Why don't subtitles match dubbing?

[@TomScottGo]

The comments, however, are not translated! ■ AD: 👨‍💻 NordVPN's best deal is here: nordvpn.com/tomscott - with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

[@Oncopoda]

Tom. No. You're taking VPN money. 🥹

[@kamixae263]

YOOOOOO

[@alanmott-smith9358]

Close, but no. It's because people are lazy and incompetent.

[@jtgd]

Thank you in French

[@random-uploaders]

Yoooo what up my guy

[@emilyc1282]

I'm an American who watches a Norwegian show which became popular in multiple countries thanks to a dedicated fanbase who translated the show themselves. I remember one case where there was a pun based joke that they knew wouldn't work in English so the subtitles said "bread based pun" "bread pun continues."

[@charliegnu]

A lot of old amateur translations for Japanese animation had translation notes for things they couldn't translate. Lots of memes came out of that, including the infamous "All according to keikaku" / "TN: keikaku means plan"

[@TestTestGo]

Sometimes it's best not to translate a word. I'm reminded of One-piece, a Japanese show I used to watch fan-subs of. They used to leave the word "Nakama" untranslated. Translated it means roughly "a friend that you share a path in life with" but in that show the main character used the word in a unique way, to describe a life defining philosophy for him. Realy he had hijacked the word for his own purpose, so having it be effectively a new word for the audience to learn was less confusing than translating it.

[@flamingpaxtsc]

“Bread based pun” is so unnecessarily funny to me and I don’t know why 🤡

[@shoo_be_doo]

ooh, what show is this?

[@alexhajnal107]

​@@flamingpaxtsc I tried a bread-based pun (in German) on an Austrian acquaintance but it fell flat (no pun intended). I later half-seriously suggested that the trams running on viaducts (common in Vienna) must be called the U-Bahn (for Über-Bahn) and they found it hilarious. German humour, go figure. :^)

[@boopsnoot3142]

Love the part where Tom praises the Japanese VO and the actual VO has to effect giving glowing praise to himself.

[@sarahprunierlaw9147]

I went to listen to that exact part!

[@robertolanzone]

I didn't think about that 😂 unless the VA changed

[@Wrincewind.]

@@robertolanzone or they had to do a ring-around, so the Japenese VO's translation was praising the German VO, who was praising the Italian VO... who was praising the english VO. :p

[@ezekiel0606]

what's the time stamp, please

[@Bukki13]

@@Wrincewind.there is no german vo

[@ryantorchia3202]

My favorite example of localized puns is for a Canadian generic cheese spread. It's named "Cheese-tastic!" in English, and translated into the far superior "Fromidable!" in French.

[@sev1120]

That is an AMAZING pun

[@kategaringer789]

Can't forget about "Lait's go!"

[@jenniferpearce1052]

I love the Choixpeau in the French Harry Potter! Some other things couldn't have a joke, so the translator created the same feel with this sort of addition. So well done.

[@DanDaMonkeyMan]

I always think of Cheesus Christ and Formagesù Cristo in Italian

[@snowleopardseal]

​@@kategaringer789 lait's aller

[@spectrumspectre]

As someone with Auditory Processing Disorder, I cannot thank you and the crew enough for doing proper subtitles for all of your videos, every single time.

[@moosetwin]

I KNOW RIGHT!? I remember being so angry when youtube remove community captions!

[@TheGregcellent]

I've been in and out of hospital with a hearing loss condition that can vary how much I can hear. Creators like Tom who always ensure they have subtitles are a godsend 😊

[@MFsyrup]

Same here, it’s really been a godsend. Nobody *has* to do it but I’m really grateful for those who do.

[@KOTYAR0]

As not a native English speaker, - I can't agree more. It's heartwarming

[@ZaphodTHEBeeblebrox]

same!!!

[@jacksonwages]

Anyone else think Tom is just going for 600% watch time by encouraging everyone to watch the video in every language?

[@shiky_mehen6870]

He already got my 200% in french and english

[@messybark]

It's a perfectly balanced platform with no exploits.

[@SeraphArmaros]

@@shiky_mehen6870 Same here with Japanese and English. Even if it wasn't intentional, it's a fun side-effect.

[@jacksonwages]

@@messybark Someone tell the spiffing brit.

[@literallycanadian]

​@jacksonwages thats Actually genious tho. Like do some piece of comedy and do a british, a scotish, an american, ect. version and to grt all the jokes you have to listen to all the audio

[@CharlieTheAstronaut]

Translator here, I worked with Tom on translations for a previous video. I also do voiceovers and translate subtitles. Both dubbing and subtitling is an art in itself, you have a lot of restrictions to consider in order to create a clean product.

[@xondisco]

Thank you for your sterling work! - an happy Deaf fan of Tom Scott ❤

[@CharlieTheAstronaut]

@@xondisco Thank you for reminding me why they are important! :)

[@RaymondHng]

Where do we find dubbed versions of Tom Scott's videos?

[@CharlieTheAstronaut]

@@RaymondHngClick on settings and change the audio track. Not sure he does that for all videos tho.

[@ddbsiblings7265]

What are some of the videos you've worked on?

[@unifromhokkaido]

I have been a Turkish subtitle translator for 10 years and I don't think there's a single other source on the internet as accurate as your 8 minute video in describing this issue. You've explained the challenges of subtitle and dubbing translation perfectly. Well done Tom!

[@anonimmouse17]

Merhabalar , burada bir Türk görmeyi çok beklemiyordum.Sakıncası yoksa size bir şey soracaktım genelde videoları sorunsuz anlıyorum ama gene de ingilizce seviyemi yetersiz görüyorum (b1-b2) geliştirmek için neler önerirsiniz?

[@cemxwekta358]

@@anonimmouse17Vallaha ben de aynı şeyden muzdaribim. 7-8 Senedir bu kanala aboneyim sanki son 5 senedir hep B1-B2 düzeyindeyim gibi hissediyorum.

[@larrybrowser8286]

@@anonimmouse17 Yeni bir şeyler mi öğreniyorsun? İngilizce kaynak kullan. Roman mı okumak istiyorsun? İngilizce oku. Makale mi yazıyorsun? İngilizce yaz.

[@themisres]

​@@cemxwekta358 günlük hayatında konuşurken söylediğin her şeyi kafanda ingilizce de söylemeye çalış. Gramer ve kelime eksiklerini çok çabuk fark edeceksin. Konuşmak için de pratik olsun istersen yalnızken iç sesin yerine dışından ingilizce söyle düşüncelerini, bir şeyi söyleyemediğinde üşenme aç google'u ve bak nasıl söyleniyormuş. Bir süre sonra eksiklerin kapanmaya başlayacak

[@alex.g7317]

I’m feeling left out, what’s everyone talking aboot? 🥺

[@alexdavis5766]

As a deaf person, I want to thank the person who does the subtitles for this channel. I run my own channel and know how frustrating they are to add and how tempting it is to tick “auto captions” but know that they are so appreciated. Auto subtitles are the bane of my life and I’m sure many people don’t realise how awful they are if you can’t hear, yes the mistakes they make can be funny but not helpful when you can’t work out what it’s meant to read. I’m ‘lucky’ in that I went deaf as an adult, so know what words sound like and so can read the mistake in my head and work out from the context what it’s meant to read, though this still doesn’t work a lot of the time. Deaf people who have always been deaf, can’t even do this. Also shocking in 2023, is the number of shows that don’t have subtitles. Even more annoying when it’s on catch up and had them when shown ‘live’ on tv. Also very appreciative to the people who add subtitles in real time to live shows, a job many I bet have never given a second thought to.

