Tekstning
Tekstning er branche-terminologi for undertekstning, som man ser det på tv. Ofte vil elever (og lærere) have en holdning til, hvad gode og dårlige undertekster er. Nu får de lov til selv at lege tv-tekstere for at se, hvor udfordrende praksissen kan være.
Læreren må bruge en vis tid på forberedelse, men udbyttet er umagen værd. Vejledning herunder er på engelsk, da jeg har brugt øvelsen i min engelskundervisning.
Doc-udgaven findes her.
Øvelsen er velegnet til alle sprogfag som:
- et alternativ til de sædvanlige oversættelsesøvelser.
- gennemgang af et kapitel fra en (filmatiseret) roman - selv brugte jeg The Great Gatsby.
Screen translators are said to be the ninjas of translation.
If you ever notice a subtitle that stands out, the translation is quite often not very good.
Crash course in captioning (subtitling)
Who uses subtitles?
Obviously those whose native language is not English. Apart from the Danish viewers, the rest of Scandinavia also uses subtitles. In fact, since Finland has to official languages, when you go to the cinema, the film will be subtitled in both Swedish and Finnish. On the other hand, countries with a population of more than 25 million will replace the original language using overdubs where foreign actors record over the original voices.
The Practice of Captioning
When you produce subtitles there are limitations to consider. Not everyone reads with lightning speed, so the caption cannot change too quickly. In Denmark, we use a duration of two seconds per block (caption) at minimum, and a maximum duration of seven seconds is allowed. Furthermore, there cannot be more than 37 characters on each line of text.
Often the translator only has the audio track to rely on, and the dialogue becomes a matter of interpretation. This can often lead to some amusing mistakes which you can check out here: http://www.titlevision.dk/boeuf.htm
Rules:
Block duration: 2-7 seconds
37 characters per line maximum
[Optional: Block insertion/removal: either 1 second BEFORE cut | ON the cut | or 1 second after]
Meaning: Look up everything you don’t know what means!
Orthography (restskrivning): Spelling is essential. When in doubt, look it up! (Use dsn.dk)
Idioms (faste udtryk): Gyldendals Røde Ordbøger seem to be quite extensive.
Getting started
Download Subtitle Edit from anywhere – it’s free!
http://download.cnet.com/Subtitle-Edit/3000-2170_4-90536.html
Download VLC Player for playback – also free…
Download a video preferably public domain from Youtube.
It’s a good idea to save the video on the desktop or a folder with easy access to.
Obtaining and converting a video: http://www.clipconverter.cc/
Short video files are easier to work with. Use “Free Video Cutter Joiner” to trim longer pieces of video. http://free_video_cutter_joiner.en.softonic.com/download
Importing video
Open Subtitle Edit → click “Video” in the menu → “Open video file” → Find your video
Click “Video” again → “Show/hide waveform” → click on the black bar at the bottom
Use the waveform as a navigator or timeline! The peaks indicate the dialogue.
Inserting captions
Click create and “Insert new subtitle at video pos”.
You can also use the designated shortcut key.
Save the captions by giving the file the exact same name as the video.
Video and caption file MUST be placed in the same folder.
