Towards the AV-Frontier

memoQ for the subtitling industry

Angela Starkmann

#nowornever#languagematters#hothothot

Towards the AV frontier

1994 -1998: Subtitling (the old-fashioned way) for the Nederland Omroepproductie Bedrijf (NOB) in

Hilversum and some German companies.

After 1999: Technical translation, also: translation technologies & training.

After 2017: Subtitling, again, in the new industry. International clients, with Netflix as the new

“standard”.

What I see: Most people in the AV language industrydon‘t know ANYTHING about translation

technologies.

About myself:

Towards the AV frontier

While localizing media content — video,

film, and television series, in particular

— involves linguistic translation, it

requires much more than just recreating

dialogue in other languages.

New technologies service this industry.

The localization of media content:

What is needed?

Technology: Linguistics:

Strict formal requirements (space!)Diverse file formats with time-codesFast turnover

Short (two lines with 32-42 characters per max. 6 seconds)DialogueColloquial languageLow Context (“meaning” before words)TranslationCultural adaptationMulti-dimensional: A combination of image, sound, words, culture…“a new paradigm on how to communicate.”P.S.: Subtitle translation is usually paid by the minute.

What tools are available?

Available tools: What they do:

AegisubSubtitleEditEZTitlesmany others,

PLUS

proprietary web-based toolsfor larger companies.

Subtitle and time code editingwith videoCheck formal requirements(space!)(Mostly) no glossary

NO CAT tool

Standard Workflow

Subtitle creation

Source

Can technology help in the translation

of av-files at all?

No?

#towardsavfrontier

• Standard conversation elements

• Cross-episode phrases

• Metatext

• General repetitions

• Automated pretranslation of simple language

• Concordance use!

Productivity! Quality! Turnaround!

Where do we see leverage?

#towardsavfrontier

https://slator.com/tag/audio-visual-

translation/

https://help.memoq.com/8-

4/en/Places/srt-subtitles.html

Useful links.

#memoQdoesit

This is a new usageof translation technology.

memoQ is enabling SRT-file editing

from version 4.8

The new version 4.9 will also enable the import of a video file and the editing/review of text and film within the same program while at the same time

using CAT technologies (and soon MT functionalities, if this is what the customer wants).

This works great, but workflows

need to be adapted on the customer side!

Consider this:

Questions? Comments?

Welcome to share…