[@sediew]

I wish KZbin brought community captions back

[@jeo1812]

What's worse, KZbin made some major changes in how captions work. I think they removed captions on some videos (I recall that there were some inside jokes hidden in the captions of a video I liked, which are no longer there.) They also removed community captions, which would definitely help in situations where the creator is overwhelmed with other projects, or if the video in question is really old

[@efhiii]

I'm currently in school to be a stenographer, i.e. a person capable of creating real-time captions be it for a court room, deposition, live TV, a deaf/HoH individual in a classroom, or some other occasion. I do wish the captioning industry (especially live captioning) was given more love, but it's always nice when I do see it get some attention and appreciation. It's unfortunate that via the internet, the FCC's mandate on accurate closed captioning is frequently bypassed, and even on TV, what's provided is sometimes sub-par.

[@iooooooo1]

KZbin's automatically generated subtitles almost invariably suck. It's merely very irritating as a hearing person, it must be much worse for the deaf.

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

Auto translate is comically awful sometimes, but I have to admit that I get some good laughs out of it from time to time. My father was legally deaf (only 5% hearing) and so we would always have the captions on for KZbin videos. When google got the translation terribly wrong he would look at us as if to say, "Is THAT really what they said?" and one of us would write down what was really said, usually while laughing hysterically at the translation. Good times.

[@TheMono313]

A reminder that speaking two languages and being a translator are two different skills

[@thinthle]

Didn't expect to come across RWBY over here

[@enriquepx1698]

And that's why people like myself go through a university degree on either applied linguistics or translation. Because it's not just about knowing both languages you're working with 😌

[@ani-matt-ions]

YES. I know portuguese and english but I'm terrible at translating between them

[@Chanse1989]

Revolver Ocelot has entered the chat PS: RWBY sucks

[@Vegas242]

​@@Chanse1989I can't speak for OP here, but in general, I promise you, no one knows how bad RWBY is as much as RWBY fans do. 😑

[@ConradWong]

Translation is art. Apart from the usual joke and idiom being the most difficult to translate, particularly across Eastern and Western cultures, squeezing sentences into particular duration while keeping the full meaning is just insane. Props to all the translators in the world!

[@johndododoe1411]

Yep, just look at the history of translations into almost any language of Homer's Illiad and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings . Although purely written texts, they both contain poetry that needs to match a rhythm and unusual subtle wordplays of major importance .

[@yurisei6732]

I wish it was actually treated like art though, so much good media ruined by translators who got a bit too localisation happy, or even took it upon themselves to rewrite characters' personalities.

[@lobsteros]

@@yurisei6732 I think you've got it backwards there. Those are examples of "artistic liberties." Translations that change TOO much aren't "not art," they're just "BAD art." A translator which does NOT treat it like art would be... one who treats it like a science. Acting like there's only one, literal way to render a sentence, and some things are "untranslatable." Which is almost never really true; you've just gotta be creative enough. That's why it's an art, it requires creativity.

[@Scott-i9v2s]

@@johndododoe1411 Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" is a fairy-tale in English, but in Dutch a horror story worthy of Steven King. (I was raised bilingually in those 2 languages.)

[@kingcrimson4133]

Fact is it's impossible to preserve the "full meaning" of a sentence in translation. Best you can do is get it as close as possible to the original meaning, which is based on your interpretation of it and the way you relate to certain uses of language. It really is an art. There is no such thing as a perfect translation.

[@Bismuth9]

I can't wait for multiple audio tracks to be finally available at large on KZbin. As a bilingual creator, I wish I could easily dub my own videos in French!

[@EmperorNefarious1]

I can't wait to see if there will be a 'joke' dub language, just like some channels have joke subs in English(UK) and other odd/unnecessary languages.

[@GammaFn.]

How do acronyms generally get dubbed? I'm curious about what you'd say when you're talking about VSC and HOLP.

[@Bismuth9]

@@GammaFn. Case by case, for example I would probably say CVV (conservation de la vitesse verticale) and "la DPOT" pronounced like dépôt for dernière position de l'objet tenu.

[@itskdog]

​@@GammaFn.Presumably depends on how that acronym is used in the target language and how it fits with the lip movements.

[@chalkchalkson5639]

Can't wait for the dutch "community" dub of SM64 videos talking at twice the speed to insert a tangent about floating point precision in the mips architecture. :P

[@pavelgrulich2989]

As a Czech person, the part where the Have it! is dubbed to Hindi, it sounded like he's saying Yes, jebat! in Czech, literally meaning Yes, f* it! Made me laugh real hard

[@fitmotheyap]

Wouldn't that be yes, f* without it?

[@pavelgrulich2989]

@@fitmotheyap It could be, but this is also a correct form. It doesn't matter if you say J*t or J*t to. I can say J*u to, but in the infinitive form it can be used either way (it's informal grammar, but j*t is informal/impolite even more, so the grammar is more of a theory than a rule when it comes to swearwords and agressive language 😀)

[@Magistr_XoHHa]

As a Russian, that part also made me laugh haha

[@trilokdhakad1785]

As a Indian it sound perfect and proper meaning

[@kalucky0]

As a Pole, that part also made me laugh haha

[@brandonkim560]

as a deaf person, i thank you SO much for all of your work

[@safe-keeper1042]

I'm not even hearing impaired and it still annoys me when YTers don't bother adding proper closed captions.

[@NotQuiteFirst]

Have it!

[@santoi]

Hello!

[@c0mputer]

What!?

[@c4rt00nk1d]

Same

[@dylaninpieces2]

To be honest, the translation teams did a great job subtitling and dubbing Tom Scott's videos to different languages. Seriously.

[@CharlieTheAstronaut]

I worked with Tom on the subtitle translation for one video, there sure is extra pressure when you create or edit subtitles for bigger broadcasts haha :)

[@jinhuakuek5351]

Wonder if more languages would be made possible

[@cisium1184]

There's a French comedy film called _Bienvenue Chez Les Ch'Tis_ that features the best job of English subtitling I've ever seen/heard. To describe as succinctly as I can: several scenes in the movie turn on misunderstandings of pronunciation and accent between people from different regions of France. The subtitlers (or maybe the scriptwriter) re-scripted these scenes in English using new differently-pronounced words and speech - e.g., _chien_ versus _sien_ became _fish_ versus _office_ pronounced as "offish". They did this WHILE keeping all the jokes functionally intact AND maintaining the comic timing AND keeping the lip-syncing more or less true. Somebody really "laid out" to make that movie as funny as it could be for the broadest possible audience.

[@VickyVixen16]

Yep! Same! I did pause the movie while showing it to other people purely for highlighting the joke in French (not my native language either). Bienvenue Chez Les Ch'Tis is amazing!

[@jamiejones8508]

I’ll second that! One of my favourite films, but hard to watch in french because some of it isn’t exactly french!

[@allylilith5605]

even the german dubbing of the movie is amazing

[@WilliamAndrea]

Sort of unrelated, but that reminds me, in the Quebec dub of "Steamed Hams", they replaced upstate New York with the Saguenay area - I think the towns were Lac-St-Jean and Alma. And in the France dub, they translated the main joke as «saumon vapeur» (steamed salmon) and «jambons vapeurs» (steamed hams).

[@kalisworl]

Ooh I watched this for one of my French courses!!

[@Ryu-hx5yy]

As someone who is bilingual (Japanese and English), this was a very fun experience The interesting thing is that the Japanese subtitles is more formal then the spoken words, even though it's from the same script

[@Scott-i9v2s]

@Ryu-hx5yy That more formal version is not really a surprise to me. I use formal English when translating to for instance Vietnamese, because otherwise GoogleTranslate produces a back-translation that makes no sense. I know nothing of the Vietnamese language, so must rely on the back-translation as verification of a halfway-decent translation. そのより正式なバージョンは、私にとってはそれほど驚きではありません。 たとえばベトナム語に翻訳するときは、正式な英語を使用します。そうしないと、GoogleTranslate で意味のない逆翻訳が生成されるからです。 私はベトナム語については何も知らないので、中途半端な翻訳の検証として逆翻訳に頼らなければなりません。 I am sure that you will tell me that this translation into Japanese contains at least 3 major errors. That is what I get from its back-translation... GoogleTranslate is (usually) good (enough), but its output quality depends on the precision that a to be translated language allows. Native speaker's Englsh is too lacking in precise to allow decent translation.

