An acquaintance told me he'd been to a Paris movie house some decades ago where he watched an American cowboy classic with French subtitles. In one scene the hero walked into a saloon with his sidekick. As they approached the bar, the sidekick introduced the hero to to bartender saying, "This here's Bart," or whatever his name was. The bartender answered, "Howdy!" And the subtitle said: "Enchanté!"

Pam Resic, San Francisco, CA

Good for Guillermo del Toro for paying attention and noticing the bad translation of his film. I think if more fimmakers knew how their films that they love and have worked hard on are treated by some subtitling companies, they would demand better quality. In a way the subtitler is almost a part of the film production team by contributing to the final product. A great film can be ruined by a poor translation. This is something that people in the American film companies probably don't understand because they don't need subtitles to be able to watch most films.

Here in Finland the situation is that there are a lot of skilled professionals who have university level translation or even subtitling training, but as in so many other countries, we have to struggle for our wages. Quality on TV is still quite good, but especially on DVDs, you never know what to expect. The results of less pay, less time, more work show easily.

Subtitler, Turku, Finland

I'm still unsure whether I find reading this reassuring or distressing. Probably both, for seeing we all face similar problems is as terrifying as comforting. I've been writing French subtitles for a few years now, loving it, yet wondering on an almost daily basis whether I'll be able to live on it much longer. I recently quit my part-time in-house job, following the company's decision to cut rates by more than 20 %. At least 200 translators signed a petition, to no avail. And the leaders of that company who claim that quality is a big concern don't seem to care who they hire now because their main concern is finding people who will accept their ludicrous rates or believe their lies. They'd have us think it's all about the market. But a decent subtitling industry won't survive by cutting rates further. It only has a chance to do so by proving that US-based (not only Asia) international subtitling makes for incredibly poor national subtitles. No wonder the French love dubbed versions.

Quentin Rambaud, Paris, France

Although I generally enjoyed the subtitles for Pan's Labyrinth, there were a couple of issues, both spelling and style. For example, in the very beginning of the movie, "princess's" was spelled as "princess' ", and throughout the movie some subtitles for off-screen speakers were italicized (which is standard practice in captioning, not in subtitling). If I had wanted to complain, I wouldn't have a clue as to whom to contact.

When the bag of chips you bought isn't to your liking, you can call the number on the back of the bag to complain (and you're likely to get a whole bunch of bags of chips for free).

If there were a number on the back of your ticket stub or DVD that you could call to complain about the poor quality of the subtitles, I'm sure the quality of subtitles would improve as a result.

PS "It was a ball to shoot." does not mean "It was easy." but "It was a lot of fun to shoot."

Willem De Wit, Los Angeles, United States

To be honest, I haven't read all the comments, but I must react to Bob Grundy's words. The bad translation you experienced is most likely the result of a translator in the west trying to out-price low-cost translators around the world by cutting all corners just to complete the assignment in a quarter of the time. Unfortunately, that seems to be the only possible countermeasure left against cost-cutting competition...
I'm still waiting for translation companies here to put their foot down in front of the broadcasters and unitedly demand to raise the bar of payment for subtitling. I guess I'm as naive as they come...

TomereshefF, ENG>HEB>ENG Translator, Tel Aviv, Israel

I'm still unsure whether I find reading this reassuring or distressing. Probably both, for knowing we all face similar problems is as terrifying as comforting. I've been writing subtitles for a few years now, loving it, yet wondering on an almost daily basis whether I'll be able to live on it much longer. I recently quit my part-time in-house job following the company's decision to cut rates by more than 20 %. At least 200 translators have signed a petition, to no avail. How can you claim that you care about quality when your biggest concern is finding people who will work for ludicrous rates? This industry won't survive by cutting rates further; it will only do so by proving that cheap, international (which often means US-based) subtitles are bad for business. No wonder the French love dubbed versions. To any audience, not just a lazy one, poor subtitles simply get in the way. In theatres, the standards are very high. On DVD, you never know.

Quentin Rambaud, Paris, France

I'm a translator, and most of my work is done for companies in Europe. I get paid in Euros. Whenever the pound goes up, my income goes down (30% over the past 10 years). My work sometimes gets corrected by "experts" who don't even speak the language properly, and are snotty to boot.

Why am I doing this job again? Ah yes, because it's flexible and I can look after my son as well.

Starling, Lancaster,

I've been a subtitler for 17 years, working mostly from American English and French (into Hebrew), and specializing in Action and Sci-Fi (Star Trek, Stargate Etc'). Believe me, I've seen a lot worse. But I still think that subtitling is better than dubbing...

Aliza, Jerusalem, Israel

The UK film industry is, in principle at least, in a privileged situation, because subtitling has recently been included in higher education courses in the UK, contributing to a growing number of well-trained subtitlers. At the University of Surrey, for example, we offer two highly specialised MA programmes in Audiovisual Translation, one focussing on foreign-language subtitling, the other dedicated to subtitling for the deaf and hard-of-hearing and audio description for the blind and partially sighted. We are in the lucky situation that practising professionals from the London area teach on our programmes and pass on their long-term experience to our students. Our graduates leave university enthusiastically and with the necessary skills to do a good job. It would be great to see that the UK industry makes good use of this growing and well-trained work force. And I am sure it would be to the industry's benefit.

Sabine Braun, University of Surrey, Guildford

I believe this is happening across all niches of the industry worldwide. The way some of the so-called industry leaders treat us is appalling. They expect patrician quality at pedestrian rates. I recently received a message from a London-based outfit saying exactly this: "we are really interested in your skills, but your prices are more than we expect to pay for a translator in your pair." Then they offered me a ludicrous rate. I for one refuse this kind of "quid pro gratis". My guess is that either the end customer is unable to evaluate what they are buying (which is true in most of the cases) or they simply couldn't care less. All in all, they think translation is a commodity and should be treated as such. Well, we may tally our work based on words, but our job certainly involves much more than simply translating them... After all, what we do is to convey ideas across different cultures. And we should be paid for that accordingly.

Luís Henrique Kubota, São Paulo, Brazil

I'm annoyed at this self righteousness from translators. My workplace had ' translation done in the 'West' by a leading 'professional agency' at vast expense. It was appalling. Hilarious but appalling. Made one suspect there is some sort of a nexus which requests translations so as to make money. The attitude of some of the contributors is also very high handed. There are culturally aware translators out there in the 'East/South' too who can do a fabulous, culturally sensitive job. On the matter of subtitling it works both ways too. I've seen foreign films where the subtitling ran ahead of what was happening on the screen. Quite disconcerting. Spoilt the film but was rather funny too.

Bob Grundy, London,

Unfortunately, those who work as Translators/Subtitlers seem to be the only ones who appreciaate and value the hard work performed. Most people believe that transating is a cinch, if you speak two languages, until they learn the truth, usually the hard way (due to a terrible translation).
As in all areas, the work of professionals should be valued and appropriately remunerated. Want high quality? Then pay the appropriate price. It's better to have things done correctly the first time than to pay double and waste time contracting non-professionals to do a professional job.

Marta María Bianchi, Guatemala, Guatemala

This has been happening in all sections of translation work. Clients, be them companies, agencies or whatever, want a job done as quickly and cheapily as possible.
But in the case of translations, this is even worse than a badly subtitled film. A mistranslation in a medical text could cause the death of patient or a wrongly translated legal term could make a company lose millions of pounds.
Alas, this argument falls on deaf ears. Chear and cheap are the buzzword in a good tranche of the translation market.
I am a professional translation, been doing this for the last 17 years, but I cannot compete with my colleagues outside the UK in terms of price and even here I am outpriced for amateurs who think that because they can utter a couple of sentences in 2 languages they can translate.
How wrong they are!

Ana Iaria, Crawley, Uk

Cost-cutting is the direct result of a prevalent mentality here, i.e., subtitling is not a skilled profession, therefore it doesn't attract much investments. Let me cite a glaring example: if you type "subtitler" in a Words document, you'll be alerted of the "mistake" because there is no such word in the dictionary. Very few people actually appreciate what is involved in producing subtitles, so it is a thankless job. Only when people take subtitling seriously that there is a future for this industry. The problem now is not one of "the West vs. the East" or "Developed countries vs. developing countries", but rather, the lack of awareness of the importance of subtitling and the impact it has on video materials, be they commercial films, corporate or educational videos, etc. The audience has to do something about it as well: complain when it is due! At the moment subtitling is the last thing the audience would think of complaining about, and this needs to change.

Deborah Chan, London, U.K.

We are experiencng similar problems in Poland. Especially the DVD market is affected. DVD's are being sold in 32 languages all translated from an English template.
The distributors don't seem to understand, that a good translation cannot be outsourced; jokes will be "explained" instead of transculturally translated.
Glad to read you have joined forces to fight this evil phenomenon. So have we, here in Poland.

Subtitler from Poland, Warsaw, Poland

Having worked alongside both Kenn and Deborah, I agree with them. The whole industry is affected. Highly experienced and educated linguists are being made redundant, work is outsourced to India and the resulting quality is atrocious, all because clients are cutting costs. Clients need to be aware of the constraints of subtitling and the time needed to produce quality work. I suspect this may go the way of call centres and work will eventually come back to the UK or USA. In the meantime, we subtitlers are either leaving the industry completely or working for very low wages. It's terrible the way that corporations are treating their best assets, but due to the size of the industry there is no voice. In the eyes of most large clients, subtitling is a mere afterthought.

