Do you let the English editor know about this?
Aren’t we all supposed to watch the episode before we start working on it?
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No.
Unless it’s cgwm808. To her I know I can say anything, because I’m sure she won’t let her ego get in the way of getting the quality right, she won’t feel threatened or humiliated or anything of the sort. She doesn’t have those sort of insecurities and complexes, With other people, I cannot be 100% sure, only with her I can. She’ll just go check the subs right away, even if it’s a show she worked on ten years ago. And if she agrees that it’s not good, she’ll correct it - that’s all, case closed. She knows and I know and we all know that we are human and usually pressed for time and it can easily happen that something passes through the net.
There’s another thing, that has nothing to do with sloppiness or laziness, but with familiarity. The more knowledgeable in Korean an English editor is, the more s/he is likely to not notice and not correct things like Korean word order or Korean expressions translated “as is”. Because they can guess the original Korean and it seems “normal”. A third eye sometimes can spot more easily what isn’t English. That’s why among English editors, although it’s ideal that one of them knows Korean well, it’s also good if there is another editor who doesn’t. To provide the perspective of the average viewer who doesn’t know Korean.
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I, as a moderator, always watch my dramas because of the adresses like you guys said with informal and informal which is very time consuming if you edit a cdrama. That’s why I try to edit the first 10 eps asap so I can check upon the subs of my subbers and give them feeback and constructive critic so the rest of the show won’t have any big errors like some terms or the you (du= informal, Ihr = formal) in German and if someone doesn’t check those in our Doc then it’s just a worst case because everyone (the viewer) will be hella confused why are they switching back and forth or why they switch without a reason to the informal speech, veeeeery exhausting I can say! 
That’s why I always say in my releases when someone is switching between the formal to unformal (in our group chats) so that nobody won’t ask me afterwards when did this happen.
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Whenever I edit, my first priority is that subtitles only FLASH for 2-3 secs, there is no profit in translating an English sentence to Hindi (or any other language) as if translating the entire drama in the very 2 sec segment. I always translate by meaning, translations by words is not an option for me. Naturally, even if one translates by meaning, there are really high chances that the translated sentence will itself become short.
Then, a big challenge that comes in the way is the sentence structure, English is a SVO language whereas Hindi is mostly SOV language (although the word order can be changed to obtain different meanings from the same set of words, much like Korean or Japanese). Whenever a sentence spans over two segments, I always try to never translate them as two different segments.
Example:
Seg 1: Will you please look
Seg 2: after the cat?
After translation:
Seg 1: After the cat
Seg 2: will you please look?
This is just a rough example and the actual translation differs.
In English, “you” is enough to do all the jobs at every relationship and hierarchy, however, Hindi has got mostly 3 (or 4-5 if counting dialects) translations of “you” depending on the relationship. A son won’t use the same “you” as his mother will do for him. Then, siblings won’t use the same “you” as they’ll do for their parents. As the story deepens and the relationship between characters gets strong or weak, the level of “you” will either decrease or increase. If a subber has already watched the drama and knows how the relationship changes throughout the story, they must know which “you” is used at which scene. It’s like icing on the cake if the moderator also has notes for the drama and characters, (Hindi community is still growing, so it’s really rare to find these notes, but all of us is trying hard 
)
Then, I feel good that we don’t have to worry about capital letters or small letters because we don’t have them 
. But, if one thing becomes easy, the other thing becomes difficult. The Hindi full stop is a vertical line । , often subbers use the vertical bar which is slightly longer than this purn viram (literally translates to full stop). This is the vertical bar, |, the difference can’t be noticed a lot in English but I hope you can see the difference in this sentence.
मुझे घूमने जाना है। and मुझे घूमने जाना है|, so when I edit, I feel bad for the subber as they sat for an hour to translate a part, did 100 contributions but I come in and edit with just pressing backspace+full stop, I also get the credit for the subtitle, I keep notifying the subbers and they don’t repeat the mistake again but some other subbers leave a space between the last word and full stop, I again follow the same procedure, sometimes. I tell them, that they’ll have to do their best from stopping their work being credited to me, even tell them to correct their own mistakes, they do that and learn. 
Just like English there are certain key spelling mistakes that change the meaning of a sentence, like “their” “there”, “see” “sea”, Hindi isn’t a language like English, where two different spellings can be pronounced in the same way, instead it is read the way it is written, even then, there are certain words that have got visually similar spellings:
मैं: This is “I”
में: Just remove a slanting line from the previous word and this becomes a preposition, much like “in, at”
है: This is “is”
हैं: Just add a dot and it becomes “are”
Above all, I just came across a term quite sometime ago which is Evil Googlators and have come across several subbers who use Google Translate as if no one will ever spot them, most of them were newbies and when I softly told them that this is not a good practice, they immediately reflect upon their actions and I’ve hardly seen them using translators ever again. However, there have been cases that they simply changed their source. How do I get to know if they changed their source or are just bad at subbing? First, I just keep editing their subtitles, if I ever find a subtitle that translates something literally to Hindi and that continues for some more subs, they have used a translator. And how am I so sure of that, there was once a scene in a drama I was moderating, where two girls were fighting, and the subber subbed their conversation in masculine (formal) form which is what most of the machines translate to. I give everybody a second chance and I really love seeing my subbers improve.
I just recently thought about this method and I am also implementing this on two of my channels, when I finish editing, I leave the episode open for the subbers to have a look at their improved subs. Earlier, Hindi teams used to communicate in English but just yesterday, I asked my subbers from a coming soon drama that I moderate to communicate with the team in Hindi. The ideas are going great as of now and all of my inspirations come from the majority languages at Viki. I observe how they work and try to implement the same on my teams.
To be honest, I love editing more than moderating or subbing, even if it is time consuming, at the end of the day I feel happy and satisfied that I could return something good to my language and provide quality to a site that has been the reason for my entertainment for past 2 years. Much of my inspiration came from the various English editing guides that were made by various TEs, GEs and CEs on Viki and the person I look up to the most while I work here is Irmar.
I even made two Hindi subtitling guides on my own, the first’s inspiration came from Worthyromance and is written in Hindi, the last one is a really quick one written in English but focuses on subbing in Hindi.
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I guess that’s also the reason why nowadays so many people translate English way too litterally.
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Aww… Thank you so much for your kind words!
I wanted to provide a tip about how to recognize the formality levels when addressing people in Korean, so that you can “bypass” the English “you” which is not helpful at all. I teach this to my Italian subbers as a first thing.
Formality levels
Formality levels are expressed by different types of sentence endings that change depending on the speaker’s closeness with the subject, their age and social status of each on the hierarchy ladder.
There are about seven formality levels, but we can simplify them as three: super-formal, casual-formal (by far the most used) and casual-informal.
-
Super-formal:
On the news, in announcements on the subway, in presentations,
In workplaces to address your boss, the director of the company, the principal if you’re a student or teacher,
Your friend’s grandfather/grandmother etc.
In historical dramas, everyone speaks super-formally to the king, even his wife and children. The queen speaks formally to her son the crown prince, even if he’s a child! The trap
In day-to-day speech, you might hear some fixed expressions in super-formal in the middle of a lower style of speech. So if you hear “kamsahamnida” (thank you) or “cheswahamnida” (sorry) don’t count it, it may be misleading.
Moreover, you can hear some super-formal sentences as sarcasm or playful irony, between people who otherwise speak informally: e.g. a mother saying to her lazy daughter “Oh, has the princess woken up?” -
Formal-polite:
Used with people that you aren’t totally close with but don’t want to distance yourself from too much , and in situations that aren’t totally casual but aren’t super formal, either. This is arguably the most useful form to know when learning Korean, as you will be the least likely to offend someone, be they a working colleague, a university acquaintance, or someone you just met, if you use it.
In dramas couples keep using this form from the moment they meet until after they have become a couple. Surprisingly, sometimes married couples use it still. In older couples, you hear the woman speaking to her husband in polite form while the husband addresses her in casual form - even if the woman is a professional with a high position. In “Memory”, the wife was a judge and the husband a lawyer, still she addressed him respectfully and he used informal speech with her.
In schools and universities, you are expected to use the polite form to any of your schoolmates who is older by you or in a higher class (your seonbae). Yes, it sounds ridiculous but it’s true! A 17-year old will address formally an 18-year old!
