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In fairness to subtitlers (and speaking as a translator myself, though in a much more forgiving field), they have one of the hardest jobs in our profession. The
by getoj 8y ago
In fairness to subtitlers (and speaking as a translator myself, though in a much more forgiving field), they have one of the hardest jobs in our profession. The range of topics is infinite, the required vocabulary is also infinite, there's no repetition between jobs, there's hardly any context clues, the turnarounds are fast, the pay sucks, and their work will be scrutinized over and over for all eternity by fans (who never pay attention to all the lines that are done well).
In a perfect world it's easy to see how a team of two experienced translators could work on a movie for a few weeks and get it just so, but in the world we live in it's a small miracle that any of it ever gets done right. Hats off to them.
- Mediterraneo10 8y agoAs a fellow translator, I disagree on the difficulty or low pay of doing subtitles. I get paid the same rate for subtitles that I would on any other text, but I can also bill the client for the time spent watching the video first. Turnarounds are not so fast; I often work pretty leisurely. Granted, what I normally translate are films, not television, which might be more stressful. The people I really feel sorry for are the workers on either end of me: the transcriber, and then the person who takes my translated text and has to sync it up with the film. Both of those strikes me as more monotonous and tiresome than my own role.
- coldtea 8y ago>As a fellow translator, I disagree on the difficulty or low pay of doing subtitles. I get paid the same rate for subtitles that I would on any other text, but I can also bill the client for the time spent watching the video first. Turnarounds are not so fast; I often work pretty leisurely. That's not the case in many parts of the world...