This course is designed for people who want to be able to create professional-level English subtitles for Japanese video content.
The course comprises 15 lessons that will teach you the key skills needed to become a successful subtitle translator.
You will learn tips and techniques for ensuring that your subtitles accurately convey the meaning and nuance of the original dialogue or narration. Examples are used to illustrate the particular challenges faced when subtitling Japanese content in English, such as how to deal with keigo and other concepts that have no direct equivalents in English.
Subtitling differs in several important ways from other forms of translation, and the course also covers how to write well when your words will be displayed in short bursts on top of a video. You will learn how to create easy-to-read, unobtrusive subtitles that provide the viewer with the best possible experience. This includes instructions on how to format your subtitles to comply with common industry guidelines on issues such as character limits, line breaks and the use of punctuation.
The course also introduces subtitling software and explains how to create properly timed subtitles using the free program Subtitle Edit.
Upon completing the entire course, participants will be eligible to do a trial translation and apply to register with Forecross as a freelance Japanese-to-English subtitle translator.