Contributing as a translator comes with a sense of responsibility that I’m sure many of us have and we always do our best to provide the best possible translations.
However it also means that you might get to rewatch your work at some point later in the future and can’t believe what you did. That is what I’m now experiencing with one of the shows that I was/am a Dutch mod for. I think every line I see is terrible and that ‘nobody talks like that in real life’ and I can’t believe I approved of them/made them. The sentences are not necessarily wrong, though. If they were I would correct them.
Now part of me wants to go into the sub editor and change everything I don’t like, but otoh I think things like it’s not worth the trouble, once I start I’ll keep finding things, it’s an old show, who watches the Dutch subtitles anyway? etc. And what if I’m happy with my corrections now, but a year later I again think it’s all terrible?
Does anyone else recognize this feeling and is there anyhing you do about it?
"I thought a lot about whether I should reply, and what I would say. I think that if you start fixing your own subtitles, it becomes a never-ending cycle. It sounds like you already do good work the first time around—taking context and situational speech styles into account. You think about how the subtitling fits the story and plot, and you consider how things are expressed in your native language. You check your text for typos and grammatical errors. Just tell yourself that it’s enough. That’s what I do.
I just think about my own subtitling that I trust in being a professional in my native language, and thinking subtitles through once is enough. I don’t know your language, but I know from my own that the same thing can be said in so many ways. You could polish your phrasing indefinitely, but does that really make sense? You’ll just end up getting stuck in place. I’d say don’t watch your shows afterward, and you’ll stay satisfied. Let’s keep up the good work!"
