Then again, perhaps the customer shares some of the blame, when they expect to get high quality translation for the low prices that they impose or that the inexperienced charge. Nevertheless, unless the customer speaks the target language, he or she cannot possibly know what they’re getting in return for their money (however little that may be). The ultimate beneficiary of the movies, the public, can do little but make malicious comments as to the respective translator’s IQ or, rather, lack thereof.

 What does it take to be a good subtitler?

 80% of my activity as a freelancer consists of subtitling movies. As I have already said on a different page, subtitling requires a completely different set of skills than regular translation, simply because of technical constraints.

 It is a field where experience plays a crucial part, because the subtitler plays judge, jury and executioner in terms of cutting down the original text in order to comply with restraints of space and time. In other words, the subtitler needs to be able to determine which text is essential or relevant for the subsequent plot so that the audience can correctly understand it and which text can be removed without affecting the storyline. Lack of experience can lead to judgment errors that deprive audiences of crucial information needed to fully understand and enjoy the movie. Would you trust a Med student to perform surgery on you? Even though “surgery” performed on dialogues is not nearly as dramatic or life threatening, trusting beginners with “operating” on your movies is still a risky decision, that can damage your reputation in the long run. 

 A subtitler also needs to have excellent writing skills in order to be able to further reduce the remaining text, so that the viewer can actually read it and, most importantly, understand it. Taking into account that the Romanian language is approximately 20% longer than English and that it takes longer to read a sentence than it does to say it, the subtitler needs to be able to rephrase the original text using fewer or shorter words.

A trained ear is also necessary for a good subtitler, as sometimes only the intonation or the way a particular word is uttered will reveal its true meaning. For instance, in the phrase “It’s not my place to make that call”, “call” can be interpreted in two ways: “phone call” or “decision”. If there is not much context, you need to make a judgment call, based mostly on the actor’s rendering of the sentence. The trained ear is also an important asset with regard to the cueing part – that is, of course, if you want to provide the customer with a frame-accurate cueing.

Since language is not an isolated, static phenomenon, but a living one, that exists and evolves in the culture where it is spoken and written, a good subtitler needs to have an in-depth understanding of this culture and of the “street language” – constantly translating financial, technical or medical documents, while giving you a desirable expertise, does not automatically qualify you as a good movie translator, as most movies, except for documentaries, are not highly specialized. Being familiar with the realities and the culture of the country that produced the movie is essential, since slang is based on those realities. Not knowing the concept of a “peeping Tom”, for instance, can lead to hilarious translations, such as “Tom, the curious one”. The differences between American and British English are a constant source of mistranslations for those “know-it-all-don’t-bother-to-check-the-dictionary” type of translators and that is how the boot of a car suddenly became a “cowboy’s boot” for the Romanian viewers and an “off-licence” liquor store came out as “illegally selling booze”. (For more examples, see TV Bloopers I and II)