At work too. If someone joined the company before you, s/he is your seonbae and you have to address them formally, even if the age gap is one year or less.
In old generations, you used this for your parents, and in some traditional families they still do. Some people who used banmal with their parents when they were children start using this polite form with them as they get older, especially after getting married. I asked my teacher why is this, and she says they want to reflect the more adult relationship that develops as they move from being children to being adults.
This form often goes with calling them by their surname and name (all the three syllables of a Korean name), adding “-ssi” (=Mr, Mrs, Miss) at the end. This means you are on a somewhat more relaxed formality basis. Not close friends, but still not very formal. Because in formal situations you never use the name, only the title. -
Casual/informal (banmal):
Between close friends, especially if you were friends since childhood (and this persists even if in adult life one of them reaches the high end of the social ladder),
Between siblings of roughly the same age or from an older sibling to a younger one *sometimes younger to older uses formal, especially in adulthood).
Adults use it to address school children and students.
Generally, when speaking to people who are younger than you or otherwise below you in the social hierarchy, who hold a lower position than you.
The boss speaks like this to his employers, the (older) principal to the teachers.
Old people will sometimes speak like this to a younger stranger in the bus or subway. The policeman to the criminal he’s chasing.
Two people when fighting and insulting each other may switch to banmal for the duration of the fight.
The king speaks informally to everyone, but sometimes wants to be polite and uses the formal/casual form to a high-ranking person like Chief minister if he’s much older.
To be on the safe side, it’s never used with someone you just met when their status is not obvious.
When you speak informally to someone, you refer to them by their given name (only the last two of the three syllables making up the full name). If it’s the subject of the sentence you also add ~i at the end of the first name. And if you are addressing them/calling them directly, you add -ah or -yah afterwards (they are the same thing. -ah is if the name ends in consonant, -yah if it ends in vowel (for instance Sa Rang - ah, Min Ho - yah)
Knowing this, most of the time you should be able to guess which form is correct when translating into your language. What is tricky is when the relationship changes and the level of intimacy changes. Or if someone is very angry and switches to informal for a while, then returns to normal. And some situations/relationships are atypical or not that obvious. For instance in “Encounter” the secretary was the director’s old friend, so she addressed her formally in front of everybody but switched to informal when they were alone.
Okay, so how to recognize them?
The suffix expressing the formality level is attached at the end of the verb. As the verb in Korean is always at the end of the sentence, it’s easy to spot it.
- Super formal: the ending is ~mnida (becomes ~mnikka? in the interrogative form).
- Casual-formal: the ending is ~yo.
- Casual: no ending.
Honorifics
Apart from the formality levels, there are also the honorific particles, which are put at the end of the person’s name.
First of all, look for -nim. If, instead of “seonbae” you hear “seonbae-nim”, you know the person addresses his/her seonbae formally. Same if instead of “nuna” the person uses “nunim”. In the case of “hyeong”, if you use “hyeong-nim” it means it’s a respected seonbae of yours when you’re adult. It is also used for a mafia boss by his subordinates. Like using “bhai” in Hindi (I am a great fan of the film “Munnabhai MBBS”)
Then train your ears to listen for “keso” when referring to your grandmother, to your friend’s grandmother, to the bank president etc. For instance, you would refer to your own father as “abuji” but to your friend’s father as “abonim” (more respectful) and most of the time “abonim-keso” (respectful and honorific). As if to say “Your honoured father” or something like that. There are other honorific markers (-si- inserted inside the verb), but not as easy to spot so there’s no point in dwelling on them.
More complete rule
So let’s enrich our rule with all the new info. Here it is in full:
- Super formal: the ending is ~mnida (becomes ~mnikka? in the interrogative form). Using only titles, not the name, with -nim at the end. Sometimes added honorific - keso (see below).
- Casual-formal: the ending is ~yo. Sometimes using the name instead of the title, with -ssi. If using titles, -nim at the end.
- Casual-informal: no ending. Only first name with -ah or -yah at the end.
Now for some training.
Chef Moon ep. 7 @ 7:19
Goblin ep.14
@ 56:26 - 57:17 What does the nephew do? How he addresses his two “uncles”? What’s the joke here with the particle he adds?
Goblin ep.15
@36:05 - 38:35 How do the two main leads address each other in this scene where they are on the white couch? They are a couple now, and discussing how to address each other.
@ 55:24 - 56:24 How does the presenter address the guest (lawyer)? How does the lawyer address the presenter? How does the presenter address the audience? After the radio show ends, two girls speak. How do they speak to each other?
@ 56:18. The restaurant owner sits on a table with a real estate dealer and they talk about a sale. How does he address her? He just says two sentences.
@ 56:49 - 58:46 The female lead (radio presenter) and the restaurant owner (Sunny). How do they address each other? How the female lead refers to the carrot-haired restaurant owner lady?
What’s wrong with Secretary Kim episode 1
2:56. The secretary and her boss. How do they speak with each other?
7:07-7:40 A board meeting. The president is giving a presentation. Long, complicated sentences. Listen to the ending of all of them. The vice chairman intervenes to make some comments. How does he speak to the president, and how does the presenter (president) speak to him?
25:11-26:10 The vice chairman (male main lead) is speaking with his secretary (female main lead). Suddenly, his parents come. His mother calls him from afar, she speaks to the secretary. Then everybody sits down to a meal. How do they address each other and what formality level do they use? The elder couple between them, the parents to the boy, the boy to the parents, the parents to the secretary?
How does the mother refer to her son?
34:50-35:50. We are at a banquet. The vice-chairman and his secretary are there, when a female approaches. How does this annoying creature address him?
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예, 선생님!
For this one, I heard something really close to chu…yo. I suppose that is Formal-polite form. When the scene changed and the old men started talking, they ended their sentences with -mnida, so they were super-formal in their conversation.
I couldn’t find the nephew, but still, at this scene, the queen and the king were super formal with each other.
The sentence endlings were in -yo, so that was formal-polite.
All the sentences were super formal, the presenter ended her sentences with -mnida and the guest spoke gamsahbnida, so both of them were super formal.
The female was formal with her boss, she spoke with -yo endings whereas I couldn’t hear neither -yo nor -mnida when the other woman was talking, so I am just making a guess here, she was informal with the female lead.
This exercise was so much fun, thank you so much for adding this to my experience😄
This is a really good summary of this lesson, I am going to have this in my mind everytime I enter into the subtitle editor.
I remember, in My Love From The Star, the female lead always addressed the main lead as Do Min Joo Ssi, although I don’t remember if the male lead did that. What level of speech is this one? They are already a couple but still remaining super formal with each other or does -ssi belong to polite or casual form of speech or can it be used in all three cases?
The moment I read this,
I had this in my mind.
Once again, thank you so much for this lesson. I am going to pass this on to other Hindi subbers as well, this is of a really great help.
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This “ssi” is another thing, Thanks for reminding me, I will add it to my previous post.
But no, the one I was talking about (si, single S) is inside the verb, between the root and the ending, that’s why said that it’s difficult to hear.
The -ssi after a person’s name means “mister”, “missus” and “miss”.
Yes, normally it does mean that those two speak with the middle level of formality (the “yo” kind). It’s not very formal, because it uses the person’s name (full name). If you’re very formal, you don’t use the person’s name but their title/job name. Using the name is already a little bit more intimate.
Oh, about the nephew and the uncles. I must have gotten the episode number wrong. It was episode 14. https://www.viki.com/videos/1115066v#
As for the love scene on the white couch in episode 15, no, they are not casual with each other. She even calls him “ajussi” still. She suggests they call each other by first name and he says “definitely not”, so she continues with the formal-polite and he continues with the informal.
Unfortunately I cannot check the timings again because it’s been two days now that I cannot watch any episode, I get an error message.
I admit that I subbed only a few 50+ dramas for this very reason. I like to see the episode first before translating. The worst for an editor is it to have a subber on the team who is not willing to make the extra effort to watch it (or, if that ist too timeconsuming even read a sinopsis and the 'Who is Who" (we write quite detailed docs for the team for that purpose)) and who uses the bulk translator to sub blindly. I had the case of a subber who asked me in the 33th episode who a certain person was (second lead at times even the first love interest of the heroine)
As for other difficulties I find it very challenging to respect the lenght of a sentence without changing the sense of it. A major difference between Korean and German is the lenght of a sentence and you want to avoid that the audience has to pause the film to read the subtitle.
