Mine are declensions, genders and tenses.
Not even idioms can cause me as much trouble.
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When you KNOW what it means, but canāt find the words to express it in the language youāre subbing inā¦ Sometimes itās a really easy phrase in the original language tooā¦
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Uhā¦ That, too. Especially when Iām more familiar with the term in the other language, because of work or movies.
Itās always a simple term in my language, but it comes to me too late. 
(Weāre lucky we can edit!)
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Social structure/polite forms. Even though I am not fluent in Korean I do understand if they speak casual, polite or honorific with each other. In English there is no difference in politeness-level and since I translate into German I need to decide between two levels.
Best example: Woman talks to father-in-law in polite form and he is talking to her in casual form and I end up just letting her use informal language in German because in our culture it would make no sense why you wouldnāt use informal language to your father-in-law (at least when he also uses informal language).
Also itās really difficult because here if you get closer you switch into informal language but you donāt necessarily do that in Korean. So most of the time the editors randomly have to decide when the characters feels close enough to switch into informal in German even though there is no event like asking if they could just go informal. Like there is this sudden politeness switch without any reasons because thatās just the cultural difference that is intranslatable. Or you just feel like in German standards they should go informal even though they keep talking in polite Koreanā¦ So yeah. Itās kind of trying to interprete Korean culture into German culture through subsā¦ O.O
Basically what I dislike most about editing is having to remember what we decided on who uses formal or who uses informal and on which Episode they switch because it would be confusing otherwise.
So definetly the politeness level 
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I usually use what they use, unless it sounds very odd in my language. For example, members of an average modern family using formal speech would sound odd.
However, if the family is rich/conservative or if the drama takes place a few decades ago, formal speech is acceptable.
I try to āreadā the situation and translate accordingly.
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There isnāt like a āformalā or āinformalā thing in English, but there are words we use that sound more respectful. For example:
Informal - Thanks.
Formal - Thank you.
Informal - Can I get aā¦
Formal - May I haveā¦
Informal - No.
Formal - No, thank you.
Informal - Yeah/Yes.
Formal - Yes, please.
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Iām not sure if this is a problem for anyone else, but sometimes after long subbing marathons, both my English and Mandarin grammar get a bit wonky. They start melding into each other. Then basic sentence structure starts sounding really funky and I start questioning everything in life. Lol.
I am a native speaker for both languages, so I donāt think itās a matter of fluency. You just gotta take breaks in between.
Idioms are another headache. I sit here for long periods debating if viewers will get the literal translation or if I should completely rephrase it into simple English. Certain ones are pretty obvious like ādonāt pluck the fruit before its timeā, which simply means not to be hasty.
Then there are others like āThe color indigo is bluer than the plantā which means the student has surpassed his master (I know. wtf).
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You are not alone in this. I tend to mix languages, too, especially after watching many episodes or reading many books in another language. Even my intonation suffers.
As for idioms, I think the point is to make the viewer understand. āRaining cats and dogsā is pretty obvious, but 95% of the greek viewers would say āitās raining chair legsā. The litteral translation would interrupt their immersion in the show.
Thatās a nice solution for when the conversation is long enough. Thank you.
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Those are the easy ones to translate, but Mandarin idioms sometimes condense a full story into 4 characters. Those are the difficult ones. It would be too long to translate figuratively into English for the segment. So you translate literally and hope that the viewers can understand.
I know some people hate translator notes, but I find them useful and even necessary sometimes.
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I would said āvousā and ātuā in french. So formal and unformal language ><
Sometime, Iām not sure if they use polite form or notā¦
And after, I would said some expressions. Iām torn in trying to find a expression who fit in situation.
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I have encountered few things, while subbing in German and editing as well.
- I find myself writing few English words with German words without noticing at first, only after reading I see it. I have also seen this with other subbers. (That happens when you think bilingual)
- The wrong usage of characters, whether it is the ābrā used inside a sentence or the - without space before the spoken dialog. I haven even seen the < Italic > characters used multiply times after sentence and lyrics, not sure how subbers are confused with this.
