Learning languages do not have to be a “read the textbook and do the exercises” thing. One of my favourite ways to practice is to create subtitles for Chinese drama trailers.
Many, many Chinese dramas do not get translated, what more their trailers. So, there’s a big need for people to translate these trailers and provide English subtitles.
I used to briefly be a part of a fan-subbing community way back in the 2010s. We translated Chinese dramas and added English subtitles to the video. However, back then it was a horribly tedious process, especially if your command of Mandarin is “mid” like mine. It was an achingly slow process in the past because I had to rely on a paperback Chinese dictionary which was tedious to use. (You do not know how grateful I am for Pleco.)
Although my listening skills are quite high, Mandarin accents in China are quite different from Malaysia’s, which makes it difficult for me to understand what was said sometimes. (Not to mention, some Chinese drama actors have poor line delivery, but that’s another story altogether.)
A friend of mine who is fluent in Mandarin said that even she would not watch a Chinese drama without Chinese subtitles, but my reading skills are about HSK 1-2 level, so I couldn’t rely on that for comprehension.
Fortunately, technology has advanced a lot, and I can now translate a 2-minute trailer in an hour.
(It would’ve been much faster if Chinese dramas didn’t “burn” their subtitles onto the video and gave us the .srt file instead. If they did that, all I had to do was download the file and translate from there. But by burning the subtitles on the video, they literally become an image, I had to rely on an OCR tool which slows me down a lot.)
But maybe that’s a good thing, because by slowing down I’d be able to be more mindful of new vocabulary and thus, remembering them better.
Long story short: I find the whole exercise of subtitling a drama trailer really productive and fun. Not only do I learn new vocabulary, I get to contribute to a community.
Also, I’m a tech geek, so fiddling with software and AI is doubly fun.
Tools
Subtitle Edit to convert audio to subtitles, generate, translate, edit and burn subtitles to the video
Snipping Tool to capture the video trailer
Google Lens as an OCR tool to convert images to Chinese text
ChatGPT to translate Chinese text
The experience
I chose the drama Bank on Me (前途无量) because there’s no English-subbed trailer available, even if the entire drama is available on Youtube with great English subtitles. (Here’s the Bank on Me playlist.)
However, this was advanced Mandarin; there’s a lot of finance terminology, and some of the actors were mumbling, which made it hard for me - and Subtitle Edit - to pick out the words, so I had to use Google Lens to capture the Chinese text.
While Subtitle Edit could translate the Chinese subtitles for me, its quality was quite poor, so I used ChatGPT to refine it.
That said, relying 100% on ChatGPT is not the answer either, especially with wittier dialogue.
For example, in minute 2:00 of the video, a character asks: “哪个前/钱？” or “Which ‘qian’?”
前 and 钱 are both pronounced qián. So, they both sound exactly the same, and in the same tone!
So, he was asking which character did he use. (Though in the conversation before, the man had obviously meant “前” (front) because he said: 前途无量; it’s a common saying. (Incidentally, also the name of the drama, Promising future.However, if 钱 was used instead, it would mean: “unlimited prospects for making money”.
Such a witty exchange!
Anyway, my subtitles isn’t professional-level, obviously (apologies for the spelling errors in advance LOL). However, just doing this was a very fun learning activity!
And the best things is, my efforts will benefit some members of the CDrama community.
By the way, this drama is really good. Here’s my first impressions of Bank on Me. You’d like this if you’re into workplace/finance dramas like Chief Kim and Misaeng (South Korea), Hanzawa Naoki (Japan) or The Big Short.
Words/phrases that stood out for me in the trailer
前途无量 ( qián tú wú liàng)
搞你 (gǎo nǐ)
Thank you for reading Tai Tales! To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
As I know subscribing to a newsletter can be quite a commitment, you can also give me a tip:
Learning Chinese by being a subtitler