marwa ibrahim Egypt Local time: 03:10 Arabic to English + ...
Mar 30, 2011
Hello
I'm new to subtitling and trying to get the main rules laid before me. The problem I have encountered while working and for which I'm looking for an answer is that the segments in the target language (English) are, most of the time, much longer than the source sentence (Arabic). Is there a certain rule concerning this? Is there a ratio that should be kept between the number of words in the source vs. the target? Also, is it ok to sacrifice a more eloquent translation for a shorter and clearer one? This "length" thing is very unclear to me. Please help me and if you can send me a link to the basics of subtitling (concerning the problems of length) simply and straightforwardly laid, I'd be grateful.
[Edited at 2011-03-30 00:42 GMT]
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Maria Anna P. Italy Local time: 03:10 English to Italian
Book suggestion
Mar 30, 2011
Hi,
I'm currently attending a course in subtitling and we are using this book:
Audiovisual Translation: Subtitling
Jorge Diaz-Cintas,
Publisher: Saint Jerome Publications
It is very helpful indeed in giving an overview on semiotics, linguistics and technical considerations of subtitling (for example, from the index: Feet and Frames, Dialogue lists, Style guides, Spatial dimension, Temporal dimension ...)
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Ulf Samuelsson Mexico Local time: 20:10 Member (2007) English to Swedish + ...
Simple rule
Mar 30, 2011
How long the subtitle can be depends on how long it stays on the screen. A good rule of thumb for English is that a normal viewer can read about 15 characters/second while viewing a movie.
If it is visible for 3 seconds,
then this sentence is too long.
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kmtext United Kingdom Local time: 02:10 English + ...
It's all about time
Mar 31, 2011
Some concepts don't translate easily into other languages, so if you can't avoid your target sentence being longer than the source text, there isn't much you can do about it. About all you can do in that case is either let the caption run fast (avoid doing this unless it's something which is easily understood or will be familiar to the audience) extend the reading time, try to edit the text without losing all of the sense or possibly substitute something with a similar meaning, but with a shorter translation.
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