Audiovisual translation
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| | Mr. Satan (X)
English to Indonesian
| Sergey Lev 
Russian Federation
Local time: 11:35
English to Russian
+ ...
| Extremely relatable, in fact | Feb 8, 2022 |
The pay in my main subtitling gig was fairly good—sometimes even incredibly good when the stars aligned—but the eventual burnout was massive, and a lot of people whose work I've seen didn't really qualify for the job. I once worked with an editor whose grasp of Russian was, well, okay for a non-native speaker, and after seeing what he did to the first episode I had to establish a communication link to proofread him before he introduced any more errors, but my worst experiences come fr... See more The pay in my main subtitling gig was fairly good—sometimes even incredibly good when the stars aligned—but the eventual burnout was massive, and a lot of people whose work I've seen didn't really qualify for the job. I once worked with an editor whose grasp of Russian was, well, okay for a non-native speaker, and after seeing what he did to the first episode I had to establish a communication link to proofread him before he introduced any more errors, but my worst experiences come from having to QC translators who didn't follow the client's ever-changing rules AND weren't capable as translators. (In such cases my hourly earnings dropped considerably; moreover, the reviewers are never credited no matter how much work they have to do.) Some got sacked eventually, but such experiences and increasing workload wrecked me more than I could realize at the time. Some such translators (as well as the aforementioned person) were Ukrainian, and it showed in some of the expressions they used. The clients from distant countries don't seem to realize Ukraine has a different language environment from Russia, with the gap probably widening by the year due to politics. It's like asking an Indian to translate to American English or be a reviewer since they speak English well. There might be a catch you can't catch with a simple test.
Speaking of tests, some (about a third, maybe up to an half of my personal sample of about 10 candidates) cheat on tests by pulling existing translations of the test sources from the web (at times not editing them at all and copying the errors, which was very helpful in uncovering the truth), which might explain how incompetent translators make it to the ranks of subtitlers despite the supposedly high bar.
You have to be VERY careful to not allow the workload and the environment to impact your mental and physical health; then it's definitely worth it.
P.S. And really, you could say it's the state of almost the entire translation industry. There is simply a surplus, overload, excess of translators on the market (and the abundance of competition makes them ask for lower and lower rates), which makes the clients (some of whom can't even distinguish between an unedited MT and a pro translation and prefer the one that "works" faster!) less willing to dish out high rates and the translators, consequentially, more inclined to leave due to poor conditions. Capitalism in action, lol.
P.P.S. Poor communication is another issue that needs to be addressed in the industry and subtitling in particular. Often people just don't know how to communicate because they either weren't told that clearly or didn't bother to study the learning materials, sometimes there is no direct link between the elements of the translation process, sometimes there are double standards in effect when it comes to freelancers and client representatives, and sometimes the translator's questions on ambiguous matters are left entirely unanswered, so you are forced to make uninformed guesses that would have been unnecessary. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Mr. Satan (X)
English to Indonesian
I agree with everything you said. Well, except the capitalism part. 
I do wish we subtitlers have a certification program of our own, since I don’t think a qualification badge for general translations is going to help us much. And I’m not talking about those where you only need to answer a pop quiz to win your certificates. What I’d love to see is something like a short course we can embark on, probably for a mon... See more I agree with everything you said. Well, except the capitalism part.
I do wish we subtitlers have a certification program of our own, since I don’t think a qualification badge for general translations is going to help us much. And I’m not talking about those where you only need to answer a pop quiz to win your certificates. What I’d love to see is something like a short course we can embark on, probably for a month or so. Like a summer school, you see.
But then we still have issues of those streaming service behemoths not wanting to deal with the mandatory recruitment processes to vet their own freelance subtitlers, and just outsource the jobs to media companies instead. But they too aren’t so hot on the same recruitment shenanigans, so they again outsource them to translation agencies. Obviously, the more middlemen involved in a chain of business, the less money the subtitler would get in the end. Oh, and you can’t take those jobs directly from those media companies BTW, because the agencies are taking up the seats. So they would auto-reject your application no matter how qualified you are, rendering your subtitling certificates to be completely useless.
I also think we need to compile a list of average subtitling rates like the regular translators have. Because the way I see it, the rates subtitlers charge seem to vary wildly. Call me a totalitarian, but I think we need to unify them to some degree.
EDIT:
Well, maybe not a whole month. But it certainly needs to be much meatier than a 30-minute quick test. So when a subtitler managed to get hold of their certificate, it actually means something.
[Edited at 2022-02-08 13:48 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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