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I heard about people, who edit with the bulk translator while listening to some music via headphones and I wonder, how will those edits look alike 
Subbers, who didn’t recognize the main lead in episode 40 or didn’t get the formal and informal speech between the leading couple in the very last episode, yes, of course 
As a German moderator and editor I get really angry, if subbers don’t read the google doc. I put many efforts in this doc, while watching the episodes I stop and take screenshots for the cast, note down the names to the faces, add terms and update the doc. I won’t say anything while editing the first two episodes, but at least after the 3rd and 4th episode the subbers should look into the doc and get their subs straight 
It’s difficult to determine the formal and informal speech and I adjust it to the German customs, so it may happen, that in Korean the formal speech is used and in German we use the informal banmal and vice versa. And although I love to translate the song lyrics, sometimes it’s very hard to create German ones with sense and sensibility 
Usually I copy and paste the Korean lyrics into the doc, too and if I have no clue, what is meant, I translate the Korean lyrics with naver to get a hint about the meaning.
Concerning fantasy dramas it’s sometimes difficult to get the right name, for example Goblin - Dokkaebi, who is not the German allegory for a creepy creature like Sméagol from Lord of the Rings, but more a kind of fae or god. The Dokkaebi from Goblin is a former human, now Shin - god - bound to his sword and with superpowers, so the team and I decided to call him Dokkaebi with an explanation for the viewers, when the name first appeared. Our Korean friends laughed their asses off about the English translation “Goblin”. We did the same with “Habaek” the water god from Bride of the Water God, because “Habaek” is his name, he IS the Habaek.
Very challenging are the edits for historical dramas with tons of special terms, fighting moves, magical items and the very polite speech.
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I am not sure if this is the right place to ask but I was wondering if there is a general agreement among editors for Korean dramas as to how to sub Korean names. For example, the name 이민호, I’ve seen it written as Lee Min Ho, Lee Minho, Lee Min-Ho, or Lee Min-ho. Also, if there is a discrepancy between the way the names are written on the Synopsis (About page) and in the Team Notes, which should the subbers follow?
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I remember reading somewhere that there once was a questionnaire held here in which Vikians voted for the spelling rules and so the new rules were born. Doesn’t seem like everyone follows them, though. Even within one episode a name is sometimes written in 2 different ways!
I think the spelling in the Synopsis comes from outside, while the spelling in the subs is decided upon within the teams.
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I’m curious; the way you write the name means something different? They are all Lee Min Ho why adding a dash make a difference in the name? When they add the dash ( - )I never write it in bc I go as we respectfully must write names in Spanish. First letter in the name must be Capital letter and we don’t use a dash for names.
Most Korean names have three characters, last name (Kim, Lee, Park, etc.) plus the given name, which usually have two characters (for example, 민호). Unlike American names, the two characters do not mean that the first one is the first name and the other is the middle name. Instead, the combination of the two is the full given name. So, the hyphen is not there to connect a first and middle name but rather to help non-Koreans with the pronunciation and to denote the two characters. In other words, as far as I know, the various ways of romanizing Korean names are simply personal choices.
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If it’s new subbers, showing them just what is necessary, like screens of the subtitle editor and shortcuts can save an editor from many bothersome events.
A subber in my language knows it’s not possible to subtitle in the bulk translation, because we can’t see or hear who talk to who for formal/casual or how to deal with feminine or masculine.
If it does happen, the editor will see it and give a warning and ask the subtitler to review his part or else will stop the relationship with the subber.
–
It depends whether the subber has just been recruited or not, is he new or not?
I find it risky to recruit subbers around 2/3 or around the end because it asks more efforts than beginning a drama from scratch.
If you know the subtitler is serious and will watch the beginning or will look at the document, there is no problem.
Otherwise…
–
Who is who
In addition to the pictures of actors, using a logical and general pattern will help to memorize for all dramas for subbers. They will likely use their logic to deduce it.
