Is it that bad in your languages?

englishpartner wrote:

The Czech side of the manual said you should climb up and down the ladder facing toward the ladder. The Slovak side said you should climb up and down with your face.

Heinrich Pesch wrote:

In many countries you cannot even compare because all you hear is the translated dialog.

Merab Dekano wrote:



This really sounds alarming to me, Lincoln. I simply hope that doctors or nuclear plant managers are doing better job than those ill-fitted translators.

Merab Dekano wrote:

I was watching Unfortunate Events with my kid. At some point, one of the characters presents herself:
- Hello, I'm justice Strauss of the city High Court.

Spanish (continental) translation was like this:
- Hola, soy justicia Strauss del Tribunal Supremo.

Spanish (Latin American) translation was like this:
- Bienvenidos, soy la jueza Straus de la Suprema Corte.

Subtitling part goes like this:
- Hola, soy Justicia Strauss de la Suprema Corte de la ciudad.

As you have probably noticed, "justice Strauss" got translated as:

- justicia Strauss (even "Justicia Strauss", as if it were a proper name of the lady)
- jueza Strauss (which seems to be the proper translation, as "justice", in this context, is not "justicia", but "juez/a", a judge)

I have two questions and would love to hear about your experiences from your linguistic areas:

1. Is it that difficult to either realise that "justice" has at least two meanings depending on the context, or to ask someone who knows this is so, and that prior to releasing the film in different languages?

2. Is it only in Spanish or does it also happen in other languages?

Łukasz Gos-Furmankiewicz wrote:



See title. But as a lawyer-turned-translator I assure you KudoZ questions and answers don't fall from the quality level we're discussing here.

Merab Dekano wrote:



I am against dubbing, because is causes "dumbing" (anyone can watch a movie in the original language with subtitles). However, and personal preferences aside, dubbing in Spain is of very high level. The voices are amazing. I am sure anyone of those actors (because that's what they are, actors) could easily pull an opera aria. The colour of the voice, the fullness of it, neuter accent (unless otherwise required). It's a joy to listen to them.

I wish translation work too were done at the same level.

Texte Style wrote:

just watching a series last night with my daughter I saw that the name of a character, Cole, had been translated as coal. Like "Charbon, tu es là?"

José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote:

Since 1987 (for dubbing) and 2004 (for subtitling), I specialize in corporate video (e.g. training, product launch, institutional) translation. Competition is limited, because quality requirements are very high.

Only now and then I do some feature films and TV series, where competition is fierce, and low rates abound. To give an idea, many years ago a dubbing studio offered me one-third of my usual rates, saying that if I accepted that they'd have sufficient demand to keep me busy 24/7, if I could endure it.

There is a bunch of amateurs everywhere translating subtitles of the movies/videos they like for free, as a hobby. They are called fansubbers, and they publish their SRT files on the web, so anyone will be able to watch pirated movies with subtitles in their preferred language.

Of course, since these subs are given for free, nobody is entitled to complain about their quality. As a result, fansubbers get practice, however they don't improve, because nobody is telling them where they should improve.

Since the movie/TV dubbing/subtitling industry is doing its best to cut costs, and hence drive rates down, capable translation pros are giving up on it. On the other end, those who were doing it for free welcome a chance to do it for some - no matter how little - money.

Bottom line is that ever more often I see on cable TV series, that when actors talk a bit too fast, to a point where even native speakers, if not really focused, would miss part of it, they simply skip the subtitles. Either they failed to understand what was said - in spite of the possibility of rewinding and listening again - or they thought it would be too much trouble to condense all that discourse into a subtitle short enough to be read in the skimpy time allotted.

A few years ago, when I saw some translation agencies trying to push PEMT down every translator's throat, I thought that it wouldn't take long before subtitling studios outsourced translation completely to fansubbers, and got the pros to fix their output later.

As I had some time to spare between Xmas and the New Year then, I decided to run an experiment, some kind of an off-school "thesis" on whether it would be costwise effective to have video translation for subtitling done by low-grade amateurs, and later "fixed" by pros.

I got the video "Now You See Me WITHOUT the commercial DVD subtitles in PT-BR, and the subtitles for it from a fansubber, available on the web.

The entire experiment and links to download the files are available at http://www.lamensdorf.com.br/conserto-legenda-barata.html . It's all in Brazilian Portuguese, for all on this forum who can read it.

Bottom line is that the time it takes for a pro to fix bad subtitles is about the same as to do it from scratch, without the script or a transcript. As a matter of fact, thanks to the Law of Least Effort, "fixed" subtitles are actually WORSE than if done from scratch by a pro.

So I really hope that the folks in the video industry will not think this PEMT-like procedure is worth it.

mariealpilles wrote:

It amazes me to see that some professional translators are surprised. When I read the questions asked by some people who accept a job here, or the rates of some, I can only say to myself that the professionals on the site are becoming an exception.

On top of that less and less jobs go to those professionals since cheap rates are all the go, especially from agencies or others requiring this and that and further documents and additional proofs and such or such CAT Tools. In no other profession is a client in a position to dictate the tool used. Try and go to the butcher and require he uses that or this knife to cut the piece of meat... I bet you will be thrown out of the shop. Translators seem to take this as perfectly normal - I am sorry, this is not the way things should work. The client gives you a job and the way you perform it is none of his/her/its business as long as you deliver quality. But then when he/she/it pays peanuts, what can they expect apart from crap?

mariealpilles wrote:
In no other profession is a client in a position to dictate the tool used.