Translating for videos comes with its own set of challenges. I should know, I’ve been rolling my eyes at bad subtitles for the past 20 years. While you usually have more context than when translating a document, you also have to be mindful about cultural elements that your target audience might not understand. To make matters worse, you have to be concise. Things inevitably get lost in translation. Now that I’m on the other side of the fence, I have a lot more sympathy for fellow translators (but I still roll my eyes at some of their work every once in a while).
Educational videos (English to French)
In the summer of 2020, I collaborated with Big Think to translate some of their most watched YouTube videos in French. I translated a dozen videos, the topics ranged from theoretical physics to philosophy, finance to personal development. I translated roughly 4 hours of footage and it took me the better part of a month. I’m particularly proud of this work because I got the opportunity to translate people whose work I admired. Here are just a few examples:
Marine biology (French to English)
I collaborated with the LEMAR laboratory (Laboratory of Marine Environmental Sciences) located in Brittany, France to provide English subtitles for this video. Different scientists explain how they reuse a specific type of waste (called digestate) to turn it into a type of fish feed (a compound called DHA), which is essential for the growth of farmed fish. By doing so, they also prevent the release of excessive amounts of nitrogen in nature.
This was a challenging translation as I do not have a background in biology so I had to do a fair amount of research.
Script for NGO (English to French)
I worked with a South African NGO on 2 separate projects that involved translating an infographic (both the script and the text seen in the video) about Violence against children in Africa, what has been done to fight it and what ought to be done to end this practice in the future.
I felt privileged to work on this project. This organization obviously seeks to remedy an important problem and their script was well-written. You can hear the voice actress reading the script that I translated in this video.
Wine Museum Tour (French to English)
I was hired by the American Friends of the Cité du Vin. The Cité du Vin is a world renowned wine museum located in Bordeaux. They needed English subtitles for this virtual tour of a temporary exhibition called “Drinking with the Gods”. It focuses primarily on Dionysus, the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine (among other things) in Greek mythology.
Movie translation (English to French)
Just to end on a lighter note. This is the only feature film I have translated so far. The title is Who was Phone, it was released in 2020. The plot could be summarized as follows: Let’s shoot a scary movie and make it funny by throwing as many viral memes as we can and see what sticks. Would I recommend watching it? Absolutely not. Still, as silly as it was, it might have been the hardest thing I’ve had to translate, precisely because there are so many allusions to memes that are mostly familiar to US millennials.
