Inside the dying art of subtitling
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| | Mr. Satan (X)
English to Indonesian
| Well yes, but... | Feb 22, 2022 |
Almost 20 professional groups have united under the banner AudioVisual Translators Europe, a federation that aims to improve working conditions for all media translators by working with and educating European institutions and legislators.
I'm sorry. But for as long as this federation/association has no authority over the business globally, it won't be able to do much to improve the situation.
Oh, BTW...
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/14/netflix-raises-prices-in-us-and-canada-stock-pops.html
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I am not a subtitler, but I’d be grateful if someone anywhere in the world was trying to move things forward. I suppose all things have to start somewhere and doing something is better than none at all…
| | | | Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 17:31
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| Mr. Satan (X)
English to Indonesian
I sincerely hope that AVTE can incorporate their goals into the EU Law, which should (fingers crossed) cause a ripple effect to the US. Especially so, since most of the major streaming services are based in there.
[Edited at 2022-02-22 09:50 GMT]
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 16:31
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| Thanks Samuel | Feb 22, 2022 |
The original article is very interesting to read, and that link you posted also provides much food for thought, such as this quote:
"Neural translation, as impressive as it can be, is just another tool in a skilled translator’s belt. Achieving human translation quality level through post-editing often takes as much time as doing the work from scratch. But stripped of the creativity and fun. At a fraction of the price. And much added stress"
So far, that is a point that isn't getting across, but I believe that in time, it will, and there will be a renewal of interest in the work of skilled, hardworking translators.
[Edited at 2022-02-22 16:48 GMT]
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Tom in London wrote: The original article is very interesting to read, and that link you posted also provides much food for thought, such as this quote: "Neural translation, as impressive as it can be, is just another tool in a skilled translator’s belt. Achieving human translation quality level through post-editing often takes as much time as doing the work from scratch. But stripped of the creativity and fun. At a fraction of the price. And much added stress" So far, that is a point that isn't getting across, but I believe that in time, it will, and there will be a renewal of interest in the work of skilled, hardworking translators. [Edited at 2022-02-22 16:48 GMT]
And, IMO will never be like direct human translation because the editor is psychologically conditioned by the machine translated text. Thanks Samuel, very interesting.
| | | | neilmac
Spain
Local time: 17:31
Spanish to English
+ ...
| Subtitling howlers | Mar 4, 2022 |
I saw a cracker last night, showing an egregious lack of cultural background knowledge and/or unseemly haste. The Australian-English soft rock duo from the 80s, Air Supply, translated into Spanish as "Erso Play"...
Come to think of it, it might have been a case of speech recognition based machine translation.
[Edited at 2022-03-04 09:42 GMT]
| | | | Oliver Simões
United States
Local time: 08:31
English to Portuguese
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| Sad exploitation | Apr 23, 2022 |
It would be interesting to read an honest, critical essay/article about the current state of translation as a profession. I don't think it's very far from what was said about subtitling. I am so sick and tired of translation agencies requiring that I take a free test. Frankly, I don't know of any other occupation where service providers are required to take tests, let alone free tests. There was one agency offering proofreaders a meager rate of 0.011 USD per word and they also wanted candidates ... See more It would be interesting to read an honest, critical essay/article about the current state of translation as a profession. I don't think it's very far from what was said about subtitling. I am so sick and tired of translation agencies requiring that I take a free test. Frankly, I don't know of any other occupation where service providers are required to take tests, let alone free tests. There was one agency offering proofreaders a meager rate of 0.011 USD per word and they also wanted candidates to take a test. That's unreal. I started saying no to these exploiters. Unfortunately, translators by and large are not ready to say no or draw the line. They should. There's nothing wrong to say NO to exploitation. We should value our work whether we are translators, subtitlers, reviewers, etc. Unfortunately, some folks are willing to work for almost nothing and accept anything that comes their way.
[Edited at 2022-04-23 01:43 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Mr. Satan (X)
English to Indonesian
[yawn]
I'm bored. People keep complaining about the low rates, and yet nobody really does anything meaningful to elevate the situation. 
| | | | Brian Joyce
United Kingdom
Member (2022)
French to English
Novian Cahyadi wrote: [yawn] I'm bored. People keep complaining about the low rates, and yet nobody really does anything meaningful to elevate the situation.
The fundamental work of any trade union is to police the industry, and make sure exploitation is stopped.
A recent case here in Britain;
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-61059174
shows how impotent trade unions are in the 21st century. How can you police a global industry?
How are you going to get agencies to pay a decent rate, when they have access to cheap labour?
We need a revolution in the name of all the exploited, including textile workers in India that make the clothes we wear.
| | | | Mr. Satan (X)
English to Indonesian
| @Brian Joyce | Apr 23, 2022 |
I've been yelling at the cloud like an old madman.
... See more
| | | | Brian Joyce
United Kingdom
Member (2022)
French to English
| Paying peanuts | Apr 23, 2022 |
I'm not kidding. But the subtitles of a high brow contemporary Norwegian film read;
" I wasn't sick already then ".
This is a shocking example of the sorry state of the industry. If that's not bad enough, the film is about a writer.
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