[@WannzKaswan]

​@@Madmaximus101yes, that's how it works, your culture shapes the way your language works. Not the opposite like Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Oops 🤭

[@Sumitra___si]

Same for hindi , subtitles are very formal and use a lot of Sanskrit words , while dubbing is very casual talk and uses a lot of Persian words !

[@yashwantrana8813]

Same for Hindi as well

[@The-NSA]

@@Madmaximus101such a deep insight 🙄

[@whophd]

Australia’s SBS TV network is proud of its subtitling quality, that always translated jokes and idioms from other languages into new compatible phrases from English. They gave every employee from every department a complete introduction to this in the induction training.

[@JnrAUS6]

Interesting

[@mo-kq8ko]

I love watching SBS

[@Vin_Venture896]

Fascinating, I wonder what things they actually learn in said training? To only ever write jokes that can be translated into different languages? I imagine it’s a fascinating crash course in unique language quirks.

[@Sk1m_Beeble]

Ahh, good ol SBS, if I was smarter, I could have damn near learned another language just tryin to catch a titty

[@acesupyoursleeve_]

sbs is so goated imo

[@outadoc]

I understand the constraints, but i do wish we had an option to get subtitles that actually follow the dubbing because I set them to the same language as the dub. When the two don't match as i read along, it get really hard to follow both at the same time. And it's incredibly powerful to learn the language.

[@NormalGayBro]

I mostly come across this when watching anime but I've seen some places have one option for watching Japanese audio with English subtitles and then a whole separate option for subtitles that'll match the dubbing.

[@malkeynz]

Yup, one of the main annoyances for language learners.

[@oscargill423]

When Tom mentioned that there were dubs in other languages available, I switched to the French dub out of curiosity. I am currently experiencing an existential crisis. Also I have a huge amount of respect and admiration for translators who go to the effort to translate jokes effectively into other languages. That, in my opinion, must be one of the highest levels of comedic genius. And let's not forget dubbing actors who randomly just absolutely knock it out of the park. Edit: As a native English-speaking Australian, I didn't even have a clue what "have it" means until Tom explained it. Ah, the wonders of dialects.

[@MenloMarseilles]

I always assumed it was meant to be something in the vicinity of "take that!" but it got mangled on the way from his brain to his mouth by strong emotion. Had no idea it was, like, *preexisting* midlands slang.

[@abigailcooling6604]

I'm from the UK and still had no idea what it meant 😅. Regional dialects are brilliant/confusing in their differences.

[@SonniXD]

Oh god 🤯 I changed it to French too ... Both dub and sub... My brain is seriously struggling right now 😅

[@ABendzify]

"Have it!" or "Have at it!" is similar to "Get innnn!". Ever Seen Red Dwarf down in Oz? Might have heard similar phrases that way.

[@dwsparks1]

I chalked it up to a "British-ism" but apparently it's even more localized than that!

[@schaffiourketaris2691]

A great example of multi lingual translation is the Asterix comics series which makes heavy use of puns and double meanings. It's a testament to the translators skill that they remain popular all around the world, rather than only in french speaking countries.

[@Squant]

They're great if you speak multiple languages and get to read multiple versions with completely new jokes.

[@dojelnotmyrealname4018]

As a belgian I still want to know what other languages did in certain situations. Like there's an entire conversation about cabbage just as a set up for a reference to a saying and I'm almost certain that joke doesn't work in french so what did they do in the french? Or in english?

[@skyorrichegg]

​@@dojelnotmyrealname4018which one is that in? I loved Asterix growing up so I wouldn't mind tracking down my English language copies to check for you. I only read the English versions but learned a decent amount of Latin as well as Celtic deities from all the times they use Celtic gods as the equivalent of using God in an interjection or swear.

[@laurencefraser]

@@Squant Even if you can't, the US and UK English versions are different, with very different puns, already. They assume very different things about what Latin the reader will and won't be familiar with, among other things.

[@reide96]

@@dojelnotmyrealname4018 Was that the one about bowler hats from Asterix in Britain? If so, they just left it out and did a new joke about the bridge falling down instead.

[@jumpywizard7665]

I’m a professional translator in French German and English but I must say, that pun at 4:54 in French was BRILLIANT. Well played to the French translators!

[@kolaflash8166]

@TomScottGo could you team up with @jumpywizard7665 to add German dubbing and subtitling for this video?

[@JonathonV]

I agree! “LeBonCoinCoin” 😂

[@greenLimeila]

I'm a bit sad that Tom didn't explain that this one also relies on cultural references that would not be understood by Non-French people (LeBonCoin being to us what CraigsList is to Americans); that's a huge part of what makes translation such an interesting job! (just to nitpick though, "canetons" should only have one n!)

[@Halberds8122]

@@JonathonV the good coin coin?

[@jenniferpearce1052]

@@Halberds8122 The good quack quack. "Coin coin" is "quack quack."

[@justrandomotaku]

The japanese VA for this video did a great job capturing tom scotts emotions and inflections while talking!!

[@gredangeo]

A Japanese Tom Scott is a sight to be heard. I wasn't expecting it to be that good.

[@jettnash5217]

Saikouuuuuuuuuuuuuu

[@msclrhd]

There's an example in the Japanese film Battle Royale where the characters start the film using honorifics and polite language, but over the course of the film progressively get less polite the more things devolve. That's difficult to get across in the English version of the film, dubbed or subbed.

[@Uryendel]

You said that but in french it's really easy to do, yet lately I watched an anime with french sub on prime, all the characters that were supposed to be addressed with respect (who had sama or dono suffix in japanese) where in the translation addressed familiarly, like you would talk to your dumb brother

[@error404m]

One of the older dubs of Castle In The Sky has the English subtitles transcribed from the English dub. If you watch the film in Japanese with English subs, there are long periods of silence that have swathes of subtitles, where the English dub gives exposition. I don't think it's necessarily bad, but it's a very different approach taking into account the audience expectations.

[@iamlalala1995]

I love how Tom is one of the few rare creators to go the extra mile to prop up his production's team.

[@DomenBremecXCVI]

For a southern Slav, the Hindi synchronization of that scream is just amazing. The word "jebat" means "to f*ck" so it does kinda have the same meaning as curse words can mean anything really and I loved it. Thanks, Hindi translators and voice actor, you made a Slovenian smile.

[@AmBush2048]

Noticed this too, gave me a laugh

[@iamcleaver6854]

I thought it was someone speaking Russian with a thick accent

[@Ludvigvanamadeus]

Not just for southern Slavs, all Slavic languages use this curse word.

[@Shulyaka]

​@iamcleaver6854 Same here! I thought Tom decided to redact the Russian text with Hindi to avoid getting into any politics even remotely. P.S. Of course the word I'd common to all Slavic languages.

[@kapiszon533]

Same in polish, there was a short moment of consternation in my head 😂

[@ReverendNaughty]

Props to the dubbing and subtitling teams, y’all do a kickass job!!

[@RicardoVermeltfoort]

They do, even though I wouldn't be surprised that "kickass" gives them translation PTSD

[@LeginNoslen]

Except for... when they don't

[@SagarKaushik0]

At 6:56, "have it" translated to "ये बात" (ye baat) makes perfect sense. That phrase also doesn't really mean anything in Hindi either, but it is used in a similar manner as the English phrase. Great work by the translation team!

[@d_s_ost]

And it souns soooo similar to a russian curse word, which is also very suitable for this situation

[@transitiontransverse]

We never realised but Hindi dubbing team is very very good

[@dremich_]

As an English speaker, I never knew that you had a team of people dubbing your videos into other languages. So cool, and it goes to show how much effort is put into these videos behind the scenes!

[@columbus8myhw]

I think he only did it for this video.

