Comments on: Wherein I self-critique

By: AlgunO

AlgunO — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:03:06 +0000

i love you Goong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!forever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By: jstbored ^o^

jstbored ^o^ — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 01:18:07 +0000

personally…
cuz i know both korean and english
sometimes i watch dramas twice
once without subs and once with
it’s fun to watch for errors and mistakes and different interpretations

By: Funkster316

Funkster316 — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 15:03:29 +0000

I really enjoy your thoughtful entries. This one in particular was good. Translation /interpreting is difficult. I do concur that at times it is the proper or correct English words you want to find that is difficult. Whenever I have to interprete something, I find it difficult as well. English doesn’t always fully encapsulate the meanings you want to express. I find Cantonese/Mandarin even Japanese is better. Same goes for the Chinese subs are better than the English subs (professional) I find at times at least they maintain some or explain slang/ terms of the people’s relationships intact.

But thanks to you and others hard work, I am able to enjoy my Kdrama addictions. I am sooooo thoughtful from the bottom of my heart! I found your site due to my Coffe Prince addiction! Keep up your awesome work! Now check out your website for daily after checking my email account!

Komapsumnida!

By: Kristen

Kristen — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 22:59:11 +0000

Haha, this is pretty late in reply, but after hearing what you were saying, I realized that I used your Goong S subs. I really liked them! At first I was surprised that you used “Young Sung Gong” etc., but after a short time I got used to it and appreciated that you kept those terms intact. It helped make it authentic. So thank you!

By: Mizuki

Mizuki — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 23:45:35 +0000

I like this article because I can totally relate. I’ve never done fansubbing for a site or anything, but my mom was watching the J-drama Stand Up one time. Unfortunately, until recently the last four episodes or so had no fansubbing. Feeling bad for my mom, I translated a few episodes and worked hard at timing it and everything. I’ve been studying Japanese for a long time, but I still needed to sit there, pause it, and occasionally look stuff up in my dictionary. And to top it off one of the actors has this habit of slurring his words ^^;; Anyway, it was hard work but I enjoyed being able to let my mom understand what was going on, at least to some degree. I look back at it now and cringe at some of my choices in translating, but the damage has already been done, right? ^^

By the way, my mom LOVES this site. Instead of reading a newspaper or something she’s on this site every day. She actually e-mailed me today to let me know that there was an article about Tablo. I too am an Epik High fan.

By: ai*

ai* — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 02:24:59 +0000

i’m so late to this topic but ….nitpickers unite indeed, thunder!

i’m a perfectionist, how the story is told – plot, acting, BGM, how a scene is composed and ultimately what is said, these are all important ingredients. i’m one who needs to emote when i watch so i love to watch when i’m alone so i can hear every sigh, whisper, sniff and feel free to tear, bawl, laugh, clap, snigger etc.

when i’m on KBS world, i find myself rewording the subs out loud so much so that my kids are warning me to shut up! or like sarah, i find how they might sub a phrase/word much better than me and i make a mental note to use it when i translate next time.

sometimes i wish that we subbers have a dictionary of common phrases/words and the correct english terms to use when subbing. that’ll surely help than having to come up with something on the spot and to reduce this same headache for other subbers who have to go thru it too.

since i dunno korean (save for what one would pick up after 3-4 years of k-drama hehe!), i translate from chinese to english. sometimes i worry that the meaning/nuances are so far diluted (korean to chinese prob lose 10%, chinese to english prob lose another 10-15%) that it lessens the enjoyment for people watching. so i always try to highlight problem or questionable lines so that a more proficient translator/QC can have a go at it to improve it.

when i studied the jap language for 3-4 years, i consciously tried to think in that language but it was so tough even with JLPT level 2 haha! by thinking in that language i mean, when i count i do it in japanese and i try to reword conversations i just had in japanese, etc. that’s when i realized that if we translate word for word, it gets too literal. so we have to not only translate a whole sentence but also in the context in which it was used. that’s hard! i remember someone actually used jamaican twang in the eng subs to denote that a character actually spoke a colloquial korean countryside dialect haha! i thought that was being true to the craft!

By: jolee

jolee — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 05:08:24 +0000

Opps, my bad on misinterpreting the comment. I usually read these comments when I have free time (which usually means about 12-1am in the morning) and apparently my dyslexia starts kicking in. I usually hope my comments are at least comprehensible when I am writing them at that hour. However, after re-reading that paragraph, it makes total sense you were also respectively talking about the local tv station. ^^