1
00:00:01,071 --> 00:00:05,658
Let's talk about the new subtitle info box
in the Amara interface

2
00:00:05,915 --> 00:00:10,446
and about how useful it can be
to transcribers and translators.

3
00:00:12,046 --> 00:00:15,168
Any time you click a subtitle
to start editing it,

4
00:00:15,193 --> 00:00:17,241
you will see this pop-up.

5
00:00:17,631 --> 00:00:20,503
You may notice
that it starts with timing data,

6
00:00:20,528 --> 00:00:25,704
but here, I'll focus on what you can do
with the other information in this box,

7
00:00:26,173 --> 00:00:29,286
that is, the number
of characters in the subtitle

8
00:00:29,432 --> 00:00:32,009
and the number of characters per second.

9
00:00:32,655 --> 00:00:34,647
First, let's talk about...

10
00:00:35,950 --> 00:00:37,657
42.

11
00:00:38,514 --> 00:00:42,843
In languages that use the Latin alphabet,

12
00:00:43,192 --> 00:00:46,816
if your subtitle
is more than 42 characters long,

13
00:00:47,083 --> 00:00:49,501
you need to break it into two lines.

14
00:00:50,153 --> 00:00:53,091
This makes the subtitle easier to follow

15
00:00:53,513 --> 00:00:59,166
and prevents offline players
from breaking it in weird ways.

16
00:01:00,302 --> 00:01:04,370
In the new info box,
you can see both the total subtitle length

17
00:01:04,497 --> 00:01:07,887
and the number of characters
in each of the two lines.

18
00:01:09,161 --> 00:01:14,442
When the total subtitle length in that box
goes over 42 characters,

19
00:01:14,467 --> 00:01:16,955
it means that you need
to break the subtitle,

20
00:01:17,776 --> 00:01:21,122
but also that you need
to think about how to break it.

21
00:01:21,802 --> 00:01:26,004
After all, it's not like you want to have
one line of 42 characters

22
00:01:26,029 --> 00:01:28,926
and then one line
with just one character in it.

23
00:01:29,872 --> 00:01:36,346
So, break it in a way that the two lines
are as close in length as possible.

24
00:01:36,910 --> 00:01:38,864
And let me give you an example.

25
00:01:40,169 --> 00:01:43,864
This subtitle is 51 characters long.

26
00:01:44,599 --> 00:01:46,574
Now, you could break it like this,

27
00:01:46,599 --> 00:01:51,198
with one line of 14 characters
and another line of 36,

28
00:01:51,839 --> 00:01:56,714
but it will be easier to read
if you make the lines more balanced,

29
00:01:57,136 --> 00:02:04,722
like here, with one line of 27 characters
and another line of 23 below.

30
00:02:05,660 --> 00:02:07,972
When breaking subtitles into lines,

31
00:02:08,192 --> 00:02:11,660
also try to keep
"syntactic wholes" together.

32
00:02:12,129 --> 00:02:15,570
What this means is that you don't want
to break up a phrase

33
00:02:15,595 --> 00:02:19,165
that linguistically works as "one thing."

34
00:02:19,869 --> 00:02:21,502
For example, in English,

35
00:02:21,949 --> 00:02:25,144
you want to keep the article
together with the noun,

36
00:02:25,840 --> 00:02:29,095
the adjective with the noun
that it modifies,

37
00:02:29,120 --> 00:02:33,339
and a preposition
with the thing that it refers to.

38
00:02:35,137 --> 00:02:40,084
You can find out more about line breaking
in a guide on our OTPedia

39
00:02:40,109 --> 00:02:42,306
entitled "How to break lines."

40
00:02:42,885 --> 00:02:48,382
Now, on to the other thing we can learn
from that subtitle info box.

41
00:02:48,695 --> 00:02:51,585
The number of characters per second,

42
00:02:52,109 --> 00:02:53,530
which is also known as...

43
00:02:54,195 --> 00:02:55,419
The reading speed.

