Are their programs or sites that can translate language for short subtitles?

[harmonica44]

We would like to release our short film into some countries that do not speak English so I was wondering, if there are sites or programs that could do that? There are sites where you can translate sentences, but a lot of things are getting lost in translation. Even if you translate individual sentences and get those right, after you put all the sentences together in a whole paragraph, the translation can be thrown off.

Translating a paragraph of dialogue all at once, can also come out incorrect as well. Is there a better, more accurate way to do it?

Thanks.

 

[WalterB]

Hire a certified translator.
Or ask some native speaker you know to help you out.
I guess Quebec it too far away to have some french speking friends around?

 

[Sulaco]

Never use a website to translate your writing. 100% of the time it will be wrong.
Your best solution is to hire a translator, or ask friends/family that speak both languages fluently to aid you.
Having poor subtitles can really throw off a viewers engagement with the film.

 

[ZolaScope]

As an anglophone who lives in France, and who has had many occasions to need professional-level translation, I'd echo what the above posters have said.

Machine translation - eg, Google Translate - is rubbish. Even when the result is technically correct (which isn't as often as it should be) the result always misses nuances, modern colloquial usage etc.

The translator should have the language you're translating *into* as their mother tongue.

It helps if the translator understands the limitations of subtitles - ie, they will need to be able to exercise editorial discretion because you often need to cram complex ideas into a tight space, and that may mean rewriting as well as translating.

Bear in mind that English is actually a compact language. I used to run a corporate magazine where the English text was translated into German, French and Spanish. The French text would run about 10-20% longer than the English, the German longer still and the Spanish anything up to 50% at times. We had to come up with a clever layout design to allow for this. Of course, this was for text running 250 - 2000 words. But even with short text, you may have to allow for this.

Translation is a professional job. If you skimp on it, you run the risk of completely undermining your film - at worst, making it a laughing stock.