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LtDan@lemmy.zipOPto
Asklemmy@lemmy.ml•If you speak another language besides ENG, are the subtitles terrible?English
5·12 days agoIt also depends on the genre which can affect subtitle quality and difficulty on translation:
- Legal Drama + Crime: contains specific jargon
- Political + Military: has technical jargon
- Romance + Teen: has simpler dialog
For instance, Japanese has honorifics: so something like “Your Honor” (as in refering to the judge) is subtitled as 裁判長. Also when watching let’s say US Crime / Legal stuff: there’s concepts that do not cross over in Finnish (i.e. Plead the Fifth) that are specific within their region, so translators will have to look up what that means and convey it correctly while retaining the “legalese”.
Like this, how are you going to subtitle “FBI” / “ATF” / “ICE” into Finnish since those acronyms are specific to the American system? That’s where the real challenge begins via translation, also accounting with their own terminology (i.e. police slang).
I remember reading something funny via subtitles: the caller dialled 911 as the victim was being attacked but the Japanese subs changed it to 110 (which is Japan’s equivalent). Although the main setting of the movie literally takes place in the United States so they could’ve just left it as it is.
LtDan@lemmy.zipOPto
Asklemmy@lemmy.ml•If you speak another language besides ENG, are the subtitles terrible?English
2·12 days agoAnd another, closer to your example, that I have seen used wrong at least two times before. “Screw you” being used in the movie with the meaning of “fuck you” and the subtitle translating it with the word used for tightening a screw.
The same applies with Japanese subs from English audio, what happens is that there are word inconsistencies for a single term. There was an episode of the same TV show I was watching and they translated “Marine” (as in a US Marine) using 3 words alltogther interchangably throughout:
- 米兵 (US Troops)
- 兵士 (Soldier)
- 海兵隊員 (Marine)
Only out of those 3 is the correct word choice based on visual context (the PoW’s are in fact in the corps) but the subtitles lazily used 兵士 referring to them as if they’re in the army (which is a seperate branch) as the USMC is under the Dept. of the Navy.
The characters were having a conversation about rescuing 2 marines who are PoW in Afghanistan, during the second half. When they brought up the topic during the first scene: the correct word (海兵隊員) is used, however later on the translation decides to alternate between 米兵 & 兵士.
Like, USE ONLY ONE WORD! It’s confusing as hell to read, especially if it serves as a key part of the episode’s plot (it’s literally within the synopsis), it was from Lie To Me (Season 2, Episode 8).

In Jap, they replace that with 何てこと (Oh mein Gott). TV shows are unique since the subtitles temporarily formatted vertically from right to left but legible during opening credits of each episode after the intro in order not to obstruct the text (which isn’t possible in German). Like this: