Fast translation services like no other
Netflix, the massive online streaming service has started something rather unfamiliar in the world of television and indeed translation services. Netflix have commissioned a new late night talk show starring American comedienne Chelsea Handler. But this is no ordinary late night chat show; in fact this is something that has not even been done before in the history of television and streaming. The show will be made available simultaneously across 190 countries to make it the first truly global show.
But there are many reasons that this type of global release has not been done before with one major and very obvious reason being the language barriers that are prevalent. Imagine the issues of trying to get a Hebrew translation of “There are two kinds of people I don’t trust: people who don’t drink and people who collect stickers.” That is an example, a rather pre-watershed example of Chelsea Handler’s joke; would that even translate well into another language?
That’s not the only problem that Netflix have had to deal with. There is the issue of getting each translated version of the show done in time and ready for release as well as localised for different variations of the languages. That is the precise reason that they have assembled a team of 200 linguists selected from a pool of 5000 to provide translations and localisation services to make sure that the jokes are understood worldwide. Amongst the linguists includes ‘dirty’ words specialist for Handler’s unconventional humour.
The show is recorded live 34 hours before it is released on Netflix. To help make the translations quicker and smoother, Netflix creates a live transcript in English which someone then reiterates into voice recognition software for the waiting translators and language experts who sift through the transcript to highlight any non-formal English words or idioms that might be a problem to localise. This then leaves the translators with just a 12 hour turnaround time to translate the show into the 20 languages that Netflix are aiming for it to be available in, then a 90 minute safety cushion in case anything goes wrong. This massive operation is all done so you could have the Portuguese translation of the show exactly at the same time as the English version.
