Following up on our previous article about the same topic and in pursuance of supporting the beginner in the subtitling field, we would like to provide this article as a complementary part that helps you to have the best knowledge to be a subtitling services provider (or a subtitle) and all of the must-have information to pursue the career.
What Are The Required Skills Of A Subtitler?
Making subtitles is a difficult job that demands a high level of professional competence and specific skills from subtitlers, which are about to be stated below.
Firstly, to become a subtitler, language proficiency is of the greatest importance. As one of the main duties of a subtitler is translating back and forth between the source and target languages, good command of the languages is defined as a required standard that the subtitlers must measure up.
Language proficiency levels
To put it simply, being a subtitler means that you are proficient in all skills of the language from the basic ones like listening, reading, … to the more demanding ones such as word choice, grammar, idioms or collocation’s knowledge and other translation skills. That is to say, a subtitler is a master of using languages.
Secondly, subtitlers need to have knowledge and experience of cultural understanding. In fact, each country and region hold different features of culture, history, society and politics. As a result, every target market has dissimilar senses of humour and cultural manners.
Therefore, the update on not only traditional and current elements but also a practical understanding of these mentioned backgrounds is the key for the subtitlers to make successful subtitles.
Thirdly, another virtue that determines a good subtitler is being attentive to detail. This demand is connected with the fact that there are so many serious and decisive working processes in performing subtitles which can affect the definite results. Should you desire to be a subtitler, remember that the more attentive to detail you can be, the fewer mistakes you make. Accordingly, being attentive to detail can help to cut down on the time spent on checking and correcting mistranslation.
Fourthly, typing skills is a factor that provides subtitlers with so many advantages because converting speech into text is one of the main duties in making subtitles. As a matter of fact, a fast typing speed with high accuracy can improve productivity.
Good typing skills can improve your subtitle working
There are some techniques to increase typing speed and enhance typing skills that can contribute to the progress in the performance of subtitlers.
Fifthly, subtitlers must meet the requirement of screen spatial awareness. In simple words, the final production of subtitles is displayed in the form of a caption through a small screen of devices such as a computer, laptop, smartphone, television, etc. This factor has significant influences on the viewing experience of the audience because the appearance speed of the caption may differ depending on the distinctive scene and aspect ratio.
Therefore, it’s vital for subtitlers to raise spatial awareness of this problem in order to deal with its consequences.
What Tools Do Subtitlers Need?
Subtitling services providers and the people who want to provide this kind of service as a professional do need the assistance of subtitle tools. Thanks to the development of technology and software, subtitlers can easily gain the access to so many available and free versions of subtitle tools with advanced editing features.
In accordance with this point, we give you some more recommendations for subtitle software via this article, so that you can make better decisions in looking for the suitable ones.
How To Improve Your Subtitles?
When it comes to methods to improve subtitles, there are 3 factors that need to be taken into consideration such as purpose, audience, and context. Having knowledge of these factors and the effort into refining them can bring about a subtitle with the welcome of a large number of audiences.
In reference to purpose, it’s indispensable for a subtitle-maker to make clear the main intention and objective when making subtitles. The term “purpose” in this case can be defined as the answer to the question “What will the subtitles be used for?” To serve business, entertainment or education purposes? Or perhaps, for marketing strategies or sales engagement? Actually, there are so many purposes for subtitles. That is to say, the clearer information you have, the less digression you make.
Another main factor that can decide the success of your subtitle is the target audience. In the position of a subtitler, you need to do research and identify the target one that your product is aiming at. As mentioned before, every group of the population has a different insight and liking therefore the subtitles for them are absolutely dissimilar. For example, when making subtitles for the young, teenage slang can be used for attracting viewers’ attention and make the content become more catchy.
The last but not least element in improving subtitles is context. Concentration on the context helps you to make better your word choice and style, which can boost up your translation’s nuance as well as precision. To put it another way, improving the context can give you an opportunity to improve the quality of your subtitling services.
Checklist For Subtitlers
In addition to a working procedure, subtitlers normally organize their workload with a detailed checklist that can outline tasks to be completed and divided based on the time or other factors of projects. The checklist is by far the best job aid that can not only ensure a task’s consistency and accomplishment but also minimize any proclivity to delay or omit any critical steps in working processes.
To Sum Up
If you are about to take the very first step in the path of becoming a subtitler, GTE Media can be a reliable mentor for you to make references. With professional and qualified subtitling services, we make sure to offer the best quality subtitle to our clients and the most efficient working environment for staff. Check out more information about GTE Media’s subtitling services here and join us!
Tags: Subtitlers, Subtitling Services
