Reaching other languages.
WHAT SUBTITLES DIFFER FROM CAPTIONS IN
Subtitles translate speech; captions transcribe it including sound.
WHAT MAKES SUBTITLES READABLE
Two lines at most A limited number of characters per line Enough time on screen Breaks at natural points in the sentence
WHAT READING SPEED TO ALLOW
Substantially slower than speech.
WHAT THAT MEANS
Subtitles must condense, not transcribe.
WHAT TO PRESERVE WHEN CONDENSING
Meaning and tone.
WHAT TO DROP
Filler, repetition, and redundancy.
WHAT TIMING REQUIRES
Appearing as the line begins, and leaving before the next.
WHAT TO AVOID
Subtitles spanning a cut Lines that appear and vanish too quickly Text overlapping burned-in graphics
WHAT FORMAT TO DELIVER
A standard subtitle file, separate from the video.
WHY SEPARATE
It can be turned off, translated further, and indexed.
WHAT MACHINE TRANSLATION PROVIDES
A starting point.
WHAT IT REQUIRES
Review by a speaker, always.
WHY
Idiom, names and context are routinely mishandled, and errors are invisible to someone who does not speak the language.
WHAT TO CONSIDER LOCALLY
Producing versions in widely spoken local languages, which few competitors do.
WHAT THAT PROVIDES
Reach that English alone does not.