[@leomonteiro.]

usually he puts only subtitles in different languages (much appreciated btw), as far as i know

[@adisca2k]

I didn't even know that youtube had that feature

[@wteff8586]

I found out when I clicked a Steve Mould video and he started speaking german. It was quite well done but I speak english and I watch videos by english-speaking creators to engage with the language so this took me completely by surprise :D@@adisca2k

[@SylviaRustyFae]

@@columbus8myhw Several of his other vids do actually have separate audio track options still

[@localzuk]

Biggest issue I have with subtitles, in English, today, is that many services censor them. So, the audio will have an actor swear, and the subtitles will censor it out. I can't think of any justification for that. It is infantilising to those of us with hearing issues but can somewhat hear and use to subtitles for clarity. There's also some subtitles where the editing has, as you say, summarised what was said. From an accessibility POV, that is irritating. I'm glad that practice is slowly dying out. If they really want to do that, have a second subtitle track.

[@XSemperIdem5]

I had to stop watching a show that was dubbed and had subtitles on Netflix because there was too much disconnect between the dubbing and the text on the screen. The character would say something in a way that was very assertive and aggressive but the subtitles would phrase it in a more neutral and almost weaker sounding way. It made it confusing and I closed it after just a few minutes. The swearing one is annoying as well because there's a reason shows and movies have ratings so why allow the audio but not the text version?

[@unicorntulkas]

Yes, youtube subtitles are notorious for translating all kinds of 4 letter words to just a dash -- It's -- infuriating!

[@tatomar001]

It has always been like that for us in spanish, it is funny to see action movies and have the most badass characters saying the spanish equivalent "darn it, bollocks, bloody thing, holy cow"

[@rastko7261]

@@XSemperIdem5 Netflix has it's own set of issues because they do translate everything once. The subtitle text in a big number of shows, especially anime/cartoons, matches the dubbing and not the original language. I had a lot of trouble following Cyberpunk Edgerunners on Japanese because the translations didn't match the Japanese dubbing. And that is an even worse example that most because the series (and it's unique slang) was translated from English to Japanese where they removed most of the slang in English for Japanese dubbing. So, I just figured out it's easier and more correct to watch the English dubbing and, even though it's not my preferred way to watch anime shows, was a good decision and good experience.

[@kunaljt]

Watching it in Hindi, the dubbing and subtitling teams did such a great job here, and goes so well to prove the point about the differences because the dubbing team would use English loan words as we use in colloquial Hindi, but the subtitles generally avoid it.

[@michaostrowski7704]

I have once read a compilation of stories made by Polish S-F writer Stanisław Lem, and one of the chapters was in fact an interview with English translator of this book. He pointed out many problems with translating puns and word-plays. For example, one of the knights had a battle cry "AWRUK", which when read in reverse, has a very obvious meaning in Polish. Most on the translators left it as-is, the German one went with "AWRUCK". Only the English translator understood the reference and translated the word as "TIKUF".

[@rrobucksthehuman9186]

That english translator is a real one 🤣

[@unicorntulkas]

The Lem stories are a gem, read the German translations years ago and really enjoyed them.

[@fredericapanon207]

Err, I am missing what is meant by TIKUF...

[@captainkrajick]

@@fredericapanon207 read it backwards

[@jasonreed7522]

​@@fredericapanon207add a "c" after the "k" in tikuf and then write it backwards. (You get "F-bomb it")

[@hanahomemadepizza1424]

I had to translate a poem my grandma made from Dutch to English for my Aunt's wedding. That experience made me appreciate professional translators and subtitlers so much

[@myself2noone]

And that's the language that's closest to English.

[@noisnecsa995]

​@@myself2nooneThat's actually Western Frisian, or Scots if you consider them separate

[@redoktopus3047]

The best translation I've ever seen is of a single strip from the now old manga Azumanga Daioh. Japanese is like Chinese in that it has measure words. Every noun has a category that it fits into and whenever you describe the number of that noun you have to put this counting word in. It's kind of like saying "three slices cheese" or "8 sheets of paper" but for every word. The categories sometimes makes sense but sometimes don't. There's a category for long skinny things and a generic category and a bunch more. The joke is that a character called Osaka is wondering why the counting word for panties and shotguns is the same. The way this was translated into English is that she's wondering why we say "a pair of panties" when it's just one but not "a pair of shotguns" because it's also one thing with two holes.

[@ExtraWubs]

Just realizing that you have teams of people to translate youtube videos makes me recognize the scale in which you work. its honestly amazing

[@itskdog]

​@@cmmartti I doubt Tom would know all the languages and be able to translate it himself, especially with all the research he puts into the videos.

[@otherssingpuree1779]

It was uncanny watching it in Hindi but I think it shows how closely the dubbing artists did the work.

[@nishantbodkhe7443]

the subs tho💀 jaldi aao, yes, iske maze lo

[@BrightsunSingh]

​@@otherssingpuree1779the 'Yeh baat' part was fine though for the roller coaster scene, I felt like that's the closest they could've gotten

[@peterparker-zy9oe]

The dubbing guy at least tried on the gosling joke. The subtitling team just translated it word by word.

[@Observer-f5k]

kinda made me feel like I was watching brain games in national geography

[@adweetiyamohapatra7326]

​@Observer-f5k Yep it gave the natgeo discovery Channel vibe

[@DouglasWatt]

Additional note: pictographic languages often have a suggested characters-per-second guideline for subtitlers. For example, Japanese is often targeted around 6 characters per second, esp. if the line is kanji heavy. This also affects how much information the subtitler can cram into the space for the given time a line is allowed to be on screen - a point you I wish you would have also covered!

[@citrusella-nomorecraptions]

There are similar speed considerations in English captioning as well, though I think it's murkier and not as based on time to read nowadays? IIRC it's something like two lines max per set of words captioned (with some consideration to speed of reading, though modern English captioning prioritizes accurate timing versus time onscreen).

[@lucyshnyr5647]

I am an interpreter and a translator, and it’s soo comforting to see and hear from Tom that we humans are still unbeatable! :) agree on that! Now imagine, I mostly do simultaneous interpretation and often have to translate puns, jokes, metaphors on the spot… human brain is and will hopefully long enough stay the best and most flexible tool because of it’s complexity, agility, “built-in” cultural expertise, and oftentimes it’s unpredictability… we still don’t quite know how it works and it’s ok that way😄

[@vitoc8454]

There's a story about a US President (Reagan?) who had a translator "translate" his jokes during an international visit only to later find out that the guy was telling the audience *"the President has just told a joke. Please laugh."*

[@InsideInterpreting]

There's actually a really good book about what humans and machines can and can't do. It's called Interpreters vs Machines.

[@liquidmagma0]

​@@vitoc8454 i feel like that would acutally work though, random and unexpected, would make me laugh that the translator just straight up said that.

[@Narmatonia]

There's also times when English subtitles for an English show don't match what the characters actually say. Presumably in those cases the subtitle makers took the script and used that to make the subtitles, while the actors changed the lines slightly in different takes.

[@readonlymemories]

And then there are subs made without the help of a script. The subtitle makers have to rely only on the audio they hear, and in the hellscape of today's sound mixing that is quite a perilous place to work in

[@elisabethh.2349]

Actually, the practice of summerising is still very much done today, at least from what I know in german. There are also oftentimes character limitiations, mainly how many characters per line, or how many character per second are possible.

[@l9day]

Or indeed times where the subtitles for a show don't match because the subtitles in use are for another episode of that same show. I had not seen that before, until watching stuff on Prime.

[@itchy7879]

This happens even in unscripted stuff, I've encountered it on the Great British Bake off with minor changes / omissions

[@MorinehtarTheBlue]

Or those cases where the vernacular doesn't fit. Case in point: Have it. Fine for the UK but not something one would say here in Canada or in the US.

[@RvB_Fan_since_8]

Props to all dubbing teams shown in the rollercoaster video, they all sounded like something someone would shout in that moment.

[@BuiHieuDong]

The beauty of different languages never cease to surprise me. I just like how subtitles alone are already a very fascinating topic to talk about.

