https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/oct/14/squid-game-netflix-translations-subtitle-problemDo you really need to ask if something was lost in translation? Translation is the art of knowing what to lose. And occasionally the joy of being able to add something to the experience. Anyway, this is about subtitling and the difference between translated subtitles, closed captions and dubbing; all of course different to the original.
“Closed captions” were initially devised for deaf viewers and include audio description. (“A door slams.”) The dialogue used on closed captions is usually a direct transcript of the dubbing script. Subtitles use another script entirely.
Back when I was doing subtitling, which admittedly was a long time ago, before Netflix even existed, that's not how we did it. We prepared a "Master English File", essentially what the characters were actually saying, which was the basis for both translated subtitles and closed captions (which we called SDH – "subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing"). The MEF was timed and adjusted to fit the limitations of screens, reading speeds and so on, and the SDH team then added the necessary sound descriptions for their stuff. They may have had to remove a little more, because after all they still had to fit on the same screen, but they were starting with the exact same material.
A dubbing script translation is always going to be less accurate as it faces two challenges. First, it must translate a phrase in such a way that it takes exactly the same amount of time to say out loud in both languages. Second, if there is any opportunity to copy the mouth movements, then you’re supposed to take it. This is why in Squid Game the Korean honorific “oppa” was translated as “old man” in the dubbing script. It’s “babe” in the subtitle script. In fact, in Korean it’s a term of respect meaning “older brother.”
In what variety of English is "babe" a term of respect or anything vaguely comparable to "older brother"?
Deryagin has been subtitling English to Russian for 11 years and worked on the Russian subtitles for the Netflix films Birdbox and Mank, the streamer’s series Orange Is the New Black, and David Lynch’s short film What Did Jack Do?, also released on Netflix. He watched the latter 15 times before trying to translate it (“I was so excited that I could barely sleep. Any complex film is exciting to translate as you need to understand it to convey it. Imagine doing that for Twin Peaks.”)
Ideally this would be the case, not just for translating but also for creating the captions, subtitles and dubbing script in the original language. In practice it rarely is.