44
00:02:56,187 --> 00:03:00,448
Because after all, it's not only about
how long the subtitle is,

45
00:03:00,722 --> 00:03:03,370
but also about how long
it stays on the screen

46
00:03:03,563 --> 00:03:06,480
and how much time
we give people to read it.

47
00:03:07,721 --> 00:03:12,440
The ideal reading speed for languages
that use Latin script

48
00:03:12,665 --> 00:03:16,541
is about 15 to 21 characters per second.

49
00:03:17,466 --> 00:03:21,153
But where is this number coming from,
and why is it important?

50
00:03:22,489 --> 00:03:28,868
Well, the reading speed tells you
how long your subtitle can actually be.

51
00:03:29,768 --> 00:03:33,112
For example, if you have
a subtitle with 40 characters

52
00:03:33,480 --> 00:03:35,589
which displays for two seconds,

53
00:03:36,167 --> 00:03:41,026
you only require the viewer
to read at 20 characters per second.

54
00:03:42,056 --> 00:03:43,801
This is easily manageable,

55
00:03:43,826 --> 00:03:47,509
so 40 characters
would be fine in this case.

56
00:03:48,112 --> 00:03:52,817
But if the same subtitle were to stay
on the screen for only one second,

57
00:03:53,591 --> 00:03:58,353
the viewer would need to be able to read
at 40 characters per second,

58
00:03:58,887 --> 00:04:01,982
which is impossible for most people
to keep up with,

59
00:04:02,311 --> 00:04:05,584
and it would mean that the subtitle
needs to be shortened.

60
00:04:07,038 --> 00:04:10,922
Fortunately, you don't need to calculate
all that stuff in your head,

61
00:04:11,274 --> 00:04:14,335
because the new info box
in the Amara interface

62
00:04:14,360 --> 00:04:15,844
will do the work for you.

63
00:04:16,789 --> 00:04:22,432
Let's see an example of why maintaining
a convenient reading speed is important.

64
00:04:22,956 --> 00:04:29,104
In this short clip from a TEDxNoviSad talk
by Dragana Marjanović,

65
00:04:29,463 --> 00:04:35,357
the reading speed in all of the subtitles
is above 21 characters per second.

66
00:04:37,642 --> 00:04:40,012
And what happened right after
the first year of our doing this project

67
00:04:40,037 --> 00:04:42,680
was that I was awarded what was to be
my first very big architectural project,

68
00:04:42,705 --> 00:04:45,495
which was to plaster up all of the surface
of the pretty four-story staircase

69
00:04:45,520 --> 00:04:46,721
that was located in a nice building

70
00:04:46,746 --> 00:04:48,359
located in the famous city
of Grenoble, France.

71
00:04:48,384 --> 00:04:50,646
This, for me, was a four month long period
of work related practice

72
00:04:50,772 --> 00:04:52,679
which was mostly in France
but also partly in Bulgaria

73
00:04:52,704 --> 00:04:54,398
and after that was concluded,
I began to study again.

74
00:04:54,423 --> 00:04:56,518
This time, it was the earth architecture
of Spain and Portugal.

75
00:04:57,565 --> 00:05:00,605
When I was finally able to return home,
I immediately began my graduation project

76
00:05:00,630 --> 00:05:03,063
which was about the earth architecture
of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina.

77
00:05:03,938 --> 00:05:07,500
So, anyone remembers
what happened in Bulgaria?

78
00:05:07,993 --> 00:05:09,766
And where was the nice building?

79
00:05:11,837 --> 00:05:15,046
For the previous clip,
I modified the English subtitles

80
00:05:15,071 --> 00:05:19,226
created by Tatjana Jevdjic
and reviewed by Ivana Korom,

81
00:05:19,656 --> 00:05:24,780
and made them longer, with reading speeds
much over the comfortable values.

82
00:05:25,679 --> 00:05:29,655
Here is the same clip
with the original subtitles,

83
00:05:29,882 --> 00:05:34,718
so, with perfect reading speeds
of no more than 21 characters per second.

