Lost in the Subtitles

Most people who watch a show with subtitles never think about the person who wrote them. Ines likes it that way. If nobody notices her work, it means she has done it well.

Her job has more rules than most people would guess. A line of text may only be so long, and it has to stay on the screen long enough for an average reader. That means she often has to say in seven words what a character says in fifteen. "You do not translate the words," she likes to explain. "You translate what the person means, in the time you have."

Jokes are the hardest part. Last week she spent a whole evening on one line in a comedy about two sisters who run a hotel. One of them makes a joke that depends on a word with two meanings. In German, there is no word that works the same way. Ines tried eleven different versions. Some were correct, but nobody would laugh; others made her laugh but did not fit the picture, because the sister is pointing at a large fish while she says it.

In the end she wrote a different joke about the fish. It must have worked, because her editor, who usually changes something in every file, sent it back with a single comment: "Love it."

Ines knows that some people might call this dishonest. The original joke has disappeared. But she believes that a joke which nobody laughs at has also disappeared, only more slowly.

Most people who watch a show with subtitles never think about the person who wrote them. If nobody notices her work, Ines is happy. If nobody notices her work, she has done it well.

Her job has a lot of rules. A line of text can only be so long, and it has to stay on the screen long enough for people to read it. So she often has to say in seven words what a person in the show says in fifteen.

Jokes are the hardest part. Last week she worked a whole evening on one line. Two sisters in the show have a hotel. The joke uses a word with two meanings. In German, there is no word like that. Ines tried eleven different versions.

In the end she wrote a new joke about the fish on the table. Her editor usually changes something in every file. This time she sent it back with only one comment: "Love it."

Some people might say that this is not fair. The first joke is gone. But Ines thinks that a joke nobody laughs at is also gone.