[@penguinscanfly5796]

hey its the guy from the thing

[@korzenpl]

Why are you here

[@drrocketman7794]

Anyone want goslings? They're for sale, going cheap.

[@galaxybird8063]

i never knew there was a dubbing option for YT and i see why now, looking at the credits it takes 1 person to translate subtitles but a team of 3 or 4 to do an accurate dub. I wonder how much Tom spent on this video for 6 languages

[@bighamster2]

I do wonder whether it might be worth it for a few very big channels (who get millions of views). Perhaps they're missing out on an audience somewhere. Doubt the ROI would work for very many very often, though.

[@UserCommenter]

@@bighamster2 I’m curious about ROI as well

[@stevethepocket]

Betcha anything it was added specifically for movie companies that put their stuff on KZbin and wanted to be able to upload the dubs they'd already gone to the trouble of making.

[@f1reman237]

​@@bighamster2 i know mr beast dubs his videos into multiple languages, because its just that profitable.

[@lucbloom]

@@f1reman237 I was wondering that exact thing. I suspect all lifestyle vloggers and creators targeting youngsters could make a positive ROI.

[@KikiAelita]

Your bit about the translators handling jokes reminds me of a children's cartoon named Miraculous Ladybug or Miraculous. The series was jointly created between a French and Korean company, with plans for release in both places plus English speaking areas with more on the horizon if they did it well. They gave the male lead the character trait of loving to make puns. knowing that they had to translate it all into at LEAST three languages it was a bold move on their part

[@oceanknives]

I had a subtitling class in undergrad and it was SO interesting but it really highlighted the difficulty of the exercise. Translating English dialogue to French subtitles has an extra difficulty: French takes more space than English. Our words are longer, our sentence structures require more words, and when your professor insists on limiting you to 2 lines of 35 characters every 6 seconds... you have to make cuts!! Subtitling is an art in and of itself.

[@YoupiMatos2]

The hardest part for me was choosing between "tu" and "vous" when translating "you". Sometimes it just doesn't feel right at all...

[@caracho7191]

I once watched Titanic in French with English subtitles (I think). It was so funny. Talking talking talking - the subtitles were so slow in comparison because the sentences were way shorter.

[@Hersatz]

@@YoupiMatos2 Always use "vous" unless it's between either "friendly" individuals or whenever the person doesn't respect the other. Rule of the thumb is to use "vous" to show respect to a stranger you are speaking with.

[@Phiyedough]

If you look at instruction leaflets in multiple languages you will typically find Hungarian takes up more space of text than most languages. I have a couple of books they use in kindergarten for teaching kids to read. Even those are full of 10 and 12 letter words!

[@oceanknives]

@@YoupiMatos2 I almost picked something like that as the topic of my master's thesis! The choice of tu or vous in the dubbing of English TV shows and the impact on character dynamics. I didn't continue with it because it would have required an insane amount of research but it's really very interesting. In Elementary's French dub, Joan and Sherlock still formally address each other in season 5!!! That's insane.

[@JuliuszCovers]

One note from a subtitler! I suppose the "put every word on screen" approach is indeed often used in some Internet videos, but it is definitely not the modern standard for movies, streaming services etc. Style guides usually include highest reading speeds allowed expressed as a number of characters a viewer is expected to be able to read per second. The limits are indeed higher than they used to be in the past (typically around 17 characters per second, in the past more like 10-15 cps, depending on the country), but condensing text is still a crucial element of good translation for subtitles. After all, creators want viewers to be immersed in the story, not pausing constantly to read and figure out what's happening. And even if pausing wouldn't be necessary, we subtitlers want to give the viewers time to actually watch the movie, not just read the text at the bottom of the screen! When you're focused on the subtitles, you're not taking in as much of the rest of the screen as you would otherwise. Of course, it's more important when things are happening on screen, and less so when it's just a person sitting and talking, like often on KZbin. Anyway, with good subtitles, you stop noticing them after a while, and that won't be the case if you're struggling to keep up.

[@TheRealHNA913]

if I were hard of hearing, I'd feel vastly patronised and condescended to by only being allowed access to the simplified version of the dialogue. And I constantly notice subtitles cut down even for short lines with plenty of time to read them. I generally need to put CCs on when I watch things at home - I live directly under a flight path - and the dumbing-down is irritating every single time, on top of the fact that I put the subtitles on precisely *because* I want to catch the details that get eaten by passing planes. If I didn't have the ability to go back and listen again to the actual line, I think I'd be too annoyed to sit through it at all.

[@ThreadBomb]

If you are a subtitler, I hope you are not one of those who feel the need to describe every sound effect when they don't affect the story.

[@SolomonUcko]

@@TheRealHNA913 It would be more work for the subtitlers, and it would require the subtitle selection menu to adapt, but maybe there should be multiple different subtitle options depending on the experience you want?

[@whatthehelliot]

​@@TheRealHNA913yeah I have to use subtitles and its so annoying when someone is clearly saying a much longer line, but the subtitles are just a simplified version. I wanna know what they're actually saying!

[@martijn9568]

​@@TheRealHNA913Keep in mind that subtitles are also used by people that can't read as fast as you. They're trying to aid as many people as possible with subtitles.

[@TheMaharion]

As someone who works as a sound engineer in the french canadian dubbing industry, I love this video so much. It summarizes what I do each day.

[@jblen]

I do find it really cool when translation teams find new puns to fit ones that don't make sense in the translation. Another cool example is the Harry potter translation where "Tom Marvolo Riddle", an anagram of "I am Lord Voldemort" had to make sense in every language Harry potter was translated to, which is a lot.

[@RobotGuy76]

Somewhere, there is a quite comprehensive webpage on the translation of Harry Potter into the different CJK languages and all the ways that the translators managed (or didn't manage) all the work play jokes that occur.

[@MrMIIMARIO]

Does anyone know that webpage? 🤔

[@loopit_3]

In German for example it's "Tom Vorlost Riddle"

[@MarcelVos]

In Dutch it's "Marten Asmodom Vilijn", which anagramizes to "Mijn naam is Voldemort".

[@jakistam1000]

In Polish, this part just wasn't translated. Instead, at the end of each book, there was an explanations of some of the nuance of translation, mostly with regard to names of people and places. For example, Hogwarts was, in the main text, "translated" to Hogwart (having s at the end would mess up the declination), but the explanation at the end included separate translations for "hog" and "wart".

[@Lexonomo]

It was a hard (though fun) challenge to work on this project, but it turned out to be even more satisfying now that I can see the results and the good reception it is having. What a pleasure to be part of this. ❤

[@askplays]

👍

[@swergers146]

What part did you do?

[@Lexonomo]

I directed the spanish version.

[@renegadetla9331]

Congrats! 🎉 Fabulous work, to you and the whole team❤

[@firestorck1341]

Your dubbing and subtitling teams are insane, you gotta love them doing a very good job!

[@alexandrebier4581]

As an ESL teacher, I'm looking forward to using this video, not to belittle not knowing another language, but to encourage pople on learning a second one, in as far as to not miss anything in translation. As a native portuguese speaker, I'm about to have a lot of fun turning on the portuguese subtitles when watching your vids from now on.

[@mathewchild2492]

A very good idea - I remember watching a German Show with English subtitles, I know a little German, enough to know that the subtitles were not an accurate translation.

[@baylinkdashyt]

German is particularly interesting, because German speakers of English tend to speak it with interesting tics like "that has been going on since a week".

[@chetawanung-adjmagool9967]

Don't know if this happens with other games, but Judgement, a spin-off game from the Yakuza / Like a Dragon series, has 2 subtitle options: one being a more direct and literal translation of the dialogue, with longer sentences and cultural contexts mostly intact; another option matches one to one woth the dubbing script which is obviously different. This is a very interesting take on translation as the second option allows players to play the game dubbed without the differing subtitles distracting them.