Formal:
Ending part (yo, nida…)
Titles (Miss, Sir, Master, Ahjussi…)
Younger people to older people**
Subordinates to superiors, chiefs**
Servants to masters, nobility, royalty**
Inferior titles to superior titles (king is above everyone)**
Younger to older relatives*
New encounters
*only in some historical dramas or old dramas: respect to elders
**Rank > Age
…
Informal: the rest and the contrary
Ending part (ya…)
No titles or Oppa
Between relatives***
Between friends, children
Familiar with each other to joke around, kiss (not always)
…
***except in some historical or old dramas to show respect to elders
There will be characters it will be more difficult to know from a few interactions and a few exceptions, yeah.
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Although using some convention to separate the given name from the surname (either with the hyphen between the two syllables of the given name, Min-ho or by joining them as one, Minho) makes it easier for the viewers and it’s the way most people actually write their names, it was decided on Viki many years ago among the volunteers that the names would be written without hyphens, because apparently subbers thought adding this hyphen was too much of an extra job (LOL!). Therefore you don’t see hyphens in subtitles nowadays.
In case of discrepancy, everyone follows the guidelines of the Chief Editor.
For a long time now, I have been waging a campaign for using RR (Revised Fomanization), for all Korean words in our subtitles, including names. You know, the official spelling of Hangul which is a state law in Korea since 2000. Because the old spelling was just something that made sense to English speakers, and not so much for the rest of the world. Like “oo” instead of “u” and “u” instead of “eo” (a very open ò). Why should we write hyung instead of the correct hyeong and noona instead of nuna?
Same for names. Yes, private individuals still have a choice on how to romanize their names in Korea, they weren’t obliged to change them, although it’s warmly encouraged.
Usually we make an exception for five very common names, which we keep in their usual anglicised form:
Kim (김, normally Gim) As of the South Korean census of 2015, there were 10,689,959 people by this name in South Korea or 21.5% of the population.
Lee (이, normally I or Yi - but Joseon kings are written Yi). the second-most-common surname in Korea. As of the South Korean census of 2015, there were 7,306,828 people by this name in South Korea or 14.7% of the population. Though the official Revised Romanization spelling of this surname is I, South Korea’s National Institute of the Korean Language noted in 2001 that one-letter surnames were quite rare in English and other foreign languages and could cause difficulties when traveling abroad. However, the NIKL still hoped to promote systemic transcriptions for use in passports, and thus recommended that people who bore this surname should spell it Yi in the Roman alphabet. However, the majority of South Koreans with this surname continue to spell it as Lee, because conditions for changing passport name is strict.
Park (normally Bak)
Kang (강, normally Gang) Sixth more popular Korean surname.
Choi ( 최, normally Choe)
More on this here:
Again, follow what your moderator/editor wishes.
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Thank you!
thats not what i meant. I mean watch wnough to know the setting and plot. i watch dramas in original language all the time first… even if not subbed. I speak and can read and write in 5 languages but translating eithout understanding the basics is likely to have you miss the cultural cues. like you can write brother but if your audiende doesnt get the context they may not know the real meaning unless you point it out. this is just sn observation and my opinion. feel free to do it your own way
There are many ways to reach the same result, if you’re fine with the way you do, then it’s totally fine.
If other people do differently and reach the same result, then it is totally fine too.
It would be weird to tell everyone to watch dramas without subs to be able to translate, but if you can do it, I see no problem.
Depending on the drama:
I think a lot of us can subtitle without needing much context.
In subtitling academies, some parts are given to translate in the middle of the drama and their results are good or not bad. There might be a few sentences where it is not correct because they needed the previous background, but for the purpose of training and the role they are in (translators), it is correct.
We test their adaptability, their logical skills and their understanding. Can they understand just this part from what they see?
From my point of view and from having done it:
It depends on the drama and the ability of someone to understand without needing much context or they are acquainted with that type of context and the cultural gap or language differences or the experience with dramas.
People capitalize and gain experience from translating the same type of dramas.
We also meet the same terms, same expressions.
It’s case by case.
If people translate but don’t understand, they will probably look on the internet, watch what happens next or what was before to understand or they will ask the team or let the editor come help.
So either they watch before to understand, either while translating they take a look, either they translate first and then look after… I am not picky with how people manage to do it, but if in the end it’s correct, that’s the most important.
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Like I said, that was my own method. I have been translating on the go in real life, not on here… so ur experiences are probably more relevant in this setting. I just started to do 1 show because I wanted to watch it with someone that couldnt keep up with the english subs.