16d • General discussion
Why Spanish/Portuguese subtitles sound off 🤨
Usually, when subtitles are only translated, not localized they "look" off. Because they ARE off!
And subtitles are one of the least forgiving places to make that mistake.
In much of Latin America, subtitles aren't a backup for accessibility.
They're how a lot of content gets consumed, often with the sound off, on a commute or while multitasking.
That means the captions aren't supporting your message.
A lot of the time, they are the message. So when they read robotic or overly literal, the whole piece feels odd, no matter how good the video looks.
Auto-generated captions make it worse. DId I say "worse", that is so nice!
Let me be clear, it is a disaster. Sync will be off FOR SURE. Guaranteed!
YouTube auto-generated is especially "good" at this. And so many just let it be.
ADDITIONALLY...
They miss tone and regional phrasing, and they don't know a line natural in Mexico might feel odd in Argentina. The emotion drains out.
You can't always control what was said on camera. You can control how it reads on screen.
P.S. Want to review our subtitling abilities? Send me a clip.
These are some Recent subtitling projects
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Why Spanish/Portuguese subtitles sound off 🤨
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