China is on a major push to dub TV series into English, and I'm primarily a subtitle translator who's been dropped into the middle of this exploding industry. While I've found industry standards fairly easy to research, what I've found less than easy to locate are recommendations for specialized software used in the translation process. What I'd like to know, if anyone here can recommend anything, what are the software packages you use that help to automate or smooth the process, specifically tracking whether timing and lip sync are right, specifically free software, as it's going to be hell to convince my bosses to buy something they can't sample, and I've been assigned a squadron of three untrained non-native translators to do most of the heavy lifting for me.
posted by saysthis on Apr 6, 2013 - 3 answers

Let's say you're on Youtube, and you're watching a video, and on the progress bar there are little dots where, if you click on them, you get extra text or links or pictures pertinent to the video, ads, etc. What are those things called? [more inside]
posted by saysthis on Jun 30, 2012 - 5 answers

How would you write either "Little Italy" (as in the NYC neighborhood) or "Welcome to Little Italy," or "I ♥ Little Italy" with Chinese characters? [more inside]
posted by evidenceofabsence on Jun 6, 2011 - 4 answers

How do you say/express the idea of "culture shock" in Chinese (Mandarin)? I do speak Chinese, so if you type in pinyin that will be fine. Thanks!
posted by hnk on Jun 10, 2010 - 6 answers

硬背. Please translate this into English for me. [more inside]
posted by killdevil on Sep 22, 2009 - 4 answers

Please help me find a reliable (hopefully free) translation service so that I can ace my Mandarin test. [more inside]
posted by JamesJD on Sep 18, 2007 - 7 answers

I bought a tape at goodwill the other day. It's in a chinese dialect and there is no english on the packaging. It's got a great Mandarin/Chinese cover of Addicted to Love and I'm hoping you guys can help translate the artist's name, and hopefully the name of the album, too. Copyright 1987, by the way. Here's a scan of the sleeve.
posted by Evstar on Feb 25, 2005 - 6 answers

While I was in Taiwan this past month, I was sure that I heard a Mandarin version of Avril Lavigne's "Sk8er Boi" on the radio/sound-system while browsing through a store... does anyone know what the song/artist is? Or, on a similar note, other Mandarin songs/artists that either cover or steal their melodies from American/English songs?
posted by numble on Feb 13, 2005 - 3 answers