[@renegadetla9331]

I knew translation was hard work but holy crap. Big congrats to the translation teams on literally everything, the nuance is crazy to get across. I have even more respect for them now! This video is such a fun way to explain how this works

[@EggyB]

Props to the Portuguese subtitles team, that joke translation was brilliant

[@1gorSouz4]

People usually do well in this kind of adaptation, at least in Brazil

[@SpeedCubeProRL]

This is literally so cool being able to change the audio language! I didn't know you can do that

[@Tacoz3AM]

Same

[@Chris.Pontius]

How is that 'literally' cool, though?

[@blueninja012]

seeing it on murder drones blew my mind

[@SpeedCubeProRL]

@@Chris.Pontius because it is

[@hulawife]

@@Chris.Pontius informal used for emphasis while not being literally true.

[@pancakeser]

Thank you so much for making this video, Tom! It's so cool and fun to hear about our field of work from you in such detail!

[@tezzaract365]

As someone with sensory processing issues but technically normal hearing - sometimes understanding what i'm hearing comes with a short delay, and accurate subtitles help bridge that gap so I can still keep pace with what i'm watching! If the subtitles don't match, however, it can COMPLETELY throw me off because of the conflict in information and I end up more confused than if i'd only read the subtitles or only listened to the audio. Accurate subtitles are an accessibility feature!

[@chesh1rek1tten]

Same here. On my phone I use auto caption, it helps a lot with that for channels like this.

[@boginoid]

I'll have to play the devil's advocate: there are plenty of people who need subtitles for one reason or an another. It is simply impossible to accomodate all of them in one script, and realistically speaking studios won't pay for multiple versions for the same language, while the vast majority of content creators couldn't afford it even if they wanted to. The best they can do is to maximize the understadability of any script (which professionals already do). Simply speaking accomodating one type of need will always come at the expense of an another. We all fall through the cracks sometimes.

[@brother_swevvy]

Watching this video in a different language, it's also impressive how the voice acting script not only tries to match the lip-sync as close as possible, but also tries to enunciate words in such a way that Tom's hand movements make sense.

[@eriathdien]

I'm from Colombia and I was today years old when I learned Tom Scott had Latam Spanish dubbing! I'm also a translator and I wouldn't have gone with "¡A huevo!", as it is too Mexican, but it's not a bad localization. On the other hand, "cuak-si gratis" was genius! xD

[@SemiHypercube]

This video taught me that dubbing KZbin videos with separate audio tracks is actually possible, I have never seen this before. How long has this feature even existed?

[@Eustres]

about 3-4 years

[@Croz89]

It's fairly rare, because subbing is fairly cheap, and even then the automated tools aren't half bad, but dubbing is expensive.

[@itzfaridz2229]

I hope they do the same on HDR and SDR video

[@Nadia1989]

A couple of years, Netflix anime, Chubbyemu and ThioJoe use it.

[@benrainwolf3856]

the only spot I've spotted it before this video is Ultraman Blazers KZbinr release

[@swordfish1929]

My father in law used to work at the an international office where everyone speaks various different languages and come from several different countries one day a bunch of them all brought in their Asterix and Obelix books and compared the different translations from the original French. They found it really interesting to see the different styles of translation the different countries had gone for; some had done very literal translations, the German version seemed to have had all the jokes removed, and others had done their own thing with the jokes adapting them for the culture. The really fun thing is the pun based names of the characters lots of which have to be changed to make any sense (eg. The magic potion dispensing village druid is called Panoramix in the original French but Getafix in the English)

[@DECODEDVFX]

"the German version seemed to have had all the jokes removed" - Sounds about right.

[@TehAwesomer]

As an English-German bilingual person who read a bunch of Asterix comics as a kid, I distinctly remember the lightbulb that went off in my head when I realized the localization of the joke names.

[@whereisawesomeness]

The German version removing jokes is so on brand

[@Retroxyl]

@@whereisawesomeness Did we really remove all the jokes? I seem to remember that at least in the movies there were some jokes. For example in Asterix conquers Rome, he and Obelix had to get the "Passierschein A38", wich an administrative formality according to Gaius Pupus. At least for us Germans this was very funny because it sometimes feels like this is taken straight out of real life, given how we love burocracy and overcomplicate it most of the time. Now I wonder if this joke was also part of the original french version and how it was explained there.

[@swordfish1929]

@Retroxyl in English it is permit A38. I am just repeating what my father in law told me, he is fluent in English, French, and German whereas I unfortunately can only speak English. The film may have had a different translation 😊

[@jurjenbos228]

Being Dutch, I am not used to dubbing, except for children's programs in the age when I couldn't read. I missed all of these complications until this video. Thanks, Tom!

[@AGoodGuyOnTheInternet]

The more languages you speak, the more fascinating this video is. Props to the Spanish translator on the goslings joke, their version made me laugh a second time!

[@SlyceCaik]

Ive genuinely hoped for a feature like this to exist on youtube for a while now, im amazed

[@kmeanxneth]

if i'm not wrong that feature is not new, it just no one is using it.

[@kacperkonieczny7333]

It has been on YT for atleast have a year already

[@ricardoalves9605]

It's been here for quite a while and I hate it because there's no setting to keep the original audio, everytime a video has dubbing you manually have to change it to the original video, I'm not against it existing but they really should add an option to not auto dub.

[@kacperkonieczny7333]

@@ricardoalves9605 and also auto translating of the titles. You're like the title is in my native language so the video also is and then no

[@smorrow]

@@kmeanxneth KZbin Movies has it ... sometimes. They have it for LOTR.

[@SophiaWoessner]

I love that all of the dub VOs committed to the whisper in the sponsor segments

[@boneitch]

It's impressive and/or disappointing that Tom's videos do all this effort to make videos accessible, though when you *pay* for a movie on KZbin, it'll often have no subtitles, or only the translated subtitles in the language of the country you got the movie from. So thank you Scott, for doing that effort

[@bjornfranzen7278]

I recently wanted to rewatch "En man som heter Ove", and the only place I found it available was to buy/rent it on youtube. Since I live in Germany it seems only the German dub is available. But since I'm Swedish I would only want to watch the original version.... :S

[@boneitch]

@bjornfranzen7278 my (hypothetical, not legal) advice: if you wanna watch a thing you respect, so you wanna pay for the thing, but you can't watch the thing cuz of the localisation: buy the thing, then 🏴‍☠️ the thing. Since at least 🏴‍☠️ will give you several caption options. Though tbh, I don't always do the buying part if I'm peeved enough 😅

[@danmur15]

I always assumed you had translated subtitles, but I had no idea that your videos were dubbed too. Love seeing these behind-the-scenes videos

[@aykrivwassup]

I think this is his only video that's dubbed. The others just have translated subtitles

[@Pinka13]

*Dub:* "I AM SO PISSED OFF RIGHT NOW!!!" *Sub:* "I feel very much annoyed, good sir."

[@yaycupcake]

I've done a fair bit of Japanese to English translation, for both subtitles as well as written media. Something I've noticed is there are a LOT of people (both translators and readers/watchers/consumers) who get so angry and heated over what the "best" way to translate is, be it literal meaning, or the essence of it. If you're translating a book, it's probably much easier to put in a note about the original meaning of a pun, compared to if you're translating a fast-paced reality tv show and need the subtitles to be comprehensible. It also depends on the audience. I know a lot of fan translations and official licensed translations of Japanese-to-English media differ a lot not only in what's official or licensed, but the actual target audience's understanding and expectations. I think fan translations tend to expect the reader to be more engaged in Japanese culture, thus being familiar with things like honorifics, politeness levels, or cultural references, so those get left untranslated. Whereas a lot of books I've bought from a brick and mortar book store have an entire glossary with terminology. You couldn't do that in a tv show though. Some other books or media just tend to drop cultural and linguistic things that are hard for someone with no exposure to that culture and language to understand all together, like an obscure cultural reference. I think knowing your audience and intent, as well as your medium, is so important for translation.

[@turtlepenguinXkizuna]

it doesn't help that within the anglosphere there's still a fair bit of possessiveness/gatekeeping of jp media (by certain groups of people), eh! I don't work in translation myself but as a bilingual person with several translator friends, I see and hear about that kind of backlash all the time and sympathise with your struggles.

