#I get that it's probably partly because the subbers are given tight deadlines and a script without much explanation or context | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

aurantia-ignis · 2 years ago

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Every now and then I see screencaps that people take of C-dramas with English subs and...... Good heavens. The translations are so bad and inaccurate and often sound awkward/unnatural... that I wonder if non-chinese viewers actually understand the writing/story they just watched....

#I feel so bad for everyone involved #I saw someone say that Till The End of the Moon's writing was bad #and my initial thought was 'wow your taste absolutely sucks'#but now I wonder if it's actually because the subs didn't manage to convey the actual story properly #TTEOTM was not a masterpiece overall #but it did a lot of things right #particularly in the characterization of tantai jin #Blue Whisper was spectacular apart from a bit of pacing drag in the middle #but no one ever talks very much about it #and maybe that's because the subs were inaccurate too #Mandarin Chinese is not an easy language to sub into English #to keep the cps low enough and yet keep the poetry in the words and also not sound weird #but damn #I get that it's probably partly because the subbers are given tight deadlines and a script without much explanation or context #but what is the point of subbing something so badly that people walk away with only a shallow understanding of the story #such an absolutely pity #my thoughts

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