Subtitled shows

This section includes some of the shows I have worked on and provided Malay subtitles for. While a small number of the titles I subtitled for are for their supplementals (trailers, teasers etc.), a majority are long forms. For the long forms, some titles even extend to over 300 minutes cumulatively since they are made up of serial episodes. And although supplementals are relatively much shorter, they require a different set of skills to subtitle since these are high stake materials that are used to market the shows and engage the audience. Therefore, not all subtitle linguists are trusted for the supplementals. ​ These titles too are very diverse in genre and format. Some of them are reality shows, which are characterised as unscripted, fast paced, full of overlaps and interruptions among others, and some are comedy, which means that there'll be a lot of puns and other humorous word play. The challenge in that is in carrying the humour over into another language and culture, so the translated text gets audience laughing too. Word play surrounding rhymes, homophones and homonyms is especially tougher than the other types for obvious reasons. Something that I find interesting is also how easily meaning can be lost in translation when you have constraints like the speed limit, character count and timing. A good subtitlist should have sound judgment to find the balance. And that's not the only time when meaning can be lost. Subtitles are often produced based on the English templates. This means that, for example, a Japanese anime would have the translated-into-English templates, which then become sort of the "source language" of their subtitle translation. While it's practical to have English as the pivot language, it should also be acknowledged that the gap between languages and cultures drains the meaning. So often, the original language (e.g. Korean) is much closer to the target language (e.g. Malay) than the pivot language. The cultural elements such as societal hierarchy, kinship, common courtesy, food(!) are typically better directly processed from the source. A quick example: Korean 'oppa' can be either 'big brother (not necessarily by blood(!))' or a term of endearment for a man. In English templates, 'oppa' is often replaced by an English name (and convention) such as 'Mr. Yeong' and there is no textual hint who this 'Mr. Yeong' is to the speaker – neither a boyfriend nor a brother. Now, the Malay language has a similar concept i.e. 'abang', used to address/refer to an older brother, any older male, or a male partner. Wouldn't that be a waste if a subtitlist didn't do the extra work to utilise the original culture and simply rely on the English templates? Yes, and that wouldn't be me. I care a lot about cultural retention in translation and localisation.