- Without understanding Korean, itās hard to figure out the formal and informal speech, as we know Korean culture differs in this with the European culture.
- Spending too long subbing gets like funny sentences, itās better to take breaks
- My pc keyboard is in English, to sub in German I have to change my keyboard settings, so the constant switch between E to G and back is sometimes a hassle and time consuming plus the editor still wants to autocorrect some words back to English even when editing it still changes some words and I have to correct and correctā¦
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A button or shortcut would be perfect for 2. I save the code for br and italics on a notepad and copy-paste it, to avoid changing keyboards.
Totally agree with 4!
It seems that formal/informal speech is a common problem.
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When Iām not sure, I use what makes sense in my language. E.g. formal for your boss, informal for your best friend.
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In Dutch itās the same problem. I also sometimes donāt know if I should use formally or informally words. I usually follow the Korean speaking, unless it sounds strange in Dutch.
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You know how Korean is strongly influenced by China. We have those too! Me and Ajumma2 have been drawing up a list!
You can find it under the āģ¬ģģ±ģ“ā tab in her Jewel in the Palace doc. You can find the doc link by going to her page: viki.com/users/Ajumma2
Those are annoying because people just flat out use it and Iām not a native Korean so theyāll use 'em everywhere!!! I found one a few days ago ģģė¹ė¹ which is to dispute what is right.
Just thought it might be helpful to you. If we start putting the chinese chars next to it you might find it helpful too!
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The most annoying thing is that Viki makes it ridiculous to get into the Korean sub editor I have become pro at it lately, but still. grrrrrā¦ Worst of all when I have ads when I need to see a doc in 720p. Not happy there. Of course I know someone somewhere will notice my spacing in Korean is off and mock me. (secret fear).
In terms of actual pains in the arse would be cursewords which have to be translated in context, regional dialects I do not understand, and my darn inability to hear properly.
I do agree with the polite impolite thing. After subbing for a bit over a month. iāve broken it down to command form of English, word choice in English (go for the rude demeaning ones lol), and strategic placements of āpleasesā and Mr/Miss/Mrs. As a native English speaker I think polite/impolite is no longer an issue.
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Google it 
You can learn the differences of formal and informal if you listen.
I.e. Juh vs Na (for the word āIā) and
i.e. sentences ending with āyoā denotes they are talking in formal
Kind of hard to catch on but if your language has formal/informal too, it would be nice to see the translations carry over.
(since english doesnt have it) lol
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SOPHIE! You and Ajumma are AMAZING :))
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I think my main problem is that much is ālost in translationā, because we translate āsecond-handā from English (no disrespect, love you guys and gals, and thank you! Weād be lost without you!).
My language (Greek) for example has genres when English uses āitā for objects, singular and plural are different, and the verbsā types are very different, depending on context. Korean has no singular/ plural in verbs, the way Greek has, so English subs are ok but when itās my turn I have to choose, and I donāt have a clue about Chinese.
So Iām always afraid that, even if the English sub matches the meaning of the Korean sentence, it doesnāt really work in Greek and no matter how I do it, literal translation or by context, the viewer will miss important information. Or the (very, very few) things I know in Korean, work better in Greek if I donāt follow the English sub and work with the original line. I have surprisingly found many idioms that are literal translations Greek <-> Korean, but the English version is completely different! So the Eng subber ads an explanation, but if I just translate the Korean words, no explanation is necessary, because we say it with the same words in Greek! And sometimes people think I omit things, but itās just because the explanation just isnāt necessary.
Oh, and of course, as you all said, when the original English word makes sense, this is the one I would use to express something IRL (whatās the use of learning foreign languages otherwise? 
) but I HAVE to find an equivalent in Greek. That I would never use. Maybe too much TV has ruined me, but things sometimes just Make Sense in another language!
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