Found in translation

Zhao Yiran works on her desk at home to translate subtitles for the English courses provided freely by world famous universities. Provided to China Daily

Young Chinese translators help open up English-speaking world

Wearing a one-piece pink dress to go with her long braided hair and black, plastic-rimmed glasses, Zhao Yiran looks just like any fashionable girl in Shanghai.

But Zhao, 24, is one of the few people in the city who have been translating English scripts to Chinese and writing subtitles on English programs for the past three years.

She is a senior member of YYeTs.net, a non-profit website that provides free Chinese subtitles for English-speaking movies, dramas, courses and lectures to help non-English speakers in the country.

Thanks to people like her, the online free courses offered by famous universities including Yale, Harvard and Cambridge are becoming a hit among Chinese university students and knowledge-thirsty white-collar workers, many who did not have the opportunity to study abroad but have finally tasted the delight of attending Western classes through the open courses.

"Because of the nature of these courses, which are difficult to understand and follow, we can really help people who cannot speak English well to learn new things and open their eyes," Zhao said.

"All the members in the subtitle team are volunteering to do the translation and other work such as proofreading or adding timelines. There is no payment for any of these tasks. We do it out of personal interest," she said.

She also serves as a coordinator for the "Introduction to New Testament History and Literature" course provided by Yale University.

Zhao joined YYeTs.net about six months ago, when the new open course learning programs attracted her. Her translation experience previously centered on English dramas.

She said that subtitling lectures are much more meaningful than dramas, as the former is more about learning and education instead of pure entertainment. It is also much more challenging when it comes to specialized subjects such as philosophy, religion and economics.

"More accuracy is required as it concerns education, not entertainment," she said.

Zhao said senior proofreaders criticized her translation work in the beginning, but she later improved by spending a lot of time watching videos repeatedly to get better understanding of the content.

Zhao started her translation work when she was a second-year university student. She first took on the role of a subtitle translator for American dramas at a different subtitling team.

After graduating from the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology with an art media degree and a second major in English language and literature, Zhao found a full-time job as an assistant translator in a health products trading company in Shanghai. She maintained her part-time job at the subtitle team.

Since then, she spends at least one to two hours in group discussions every day with her team members, exchanging ideas on carrying out their work better.

When she is not busy translating English scripts, she checks other junior members' work as a proofreader.

She said her family's Christian background has given her a better understanding of the course and she would like to take on more team members with similar backgrounds to join her.

"For subtitling courses, background knowledge is as important as English proficiency," Zhao said.

"Lots of university students who passed the College English Test Band Six - an intermediate level English qualification test in China - are not capable of carrying out the translation work."

Generally, in the YYeTs.net subtitle team, a single lecture of an open course will be distributed to one translator and two proofreaders, or up to four translators, depending on the work's level of difficulty, said Zhang Yinan, a coordinator of the subtitling group.

After being proofread, all subtitles will be posted on the internal forum for members to check if there are any mistakes. The subtitled open course will be uploaded to the Internet for free downloading or free online viewing.

A subtitled lecture is usually released once a week. But the entire procedure may be delayed during examination periods since team members are mainly university students, said Liang Liang, manager of YYeTs.net.

Apart from gaining knowledge and improving her English ability, Zhao said she also gets to know many good friends in the team through her translation work.

Zhao's biggest dream now is to complete subtitling all of her assigned lectures. She is also looking for some new courses related to cultural studies.

Zhao said subtitling teams other than YYeTs.net have improved a lot in their translation work in recent years.

"I believe this field will eventually reach professional levels," Zhao said.

"After all, it is a meaningful non-profit social activity."