"Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films."
(Bong Joon Ho, director)

(published on 08.07.2022)

Iyuno is one of the world’s largest agencies for localization and language services. In June 2022, the company published a white paper on the subtitle production process, making a number of assumptions concerning the work of subtitlers that we firmly reject. So we decided to follow the examples of ATRAE and AVTE and publicly address the company in an open letter:

We, the Association for Audiovisual Translators in Germany (AVÜ), would like to react to Iyuno’s white paper on the subtitling production process by saying that we agree with every point our Spanish sister organization ATRAE and our umbrella organization AVTE (Audiovisual Translators Europe) have made, and we would like to stress the following items in particular:

The last section of the white paper “Industry Perspective” refers to the alleged “shortage of translators” or – as it’s been called on other occasions – “talent crunch,” although it has been refuted by numerous professionals and translators’ organizations since the issue was first brought up late last year. To conclude that there are not enough competent subtitlers on the market just because you are dissatisfied with the quality delivered by the subtitlers working for you, was and still is no more than an unfounded assumption, and a very narrow minded one at that.

Professional and capable subtitlers do exist in large quantities. You simply don’t seem to attract them, which is probably due to the small fees you offer. The rates come nowhere close to the kind of compensation the professionals used to get, which they need in order to provide for themselves and their families, and which they highly deserve as well, given their university degree, training, long-term experience and expertise. It is outrageous that university graduates working as freelance translators and subtitlers – who by definition do not have the possibility of promotion and consequent pay raise – have to settle for sinking wages and prepare for old-age poverty. In order not to succumb to that, many seasoned translators are forced to change careers unless they have managed to establish fair and long-term working relationships with one or two end clients, making sure that they can maintain their living standard and that of their families in the future.

So instead of wondering how to recruit new talent and spending time and money on training newcomers, why not spend these resources on appropriate compensation and rely on the talent that is already there for the taking? And if that is not sufficient, there are indeed hordes of university graduates trained not only in translation and subtitling, but also in calculating what fees they need to ask for to make a decent living, waiting to get to work.

Having said all that, of course some experienced and highly competent translators plod on, trying to keep up high standards while accepting low and ever more deteriorating working conditions. These poor conditions are marked by impossible deadlines, additional unpaid tasks and a lack of appreciation. Your cynical comment that even translators who consider themselves underpaid do perform satisfactorily is a slap in the face for them. A once exciting, interesting, creative and sophisticated profession is thus turning into a low-pay treadmill.

This is where machine translation comes into play: We don’t need tools to make work “easier” for us if their foremost purpose is to justify the low wages we’re being paid. Most of the time this doesn’t even add up because post-editing machine translated subtitles generated by voice recognition software, is often more time consuming than creating subtitles from scratch. So, by suggesting the introduction of certain tools into the process to improve working conditions, you’re putting the cart before the horse.

However, by offering adequate compensation you can ensure a rich pool of subtitlers, smooth production flows and good quality to satisfy yourselves and your clients.

(published 14.04.2021)

Our member Daniel Landes translates video games and has a keen interest in machine translation, which is fast becoming a big issue in AVT. Here he discusses the latest MT-related research and the possible impact on AVT: "Machine translation and the state of the translation industry" (PDF).

"The real problem is the economic model that, even before the arrival of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine translation (MT), was geared towards devaluing the work done and exploiting the individual service providers."