WEBVTT

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Let's talk about the new subtitle info box
in the Amara interface

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and about how useful it can be
to transcribers and translators.

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Any time you click a subtitle
to start editing it,

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you will see this pop-up.

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You may notice
that it starts with timing data,

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but here, I'll focus on what you can do
with the other information in this box,

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that is, the number
of characters in the subtitle

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and the number of characters per second.

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First, let's talk about...

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42.

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In languages that use the Latin alphabet,

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if your subtitle
is more than 42 characters long,

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you need to break it into two lines.

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This makes the subtitle easier to follow

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and prevents offline players
from breaking it in weird ways.

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In the new info box,
you can see both the total subtitle length

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and the number of characters
in each of the two lines.

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When the total subtitle length in that box
goes over 42 characters,

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it means that you need
to break the subtitle,

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but also that you need
to think about how to break it.

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After all, it's not like you want to have
one line of 42 characters

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and then one line
with just one character in it.

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So, break it in a way that the two lines
are as close in length as possible.

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And let me give you an example.

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This subtitle is 51 characters long.

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Now, you could break it like this,

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with one line of 14 characters
and another line of 36,

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but it will be easier to read
if you make the lines more balanced,

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like here, with one line of 27 characters
and another line of 23 below.

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When breaking subtitles into lines,

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also try to keep
"syntactic wholes" together.

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What this means is that you don't want
to break up a phrase

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that linguistically works as "one thing."

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For example, in English,

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you want to keep the article
together with the noun,

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the adjective with the noun
that it modifies,

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and a preposition
with the thing that it refers to.

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You can find out more about line breaking
in a guide on our OTPedia

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entitled "How to break lines."

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Now, on to the other thing we can learn
from that subtitle info box.

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The number of characters per second,

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which is also known as...

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The reading speed.

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Because after all, it's not only about
how long the subtitle is,

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but also about how long
it stays on the screen

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and how much time
we give people to read it.

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The ideal reading speed for languages
that use Latin script

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is about 15 to 21 characters per second.

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But where is this number coming from,
and why is it important?

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Well, the reading speed tells you
how long your subtitle can actually be.

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For example, if you have
a subtitle with 40 characters

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which displays for two seconds,

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you only require the viewer
to read at 20 characters per second.

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This is easily manageable,

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so 40 characters
would be fine in this case.

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But if the same subtitle were to stay
on the screen for only one second,

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the viewer would need to be able to read
at 40 characters per second,

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which is impossible for most people
to keep up with,

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and it would mean that the subtitle
needs to be shortened.

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Fortunately, you don't need to calculate
all that stuff in your head,

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because the new info box
in the Amara interface

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will do the work for you.

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Let's see an example of why maintaining
a convenient reading speed is important.

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In this short clip from a TEDxNoviSad talk
by Dragana Marjanović,

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the reading speed in all of the subtitles
is above 21 characters per second.

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And what happened right after
the first year of our doing this project

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was that I was awarded what was to be
my first very big architectural project,

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which was to plaster up all of the surface
of the pretty four-story staircase

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that was located in a nice building

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located in the famous city
of Grenoble, France.

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This, for me, was a four month long period
of work related practice

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which was mostly in France
but also partly in Bulgaria

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and after that was concluded,
I began to study again.

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This time, it was the earth architecture
of Spain and Portugal.

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When I was finally able to return home,
I immediately began my graduation project

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which was about the earth architecture
of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina.

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So, anyone remembers
what happened in Bulgaria?

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And where was the nice building?

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For the previous clip,
I modified the English subtitles

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created by Tatjana Jevdjic
and reviewed by Ivana Korom,

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and made them longer, with reading speeds
much over the comfortable values.

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Here is the same clip
with the original subtitles,

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so, with perfect reading speeds
of no more than 21 characters per second.

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After the first year,
we got the first big job:

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to plaster the four-story staircase
in a building in Grenoble,

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after which I had
a four-month work practice,

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partly in France and partly in Bulgaria,

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and then I was studying
earth architecture of Spain and Portugal.

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I returned home and started
a graduation project

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about the earth architecture of Vojvodina.

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Much easier to follow, right?

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The thing about the subtitle reading speed

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is that in addition
to reading the subtitles,

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the viewer needs to take in
other information,

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like the speaker's body language
and intonation

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and some on-screen content
like slides and pictures.

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And it may be difficult to follow
the subtitles themselves

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if they disappear very quickly.

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Especially if the viewer
doesn't understand the original language

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well enough to help them
figure out what's going on.

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And thankfully, that new info box in Amara

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helps you see when the reading speed
exceeds the 21 characters per second limit

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and thus, it shows you where you can help
the viewer in following the talk.

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To fix the reading speed,

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some more advanced users may want
to adjust the timing of some subtitles,

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but in almost every case
your main tool will be...

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Compression.

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Which means, trying to express
the same meaning in a shorter subtitle.

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For example, an almost literal translation

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like "Now, what I would like to give
you people here is yet another example,"

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with 70 characters,

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can be changed into...

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"I'd like to give you another example,"

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which compresses it down to 37 characters

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and which may mean this will allow
the viewer to read it

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before it's gone off the screen.

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Trying to find a way
to compress the subtitle is fun,

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and the new interface helps you

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by showing you
when compressing is necessary,

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but also when you can do without it.

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You can learn more
about compressing subtitles

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and find other compression
strategies and examples

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in another guide on OTPedia,

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called simply "How to compress subtitles."

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I encourage you
to explore the new interface

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and these new,
helpful tools that it offers.

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And, for now,
happy transcribing and translating!