The following content is translated from Chinese source by machine translation without post-editing.
Film and television works cover various forms such as movies, TV dramas, animated films, documentaries, variety shows, etc. In addition to traditional media distribution channels, the internet has gradually become an important platform that cannot be ignored. In this context, four officially recognized forms of online film and television works have emerged: web dramas, web movies, web animations, and web micro dramas.
This article takes the Chinese to European Spanish project of a drama broadcasted on an overseas platform as an example to share Tang Neng Translation’s practical experience in subtitle translation services.
1、 Project Background
A well-known domestic video company (whose specific name cannot be disclosed due to confidentiality reasons) has a dedicated video playback platform overseas. Every year, a large number of movies, TV dramas or short dramas need to be broadcasted on its platform, so the demand for subtitle translation is increasing day by day. The client has a strict set of standards and high quality requirements for subtitle translation for every film, television drama or short drama. The project involved in this article is a traditional film and television drama project that Tang Neng handles on a daily basis: a 48 episode series with a three week construction period, completing all dictation, transcription, translation, proofreading, video style adjustment, and final product delivery.
2、 Analysis of customer demand difficulties
After comprehensive analysis, Tang Neng Translation has summarized the main difficulties of this project as follows:
2.1 Difficulty in finding resources
The language direction is to translate from Chinese to European Spanish, and in terms of translator resources, it is necessary to use native European Spanish translators for direct translation.
Tip: Spain can be divided into European Spanish and Latin American Spain (other countries in Latin America except Brazil), with slight differences between the two. Therefore, when a customer says they want to translate into Spanish, they need to confirm their specific placement location with the customer in order to accurately use the corresponding native translator resources and ensure the effectiveness of the placement.
2.2 There are many internet slang terms in the original Chinese version
This requires native Spanish speakers to have lived in China for a long time and have a certain understanding of Chinese culture, internet slang, and daily life. Otherwise, sentences like ‘You really can do it’ will be difficult to translate accurately and accurately.
2.3 High Translation Quality Requirements
The client broadcasts on overseas platforms, targeting native language audiences, which requires fluent and authentic Spanish expression to ensure contextual coherence, so that the audience can better understand the plot and accurately convey Chinese culture.
2.4 High requirements for translation project control
This project covers multiple stages such as dictation, typing, translation, proofreading, and video style adjustment, and has a tight deadline, which poses a serious challenge to the project management ability of translation service providers.
3、 Subtitle Translation Service Solution
3.1 Establish a dedicated film and television translation team
Tang Neng Translation has established a dedicated film and television translation team based on the characteristics of the project to ensure timely delivery. The team is composed of professional marking personnel, Chinese dictation and quality inspection personnel, translators, proofreaders, and post production video production personnel, achieving seamless integration of multiple links.
3.2 Determine Translation and Localization Strategies
In production, it is necessary to ensure that subtitle translation is both accurate and in line with local culture, in order to enhance the viewing experience of the audience and strengthen the cross-cultural dissemination effect of the work.
3.2.1 Cultural Adaptability
Translators need to have a deep understanding of the cultural background, social customs, and audience values of the target market in order to better understand and translate cultural elements in film and television works. For example, for certain cultural symbols or traditional festivals, brief explanations or background information can help the audience understand. In the translation process, pay attention to cultural adaptability and avoid expressions that are not in line with the target audience’s culture. For example, certain culturally specific terms or symbolic vocabulary need to find expressions that are compatible with the target language culture.
3.2.2 Choose appropriate translation strategies
Flexibly use literal translation and free translation according to specific situations. Literal translation can maintain the language style of the original work, while free translation helps to better convey the original meaning and cultural connotations. When necessary, additional or reduced translations can also be made appropriately. Additional translation can supplement some cultural background information to help the audience better understand; Reduced translation is the process of removing some details that do not affect understanding when the subtitle length is limited. When translating, it is important to maintain the colloquial nature of the language while also paying attention to its standardization, in order to better convey the emotions of the characters and the plot of the story.
3.3 Equipped with a dedicated Spanish project manager
The project manager responsible for this project holds a Level 8 certificate in Spanish and has nearly 10 years of project management experience. They possess excellent communication and project control skills. She has a deep understanding of clients’ translation requirements and is familiar with the translator’s background, experience, expertise, and style characteristics. She is able to allocate tasks reasonably based on the characteristics of the manuscript. In addition, she is responsible for comprehensive quality control of the submitted subtitle translation files.
3.4 Setting up a professional production process
The PM creates a Gantt chart based on multiple workflow processes such as axis printing, translation, proofreading, subtitle style design, and finished product quality inspection to track the progress of each stage of the project in a timely manner and ensure that each stage is carried out in an orderly manner.
4、 Project effectiveness evaluation
Through sincere service and unremitting efforts, our service quality and work efficiency have been highly recognized by the customers of this video platform. Each episode of the video is simultaneously broadcasted on overseas video platforms, and the audience has responded enthusiastically, attracting more traffic to the client’s overseas platform.
5、 Project Summary
Subtitle translation not only requires language accuracy, but also considers cultural differences, regional characteristics, and audience understanding habits, which are all core contents of translation services. Compared with traditional film and television dramas, short dramas have higher requirements for subtitle translation due to their shorter episode duration and more compact plot. Whether it is a film or a short drama, the quality of subtitle production directly affects the audience’s viewing experience, so multiple aspects need to be paid attention to during the production process:
Firstly, accurate matching of timecodes is crucial, as the appearance and disappearance of subtitles must be perfectly synchronized with the visuals and dialogue. Any lagging or premature subtitle display will affect the audience’s experience.
Secondly, font and layout design cannot be ignored. The font, color, size, and layout of subtitles need to balance aesthetics and readability. Especially in short dramas, different subtitle styles may need to be used, such as highlighting certain lines, distinguishing characters with different colors, or adding sound effects to enhance audience understanding and participation.
In addition, although the client did not request dubbing in this project, dubbing is an indispensable part of the entire production process and deserves special mention. Compared with subtitle translation, dubbing translation focuses more on the sound presentation of language. Good dubbing is an addition to the actor’s acting skills, which can enhance the emotional resonance of the audience. Whether it is traditional film and television dramas or short dramas, if dubbing is required in the later stage, it is necessary to accurately grasp the character’s mouth shape and time length when speaking lines in Taiwanese translation, in order to avoid situations where dubbing does not match the picture. This process not only requires translators to have a solid language foundation, but also a profound understanding of the emotions and context of the characters. When selecting a voice actor, their tone and intonation need to match the character’s personality, emotions, and age characteristics. Excellent voice acting can enhance the character’s sense of depth and dramatic conflict, allowing the audience to better perceive the emotional changes of the character through sound.
In short, the overseas translation services for movies, TV dramas, and short dramas are not only about cross linguistic conversion, but also about cross-cultural communication. Excellent subtitle translation, subtitle production, and dubbing services can help film and television works overcome language and cultural barriers, and gain more popularity and recognition from audiences worldwide. With the continuous advancement of globalization, the cross-cultural dissemination of films, TV dramas, and short dramas will inevitably usher in a more diverse and abundant future.
Post time: Jun-15-2025