Mark Harrison, London, UK

I'm afraid this is a universal problem (and not restricted to subtitles). I'm a translator and used to do a lot of subtitling (I think Kenn and I occasionally worked for the same company). I'm a film buff as well and loved the job but 4 years ago I gave up subtitle translation altogether due to the increasing downward pressure on rates. When qualified and passionate people like us are forced out of the job the whole industry suffers. Who is going to watch foreign language films if subtitles make you cringe?

Olaf Knechten, London, England/UK

Once again, here are globalisation and its gloomy effects! I cannot understand why the multi-billion dollars film industry is going down this route? Loads of experienced subtitlers and translators are based in the "West". Most of them possess a postgraduate degree, work regularly on an in-house or a freelance basis, and live (or have lived for an appreciable period of time) in the relevant countries. What's the point of producing UK English subtitles in Taipei or Canadian French subtitles in Puducherry? I am not saying that Taiwanese cannot produce good-quality material, but they'll always lack of the cultural awareness required to do the task accurately. The film industry is booming with the imminent arrival of next-gen DVDs. I hope that multinational companies won't kill the golden goose by constantly trying to reduce their costs. I am confident that, at some point, the man in the street will react against this invasion of low-quality products.

The French Subtitler, London, United Kingdom

For many years now BBC Scotland's practice for Gaelic-language programmes has been to have a review of the (English-language) subtitles by either the programme producer or someone from the production team: this acts as a corrective to any slips introduced by lack of knowledge of the full circumstances or simply by the pressures of a fast turnaround. New guidelines from the European Commission confirm that this is the appropriate approach. Perhaps if European standards became the norm, there would be higher standards and payment for skilled work - and happier audiences and film-makers too.
Relentless cost-cutting will inevitably undermine standards, and it is a feature of non-organised workforces the world over.

Fearchar I MacIllFhinnein, Glasgow, Scotland, UK

I am afraid the situation is becoming just as bad in the Scandinavian countries. When one big subtitling company slashed the salaries for their subtitlers by thirty per cent a few years back, and the subtitlers went on strike, the company replaced them with unskilled rookies. The resulting subtitles were appaling. An example from Time Team on The Discovery Channel. The team was excavating a Spitfire which had crashed into a field, and Tony Robinson said "It's the beginning of day three and we have excavated most of the fuselage" which in Swedish became "We have excavated most of the fuel line".

Jan Pedersen, STOCKHOLM, Sweden

It seems like humankind is in a losing battle against the relentless and mindless rush to ever-increasing profits. The profit-driven model's ideal solution would be computers to do it all. The ideal human solution would be a gifted linguist or writer to add the crowning touches to these works of art. Humans are definitely in the disadvantage at the moment. The same is true in terms of the environment - profit before people, leading us like lemmings to a fate we apparently deserve.

Robert Finnegan, Belém, Brazil

Film viewers are losing their money every time they read a badly translated sentence, and film buyers should refuse to pay for bad translations. This problem will only be solved when film distribution companies hire linguists to help in the selection of movies to be purchased. When movies start being rejected due to poor translation, then translations will begin to improve.

Jose Lazaro da Silva, translator, S. Paulo, Brazil

At last an article on the plight of many subtitlers that have seen their salaries drastically cut by translation practices and companies that don't care about quality or the wellbeing of the profession. I very much hope this signals the start of action to change this most unfair situation.

Jorge Díaz-Cintas, London, UK

Subtitling is all about money: the cheapest vendors get the jobs. No quality assurance in translation, nor any quality control other than by (eventually disgruntled) bilingual spectators. After it’s done and the film has been shown on TV and/or mass-duplicated on DVDs, it’s too late for rework. So “the cheap way” rules. As it is unheard of anyone demanding a refund from a cinema, cable TV network, or video rental store for abusively bad film translation, why should distributors “waste” money with professionally capable translators if cheap amateurs can get it done? Only Disney seems to go against the grain and care about that.
I translate corporate and training videos. These films will be shown by the sponsor itself, so top quality is an absolute must, which takes competent work. Commercial film distributors don’t want to go near translation rates like mine. The only way to change this situation would be TV sponsors demanding some minimum translation quality to pay for the show.

Jose Henrique Lamensdorf, Sao Paulo, Brazil - SP

As an EN>ES translator, I find this ashaming not only for the audience but also for the rest of professionals who try to make a living out of this industry. Appalling.

Marta , Madrid, Spain

At long last an article on the plight of many subtitlers who have seen their salaries drastically cut but translating practices and companies that care nothing at all for quality. I very much hope this is the beggining of action to help change things.

Jorge Díaz-Cintas, London, UK