmap for investigation and we hope to get somewhere with it this time! No promises yet~
Agreed, and it does sound like the correction of segments is terrible! I hear you and I want to help.
As mentioned above, I’ll be sharing a form soon (most likely next Monday SGT) to make sure we collect interest and best timing for the planned discussion as well as potential topics to make sure we don’t deviate. Let me know if you have another solution or ideas on how we can do this effectively!
First of all, thank you for considering this discussion and our concerns.
I want to answer your question in two steps, based on the following observation: Korean and Chinese dramas are not the same, not at all. They are not managed by the same people, they don’t have the same number of episodes, the language is different, the genres are different… Not the same provider, not the same country.
1.Chineses dramas: Most of the time, Chinese ones arrive on viki raw, which means that viki contributors take care of it (sometimes with the help of translators paid by viki). But lately, they are coming, on viki, more and more often with the content of the chinese provider. I guess you guys get the license, and they also give you English translations, but we don’t know where it came from.
So, we compared 6 Chinese dramas: 3 translated by us, 3 translated by the content provider. These 6 dramas were edited in English by viki contributors: in TE (translation editor), GE (general editor) and CE (chief editor).
Here are the results and data points:
Even with a margin of error around 20%, we can clearly see that english editors modify more translations in meaning, spelling, syntax… with the translations of content provider, rather than the translations of viki volunteers.
Another thing, segmentation:
We can see that the segmenters spend more time correcting segments of the content provider, than doing the segments ourselves (+15 to 60 min for one part).
In addition, correcting is not the same job as doing it ourselves, it requires more energy.
Conclusion for Chinese dramas: correcting translations and segments of the content provider requires more time and energy for segmenters and English editors, mainly TEs (translation editors). It also has a big impact on quality/accuracy for viewers.
2.Korean dramas: Korean dramas arrive on viki mainly in raw, they are translated by viki contributors. But sometimes it happens that some dramas are not translated by viki contributors. There are therefore two cases: they are translated by KOCOWA or by translators paid by viki. In these cases, viki contributors do not make any changes. There is therefore no English edition team for these dramas.
This means that we cannot assess the difference in change. As for the quality and accuracy of these dramas, I cannot speak about them because I am not Korean. If we had English editors who were able to correct these dramas, we could give you an overview of the quality of these translations. But it’s impossible. In addition, since we don’t have access, it’s obvious that we don’t spend more time on it. On the other hand, one thing is undeniable, segments are really bad compared to those we do.
3. Final conclusion (3 steps, therefore)
There is a problem with Chinese dramas. It tires us. And I hope we can find solutions all together for Chinese dramas. We need to find solutions for collective well-being of segmenters, editors and for provided quality and accuracy subtitles for viki viewers on Chinese Dramas.
For Korean ones, I don’t really see for now problems. Did Korean dramas have problems, guys?
4. Solutions for Chinese Dramas and content provider (requires thinking about what can be best for everyone).
Give CM AND English team the conscious opportunity*** to choose how they want to use these translations from the content provider: put them directly and do edition or have dramas in raw and use content provider if necessary (put them in Reference subtitles)
Do you guys have more ideas regarding this concern?
All of this impacts me personally for segmentation, but not for TE. If some TE or editors want to speak, please do so… (Or maybe you guys are too busy editing that kind of content, no time to answer lol).
***Note: I mean viki has to tell them they have a choice to make, It’s not an obligation. Because some CM are newbies… So a conscious choice for CM AND English team, directly impacted.
I worked on a Chinese pre-subbed movie and a Korean pre-subbed movie. I felt the Korean one was harder for viewers to understand as there were several complaints about bad subs. So I offered to help get it edited faster, and I did it in about six hours. The first three parts approximately were already edited by the TE. When she came after me, she didn’t have to change much so I was pleasantly surprised that the pre-subs were translated correctly, although with poor grammar.
On the Chinese movie, the complaints were about the timing being off, and I always have to wait for the segmenters, but they fix that. Of course, I highly appreciate their work! I edited the Chinese movie in about seven hours, but I didn’t have another editor who did any parts before me. After the TE finished, I checked the re-edits and there wasn’t much due to language translation.
Just like with anything else, there are good and not as good subtitlers in every language. Some doctors, teachers, workers are good and some are not so good. I don’t think we can generalize about language translators or even editors. When I encounter a pre-subbed show, I don’t run from the challenge. I roll up my sleeves and get to it. The segmenters I follow are highly efficient and committed volunteers.
I don’t envy CMs and their challenge to find volunteers who won’t run from a project. I know of several dramas subbed from scratch, and I’m still waiting months to finish watching those shows because of very slow subs. Faster is not better, but slower is not better, either. I just finished watching a 2014 Korean drama subbed from scratch, and I was appalled at the misspelling. I almost felt like asking the CM if I could re-edit the English, but I choose to conserve my time and effort to work with my current CM. I know my limits and energy resources so I only take on what I can do to the best of my ability.
Exactly. We should compare only same things. It’s like comparing the happy poor with the unhappy rich. What about the unhappy poor? If you must have bad health or a bad marriage, money surely makes a difference. Isn’t being rich and heartbroken better than poor and heartbroken?You can at least resort to shopping therapy or go abroad on a trip meet someone else. And if you are sick, isn’t being rich in a good hospital with the best care better than poor with no money to pay the doctor and your family having to go backrupt to pay hospital bills?
In the same way, if a subber (or editor) is good, s/he will be good either in a fast drama or a slow drama. If a subber (or editor) is not good, s/he will not improve if given more many months.
It’s not as if the subber (or editor) spends these months pondering each word or anything. In all probability, the subbing (or editing) speed of any given episode part is exactly the same. It’s just the time between parts, when the person is not in the Subtitle Editor, when the person is not even on Viki, that takes up the weeks and months.
and talking about sth we don’t know about/we know about
experiences… subbers, seggers and TE with x exp on pre / GE with y exp on pre. Not comparable.
It’s like asking my baker to heal my teeth… or a detailed opinion on sth I haven’t watched.
Or subjectivity/objectivity…
Mmm… I don’t read timing complaints on this movie (reviews or comments)
Is it this Cmovie you’re talking about?
Who is the TE on this Kmovie? They’re really scarce and if a skilled TE is new on Viki (cgwm has a good test for Korean), maybe that TE could help on Kdramas elsewhere!
No, just wanting to know where you stand in case 1 or 2.
(reviews or comments)