Nowadays, more and more Vietnamese people are using smartphones to watch movies and TV shows not only to relax but also to learn foreign languages and cultures, subtitle translation has become a popular job for many home owners. provides language services. It can be said that subtitles have had a strong influence on the audience and play an important role in conveying foreign languages and cultures to Vietnamese audiences.
In this post, IDICHTHUAT will guide you through some basics of subtitle translation and then specific properties to perform subtitle translation into Vietnamese or any other language.
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Basic Steps of Subtitle Translation
A complete subtitle in the target language requires several steps: transcription, timing, translation, evaluation, performance control/quality control, and coding. While copying, timing, and encoding are more focused on the technological aspects, the other three steps are aimed at the content. Subtitlers are required to work hard, quickly and patiently to meet very tight deadlines. Translators, critics and proofreaders are not only good at foreign languages, but also culturally knowledgeable and have the ability to use Vietnamese fluently and flexibly to convert subtitles in the most natural way. You should pay attention to small details to avoid typos.
Basic Notes in Translating Subtitles
Literal translation – Since the language in the video is the spoken language used in everyday life, literal translation seems to be dominating.
Cultural Equivalence – The unit of measure and currency will be converted to local units. These unit system units (e.g. feet, inches, pounds) will be converted to Vietnamese metric system units (e.g. meters and kilograms).
Some words that are difficult to translate are preserved in the translation. For example: mantras, exclamations, etc.
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Difficulties in Translating Subtitles into Vietnamese
Slang
Slang can be the hardest thing to translate in a video subtitle translation project. Even a native speaker cannot understand all the slang in their language. Due to cultural differences, translators have to find an equivalent expression of the slang in the target language instead of translating it literally.
Nickname
Nicknames – nicknames are specific to cultural and behavioral connotations, so it is difficult to find a compact translated name with a similar meaning. Nicknames are most likely seen in crime movies or gangs, where the character's nicknames are carefully crafted to describe their habits, hobbies, interests, features,
Swearing words and taboos
These words are very common both in life and in movies. The challenge for translators is to translate faithfully to keep the original ideas or use euphemisms to meet the requirements to control Vietnamese content, especially political words. For example, “ Sh ** ” or “ F *** ” translates to “Shit”.
Fictional terms
They are new and difficult to translate specific terms. Example: Passing his time, he killed himself. “In time, a sci-fi movie about a world where people stop aging when they are twenty-five years old and their life clocks start counting down.
They work and earn time to live and pay all living expenses. If time runs out, they will die. The example is said by the main character of the film (Will). He's about a man who purposely spends all his time with Will and dies. That is to say, time out of self, coming out, has the function to kill oneself (suicide) and it is more precise than its original idiomatic meaning.
Character limit
The speed of speaking in English is much faster than in Vietnamese. A word in Vietnamese is also longer than an English word. These facts force translators to choose compact words with similar meanings in order to accurately and completely produce expressions that still meet the character limit requirements.
Note: Translators: Top 06 Useful Tips Lời
Pronouns
Pronouns in Vietnamese are very diverse and flexible depending on the role of the speaker. For example, English can be translated into Wo ai ni Huyen in Chinese or Te Amoieu in Spanish without any consideration of pronunciation; but in Vietnamese, it can mean Chuyen Anh loves you / I love you mom / I love you / etc (perhaps, there are hundreds of translations for this sentence). Therefore, the translator must watch the video and listen to the audio carefully to determine the correct pronunciation.
Translating Subtitles Video Clip – Challenging Task
It cannot be said that translating subtitles is an easy task because it involves many aspects of communication, from speech to behavior in a cultural context. Idichthuat have a large team with many years of experience in subtitle translation, thorough understanding of world cultures and fluent in Vietnamese, We are always ready to challenge new limits!
So through the article 6 Difficulties When Translating Video Clip Subtitles into Vietnamese You have grasped some of the difficulties as well as solutions to overcome when Translate sub to video, clip is it in Vietnamese? These translation experience be shared or be friends self-taught translation Any more blankets are sure to have some difficulties, some don't.
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Nguyen Trung Khang - Talented interpreter and translator, passionate about translation
Nguyen Trung Khang is a talented interpreter and translator, with many years of experience in the field of translation and linguistics. He graduated from Ho Chi Minh City University of Education, majoring in Linguistics in 2015.
After graduating, Mr. Khang participated in a professional interpretation and interpretation training course at the University of Foreign Languages - Hanoi National University. He achieved a high-level certificate in interpreting and interpreting, and was also awarded a master's degree in linguistics.