[@finding13emo]

Netflix subs as a whole just seem to be on a whole other level of rubbish when it comes to subbing Japanese media though. They tend to way over localise stuff and it just doesn't make sense, especially when you know what is actually being said

[@liquidmagma0]

what i've seen a lot of anime fans complain about is that while localizing is sometimes necessary, 1.it's often overdone; 2. currently popular jokes/memes and politics are just thrown in; 3. localizers completely changing sentences, either: 1) to fit their narrative, 2) because they hate whatever the sentence is about, 3) worst of all, just hate the jp/anime culture (no i'm not joking, some have publicly stated their hate of it on social media, yet continue to work as translators/localizers).

[@sponge1234ify]

@@liquidmagma0 Which reminds me of a recently-"translated" visual novel, Chaos;Head. The JP version already have a glossary section due to (besides having its own scientific and scientific-sounding terminology) its story involving 08's internet culture and slang, yet in the english version the glossary instead whines about how "cringy" the original memes was and how we should be glad they changed it to something "more based". Translation-Localization ratio might be a thorny subject, but Anime-Manga translation scene specifically has some bad roses complicating discussions further.

[@nise6699]

​@@finding13emoNetflix subs aren't just rubbish in Japanese media, but every media. Couldn't even be consistent on English subtitles even though it's already English

[@d3generate804]

Japanese Tom Scott is not something I expected to hear today

[@tobyphillips2105]

Toma Sukotto

[@GeneralPose]

ore wa Tom Skotto desu, uwu.

[@urgay1992]

やったよ！最高！

[@RaphaelBriand]

YOTTA! AHAHAHA

[@imveryangryitsnotbutter]

@@tobyphillips2105 トム・スコット

[@SmartCreeper456]

I didn't even know there were different audio tracks on youtube. Tom Scott subbed hits different

[@maevethefox5912]

I've always appreciated when I've come across shows that have separate subtitle tracks. It was so nice to see "subtitles" and "captioning for English dubs" as separate choices.

[@justajad2809]

This is the most mind-blowing explaining of the subject on KZbin.

[@mattwalter5184]

I dunno. I found 63 videos on the subject, and although this is top 50%, my favorite still remains the video posted by the International Association of Subtitle Explainers.

[@lunamaster123]

@@mattwalter5184 Hey, you can't just call a this video mid and recommend another one without dropping a title. (I tried Googling and couldn't find anything.)

[@nigelthursday5052]

as someone who wants to go into a career in translation and watched this video with Japanese dubbing and both Japanese and English subs for comparison, it both feels incredibly validating to have a larger KZbinr who is a known language nerd to highlight and empathize with the human art of navigating these restrictions, and was also incredibly enlightening on certain techniques i'd never put much consideration into before myself. when it comes to larger projects that reach larger audiences, i have seen case after case of certain types of language learners or fans over protective of their favorite series (although this might be specific to my interest in Japanese culture, as video game and anime fans tend to be more self-centered, haha) bringing up how certain translated or localized lines aren't one-to-one recreations of their original versions, which is exactly the largest issue translators face. i know from my own experiences that coming up with a great translation for a line that carries meaning, nuance, and naturalness is half the battle, as if it doesn't fit in a subtitle slot or a speech bubble, it needs to be tweaked and rearranged. i have had to cut small quips in some places, which fills me with a desire to add jokes elsewhere that specifically utilize the English language, but then that leaves me conflicted over how much i feel like i'm "putting words into someone's mouth" in a sense. essentially, the main point i hope a lot of people take away from this video is that every subtitle you read or every line of dubbing you hear--sometimes even the simplest, shortest lines--has had probably way more thought and time put into it than you'd expect!

[@lhamil64]

The flip side of this is audio description. I have enough vision to watch stuff if its close enough, but ive tried audio description a few times and it always impresses me. The narrator has to figure out what's relevant in the scene and describe it succinctly in between dialog. It does lead to some interesting moments where you hear what will happen before it actually happens though.

[@NonJohns]

on a different but similar level sports commentary, you have to understand the game well enough to make sure the average viewer isn't lost but not cut it down too simply

[@arlwiss5110]

One of my favourite things about your legacy on youtube is that you've brought a decent bit more attention to these crafts of accessibility and communication - as well as that you've just normalised quality subtitling at least somewhat, even if big channels didn't really catch on after your most famous rant about it.

[@GrouchyGander]

Wow! Even for _translators_ we are a menace! Having to do lip/beaksyncing on a goose? Hats off to both goose and translator!

[@Slugsie1]

This made me think back to the dubbed Japanese movies we got in the 70s and 80s, where there would often be several seconds of dialog which would be dubbed to 'Yes' or similar. They didn't even slightly bother to match the mouth movements or overall dialog. It usually ended up being quite funny and because a 'bit' for comedy shows to mock.

[@korenn9381]

This was especially a thing in those old kung fu movies that got dubbed over. To the point where it became a thing other movies would make fun of, with a character making motions as if they're speaking much longer than they actually were.

[@Rogther]

As an Argentinian I think "HAVE IT" could be translated almost literally to "TOMÁ". Wich is really similar if not the same in both literal meaning and the feeling you express when shouting it.

[@ploploplop2349]

I thought exactly the same!

[@tathandlung]

i thought the same with japanese, i think it'd have been perfect as 喰らえ！！

[@YOMARTINPRODUCTIONS]

Primer argentino que veo en un vídeo de Tom Scott. Creí que no existíamos!

[@migueljoserivera9030]

I liked a lot the translations and dubbing to Spanish, specially on the geese part, but since it was the most spoken language out of the ones used in the video you can imagine it wasn't very close to standard Spanish. It was too Mexican, usually Latin American dub is done in an in-between Colombian-Mexican accent and vocabulary since those are the most understandable accents aside from Castilian (European), which is much more different. In Spanish in particular there's usually a country specific sub and 2 or 3 dubs (Mexican-Colombian for general Hispanic -America, Castilian for Spain and sometimes Rioplatense for Argentina and Uruguay), so we are very used to very different translations, also the accent of the dubber can be used to convey things (like it could be a Northern Vs Southern in England or a Southern/Midwestern Vs Northeastern/Californian in the US)

[@Xokoy]

My family is Polish, I have always been bilingual. I have always said that translation is far more of an art than a science. You can give two teams of translators the exact same piece to translate, and any time that it calls for some interpretation, there is a solid chance that you will have different translation that will often capture the meaning or idea of what's being said, but very possibly in very different ways. If you only speak one language and don't look into linguistics, it is hard to get you to question and understand concepts that you need in order to understand just how tricky translating even seemingly simple sentences or phrases can be.

[@fredericapanon207]

Ah yes, I am trying learn Polish. The subtle nuances of perfective vs. Imperfective verbs in the infinitive are still eluding me. I also gather that Polish has a lot fewer tenses than, say, French. That means that French is a lot more precise about when and how the actions of verbs occur. Thus, translating from Polish to French can require a lot of interpretation as to which French tense to pick as several could be applicable.

[@RaphaelBriand]

I once watched a Studio Ghibli film (Castle in the Sky) dubbed into English, and with English subtitles turned on. To say they differed is a huge understatement - the characters were saying completely different things in each version. It looks as though the dubbing team were allowed a huge amount of freedom with an extremely idiomatic translation to the point of essentially rewriting the entire script. I would suppose that this is more the case with things which are 1. entertainment rather than informative/technical, and 2. between very dissimilar languages.

[@SherrifOfNottingham]

What bothers me about statements like this is that you don't speak Japanese. Which means you have no clue which translation was more accurate and are just assuming that the subtitles are 100% accurate. Most subtitling that is done 'officially' is usually one underpaid worker who likely tries to translate it in near real time, usually with a stenograph, and only able to really proof read it maybe once before sending it. Dubbing usually has a team of writers and translators that work on actually translating it. With the particular one we're talking about there's two dubs, and a notoriously terrible sub. What's important is that the Disney's dub script was approved by Miyazaki, and without knowing the language yourself, that's unfortunately the best you got.

