Client Name: IHH
Client Sector: Health
As part of the project, the presentations prepared for the IHH HR Global Summit 2022 and the subtitles of the videos used in these presentations were translated. The source texts included in the project were in English and were provided in PowerPoint, Word, and Plain Text. Before translating the source texts into Turkish, the content and style of the texts were analyzed thoroughly, and the videos provided together with the texts were reviewed. This analysis was followed by the pre-translation process, which included preliminary research on the client and a terminology study based on the source texts. As a result of these analyses, issues that require particular attention and potential challenges in the translation process were identified, and solutions were developed to overcome these challenges.
Considering the intended use of the source texts included in the project, clear and concise expressions and consistent and accurate terminology were used. In a similar vein, it was aimed to find appropriate equivalents in Turkish based on the client’s website and similar texts published in the relevant language pair by reliable sources on the same topic, and to use them consistently throughout the texts. Furthermore, meticulous work was performed to ensure that the subtitle translation is fit for purpose.
CHALLENGES
- During the translation of the subtitles of the videos in the presentations, it was essential to faithfully convey the meaning of the source texts while also considering the peculiarities of subtitling, such as the length, readability, comprehensibility, naturalness, on-screen appearance, and visual context of subtitles. Furthermore, the potential impact of the differences between the source and the target languages on these matters was taken into consideration.
- The lack of a Turkish language option on the client’s website caused difficulty in finding appropriate equivalents and identifying the client’s preferences during word selection.
- Since the images used in the presentations were not editable, it was essential to find a solution for the translation of these images and to consider the impact of the solution on the duration of the translation process.
SOLUTIONS
- Throughout the subtitling process, the related videos were reviewed with particular attention to the relevance of the subtitles to the visual context, visual cues, speaking rate, and the on-screen appearance of the subtitles. Special care was taken to ensure maximum compliance with the standard subtitle length in order for the subtitles to be able to be read at a regular pace without any difficulty. In this context, the message in the source text was conveyed to the target text using concise expressions as much as possible. Efforts have been made to use the most natural expressions in the target language, which is of great importance in subtitling. During all these efforts, the differences between the source language and the target language, such as word and sentence length, were also considered, and the most reasonable solutions that would not cause any change in the meaning were developed.
- Care was taken to find the right equivalents using reliable resources on the topic and to select the most appropriate expressions based on the intended use of the source texts.
- Text boxes were used when translating the non-editable images, and the impact of this process on the total duration of translation was taken into consideration.
SOLUTION ELEMENTS
- Knowledge of subtitling
- Research and source text analysis conducted in the pre-translation process
BENEFITS
- The purpose of the translation process was to convey the message available to source text readers in the source language, to the readers of the text in the target language with accurate terminology and a comprehensible style suitable for the intended use of the source text.
- It was aimed to ensure that the subtitles can be read at a regular pace without any difficulty, can be easily comprehended, are as natural as possible, are relevant to the visual context, and do not cause any aesthetic problems.