84
00:05:36,343 --> 00:05:41,106
After the first year,
we got the first big job:

85
00:05:41,497 --> 00:05:46,169
to plaster the four-story staircase
in a building in Grenoble,

86
00:05:46,194 --> 00:05:49,181
after which I had
a four-month work practice,

87
00:05:49,206 --> 00:05:51,680
partly in France and partly in Bulgaria,

88
00:05:51,705 --> 00:05:54,987
and then I was studying
earth architecture of Spain and Portugal.

89
00:05:56,417 --> 00:05:59,189
I returned home and started
a graduation project

90
00:05:59,214 --> 00:06:01,702
about the earth architecture of Vojvodina.

91
00:06:03,179 --> 00:06:04,733
Much easier to follow, right?

92
00:06:05,684 --> 00:06:08,154
The thing about the subtitle reading speed

93
00:06:08,179 --> 00:06:11,084
is that in addition
to reading the subtitles,

94
00:06:11,390 --> 00:06:13,900
the viewer needs to take in
other information,

95
00:06:13,925 --> 00:06:17,217
like the speaker's body language
and intonation

96
00:06:17,764 --> 00:06:21,369
and some on-screen content
like slides and pictures.

97
00:06:22,413 --> 00:06:25,327
And it may be difficult to follow
the subtitles themselves

98
00:06:25,788 --> 00:06:27,897
if they disappear very quickly.

99
00:06:28,171 --> 00:06:31,212
Especially if the viewer
doesn't understand the original language

100
00:06:31,237 --> 00:06:33,685
well enough to help them
figure out what's going on.

101
00:06:34,819 --> 00:06:37,270
And thankfully, that new info box in Amara

102
00:06:37,295 --> 00:06:43,154
helps you see when the reading speed
exceeds the 21 characters per second limit

103
00:06:43,647 --> 00:06:47,179
and thus, it shows you where you can help
the viewer in following the talk.

104
00:06:48,257 --> 00:06:50,132
To fix the reading speed,

105
00:06:50,609 --> 00:06:56,113
some more advanced users may want
to adjust the timing of some subtitles,

106
00:06:56,777 --> 00:07:01,050
but in almost every case
your main tool will be...

107
00:07:02,519 --> 00:07:03,729
Compression.

108
00:07:04,894 --> 00:07:10,272
Which means, trying to express
the same meaning in a shorter subtitle.

109
00:07:11,257 --> 00:07:14,089
For example, an almost literal translation

110
00:07:14,114 --> 00:07:19,672
like "Now, what I would like to give
you people here is yet another example,"

111
00:07:20,063 --> 00:07:21,757
with 70 characters,

112
00:07:21,782 --> 00:07:23,711
can be changed into...

113
00:07:24,352 --> 00:07:26,188
"I'd like to give you another example,"

114
00:07:26,446 --> 00:07:29,893
which compresses it down to 37 characters

115
00:07:30,151 --> 00:07:33,814
and which may mean this will allow
the viewer to read it

116
00:07:33,839 --> 00:07:35,573
before it's gone off the screen.

117
00:07:36,081 --> 00:07:40,143
Trying to find a way
to compress the subtitle is fun,

118
00:07:40,292 --> 00:07:42,767
and the new interface helps you

119
00:07:42,792 --> 00:07:47,034
by showing you
when compressing is necessary,

120
00:07:47,222 --> 00:07:49,671
but also when you can do without it.

121
00:07:50,552 --> 00:07:52,946
You can learn more
about compressing subtitles

122
00:07:52,971 --> 00:07:55,479
and find other compression
strategies and examples

123
00:07:55,504 --> 00:07:57,409
in another guide on OTPedia,

124
00:07:57,575 --> 00:08:00,432
called simply "How to compress subtitles."

125
00:08:01,153 --> 00:08:03,914
I encourage you
to explore the new interface

126
00:08:04,070 --> 00:08:06,773
and these new,
helpful tools that it offers.

127
00:08:07,414 --> 00:08:10,937
And, for now,
happy transcribing and translating!