[@harish1105]

जिसने भी हिंदी में डबिंग की, उसको सलाम! बहुत बढ़िया काम किया आपने। सच में Tom का पूरा अंदाज को बेहतरीन तरीके से दोहराया गया।

[@paulbrooks4395]

We started learning Japanese recently and have been watching shows that are subtitled. I have noticed many times pausing and saying: “wait, that’s not quite what the character said”. Because we are learning how to speak formally, the slang or truncated words don’t make sense until we look them up and we learn the meanings.

[@nope.0.]

If you watch Ghibli movies subbed, sometimes there are subs where there is literally nothing being said in the Japanese version. Disney seemed to decide some moments of silence needed filling in with extra dialogue.

[@plebiain]

Listening to this video in French the guy dubbing it does an absolutely world class job of matching your intonation, rhythm, and emphasis whilst only minimally changing the meaning. It's really incredible!

[@Aravzil]

He sounds exactly like the dubs of shows of the early 00's. It's pretty wild to hear this on a Tom Scott video haha

[@singerofsongss]

Proud of my high school Spanish skills today! Yo se poné los subtítulos en español. Tuve que pausar el video algunas veces para comprender el chiste de los gansitos, pero conseguí entenderlo después de un poco tiempo :) I’m happy that I caught that, and I’m extra happy that you shouted it out!

[@Hario338]

Honestly the fact that you put this much effort into the accessibility of your videos is really lovely! thank you so much tom and all of the teams!

[@MustNotContainSpaces]

As a western anime fan who prefers to watch with the original audio track but does not speak japanese, I rely on subtitles a lot. There are some instances - like the international Releases of many Studio Ghibli movies - where the subtitles are in fact just captioned from the dub. It's often called a "dubtitle" and many people are very annoyed when they encounter it.

[@MagicGonads]

on the flipside, I'd love if they explicitly included 'dubtitle' every time a dub is present so I can at least be sure they match up when watching a dub with subtitles on (if they do not match up it is *infuriating*/cannot be ignored and I instantly disable the subtitles in that case)

[@Cdoggle]

Oh yes exactly! It makes sense why they don't do this, but it'd be really nice

[@pattheplanter]

Fansubs used to be so much fun, especially when they got carried away and felt the need to add footnotes to explain the deep cultural reasons for the use of one word.

[@JanTuts]

​@@pattheplanter "Just according to keikaku." (Translator's note: keikaku means plan)

[@sethanix3969]

@@pattheplanter The original Gintama Fandub.... Holy Moly....

[@EmceeJoseph]

My guess is that the translators loved working with Tom on this one, especially with the helpful notes.

[@azpcox]

Yep. Watched the dubbed Spanish version and was seriously impressed by the mannerisms and inflections they made in matching Tom. Down to the “Whew” And laugh-speaking. Fantastic work dubbers!!!

[@AstroRamiEmad]

I'm a professional (English-Arabic) translator and interpreter and I confirm this message ... I LOVE the challenge of translating witty proverbs or even poetry into poetry.

[@AkurasuNet]

Thanks for making a video on this topic. It's really neat that the AppleTV+ original shows usually have both a normal subtitle track and a separate closed caption subtitle track (where the subs match the audio) for all the dubbed languages. It's one of the few platforms that take this extra step. Shame you couldn't provide multiple subtitle tracks for all your dubs.

[@jefferyspurlock4272]

One of my favorite examples of "Passing meaning" in a translation happens in My Hero Academia. In japanese Deku can mean either "Wise" or "Nothing". Bakugo uses it to mean Nothing when talking to Deku. Ochoco when she first hears the name takes it to mean Wise. This does not land well in English. So the chose to reference the "The Great Deku Tree" from Zelda in the dub instead

[@punionrings]

In Latin American Spanish, the dubbed version is "¿Alguien quiere comprar gansitos? Son 'cuasi' gratis." 'Cuasi' is a play on the sound ducks make (cua cua) and "almost" (casi). So the joke is "Does anyone want some ducks? They're almost free." Good job, Spanish dub team!

[@sohopedeco]

As a native Portuguese speaker, I really forgot the word in Spanish was "casi" while watching, given it's "quase" in Portuguese. 😂

[@JustN4n0]

As a Spanish speaker who uses subtitles a lot when watching videos, I really want to thank you to the people that makes the subtitles, and also I lost it when (Spanish dub) Tom shouted: "A huevo!"

[@realcupojoe]

It was entirely unexpected and absolutely hilarious

[@fredericapanon207]

I did wonder about that. IIRC, huevo means egg, yes?

[@fairygrove3928]

@@fredericapanon207 I had to look it up, because my 2 years of Spanish only let me know it meant "eggs," which made no sense. But, typing "huevo slang" into google let me know that eggs seem to be to Spanish what "balls" are to English...

[@sergalaktionov]

Seems like all Slavic audience can agree with your Hindi translation of “have it!” on 6:58 :D

[@LelouchVee]

Well that's one way to exclaim your excitement alright

[@Mark_Es]

😂

[@pxolqopt3597]

Absolutely

[@MakhareSilva]

A dublagem está ótima, eu acompanho o canal tem uns 2 anos, é já ajuda muito na compressão do vídeo as legendas serem feitas totalmente pelo criador do vídeo, do que as legendas criada automaticamente pelo KZbin, espero que mais brasileiros conheça seu canal. Você produz vídeos ótimos, espero que você continue trazendo esse conteúdo diversificado. Boa sorte

[@Otis151]

I'm a native English speaker from the US, and I didnt get the goose joke nor understand what he meant by "have it". I can only imagine the challenges the dub and sub teams face across not only different languages but different cultures. Thank you all for your work!

[@PoolOfTrees]

As Tom said, "Have it" a very regional thing and, even as a Brit myself, I couldn't originally work out what he'd said before the subtitle, because it doesn't make sense in my part of the country. I still remember one of my grandparents telling me how their sister was telling him once that "The milkman has been and gone and hasn't come!". This can sound very nonsensical unless you understand that "been and gone" isn't referring to movement, but is used for emphasis (usually followed by a negative action), like the "only gone and" in the phrase "he's only gone and crashed the car!". You can take it out and it has the same meaning.

[@bighamster2]

To make it even more complicated, there are also generational differences. e.g. teenagers often have a different vocabulary/word meanings from even 30 year olds. Especially on something like KZbin, that's potentially an extra challenge

[@XSemperIdem5]

It didn't make sense to me either. I'm fluent in Spanish as well and the use of that phrase in that situation didn't make sense to me. Maybe that one is regional as well.

[@svenskahugo3199]

Getting the spirit of a translation across reminded me of Jay Foreman's "What's wrong with London's boroughs?", where the subtitles in Esperanto for the logos song was made so that they still rhymed e.g: "eight blobs no one understands" rhymes with "oh it's hands!", and was changed to "ok glutoj strangaj aǔ nanoj" (eight odd swallows or dwarfs) to rhyme with with "oh, ok manoj!" (oh, eight hands!)

[@amadeosendiulo2137]

Ho, saluton! Tiuj subtekstoj estas el la epoko, kiam la komunumo povis krei ilin, ĉu ne? Mi tiam ankoraŭ eĉ ne sciis pri Esperanto.

[@qwertzy2610]

Interestingly, the spanish dubbing and subtitles address the viewer in different ways. The dubbing uses verb forms that are very common in Latin America (and only used in very formal situations in Spain) and the subtitles use verb forms mostly used in Spain and only very little in Latin America.

[@esterjulian9267]

As someone who studied audiovisual translation I loved this video, you perfectly sumarized what I have taught to do with translation and I think the examples perfectly convey what translation is, not just translating words but meaning. And I also get told constanlty "But why do subtitles don't match the dub?" and I have to explain everything you just said.