: Re: Is there an accepted (or 'correct') way to write translations/subtitles for different materials (videos, articles, books, etc)? There are many ways to go about translating various materials. For

@Ravi5107385

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There are two special issues regarding subtitles:

space limitations, i.e. you cannot put enough letters in a row (or two) to cover everything that's said;
time limitations, i.e. you cannot translate everything literally as you have to expect that viewers can't read fast enough to read all those words, especially not when someone is talking fast.

Most of the times, you'll have to summarize a bit when writing subtitles, without losing the meaning and emotion of what's been said.

There's a classic example of a Dutch subtitle that went wrong: in an episode of The Bold and the Beautiful someone said over the phone:

After all he put you through.

In Dutch, this was translated as

Hij heeft je tenslotte doorverbonden.

That is, someone connects someone to somebody else on the phone. Of course, it was about an emotional affair (don't know what) and someone helped her to cope with it.

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