Video Subtitles for Business Success

Video subtitling is also known as video translation and closed caption translation. It is commonplace on films and television shows and nowadays on social media platforms. These are a new strategic tool in the e-marketplace today. 

Outreach – Social Media & the Entertainment Industry

YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are not only platforms for social interaction but also e-commerce. Content fetches revenue just like film and television did in the past. Outreach of entertainment shows has increased manifold with satellite and on-demand television. Several local television shows of regional languages have seen unprecedented viewership when going global on Netflix and Amazon Prime. This development makes subtitling and dubbing very potent business tools.

Subtitling Services for Business Growth

Only around a quarter of the population online speaks English and two out of three internet and television viewers are non-English speakers. This means a potential market remains untapped if videos are not subtitled.

The same applies for regional content that needs to reach the other side of the spectrum. Multilingual subtitles can make our content accessible to the entire online population and thus gives a shot in the arm to revenue. Translation services for business is the buzzword today. 

There are currently 2.6 billion Facebook members and similar numbers hold true for other social media platforms. The day is not far when social media and the net will be the primary network to reach most of the world’s population. Professional translation services do the trick. 

Boost Views – SEO & Business Enhancement

Translation of closed captions allows search engines to read video files. This will optimize videos for search engines, which will crawl videos for the embedded text. Multilingual subtitles will attract the search engines of different countries and optimize internet searches. Professional translation and multilingual SEO is a strategic tool.

Improve Viewer Experience using Subtitles

Videos with subtitles give the viewer a better experience. Be it constraints of listening, or foreign learners of a language, subtitles act as a learning aid and provide a better experience to the viewer. Captions will help an audience to understand the video better. They will pay closer attention to the content and tend to remember it. Viewership retention is therefore promoted. This in turn results in increased engagement and watch time.

Foreign Language Learning with Subtitles

Subtitles are a learning tool in language education. People picking up foreign languages prefer watching films and videos with captions. This helps them improve diction, phonics, comprehension, and other aspects of language acquisition. Captions helps language learners to recognize words and phrases and improve their reading and listening skills.

E-Learning Aid with Subtitles

Subtitling helps deliver efficient e-learning video content for learners worldwide. E-learning is becoming increasingly popular, and with multilingual subtitles and captions, we are able to increase the student and subscriber base and also assist in learning. Subtitles help increase concentration and improve attention of the learner.

Case Study in Professional Translation & Subtitling

WordPar International provides solutions for multilingual subtitling and closed captions. We work with both hard-sub as well as soft-sub files.

Some of the work we have completed is available on YouTube

Source English Video provided by the client:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNxa5AwVqUg&t=24s

Output Created by WordPar in Arabic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvA1ovl8Yq4

Output Created by WordPar in Turkish:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0uI62pzmFg

The above video was originally in English. English subtitles were overlayed on the video and translated voiceover was prepared in Turkish and Arabic.

The above video was originally in English. English subtitles were overlayed on the video and translated voiceover was prepared in Turkish and Arabic.

Routine Steps

1. transcription of the English script.
2. translation of the narration script into Arabic and Turkish
3. revision, validation, and finalization of the script,
4. adaptation of the script to create subtitles and captions
5. voiceover recording in Arabic and Turkish
6. integration of voice files with the video
7. overlaying the captions and

Creative Challenges

1. Adapting the translation to match the style of the English – for example – certain words were used repeatedly in English to create an impact – when translating we ought to use the same device, repeating a word common to three phrases, and correspondingly ensure that the on-screen caption bore the same word – and not a synonym used – also, it was to be ensured that captions and subtitles were synchronised exactly with the voiceover, each phrase appearing exactly at the time of speech.
2. The placement of the caption on the screen, especially the repeated word, was to be common in all three phrases, so that only the additional word seemed to change while the common word seemed static.
3. The timing of the speech was matched with the on-screen display of these impactful phrases

Non-Routine Steps

1. creation of captions to cover the English
2. adherence to the style guides of the client

These and similar projects are successfully executed to the client’s complete satisfaction. Video subtitling, voiceover and captions present challenges and unexpected turns. WordPar is competent to tackle such contingencies and provide solutions for all kinds of videos.