1.3.12 Adam News and Info

Hi guys!
Here’s some background info regarding Sauli Central, so please, scroll if you’re not interested.

Some of you might wonder why it takes us a bit longer to get the translations posted in SC than for example for some people who also do those translations and tweet them in Twitter. We thought we’d tell you how we do it, so you get an idea of the process.

First about the blogs. From the moment we see it, it usually takes us about an hour to get a blog translated and posted. Usually one or the other of us notices the new blog and alerts the other one. Then Mia starts the translation while Zinnia starts doing the background, i.e. “making the bed” for the text, as we call it. This means uploading possible pictures related to the blog, updating the links, etc. at the site, and so on. A normal-length blog takes about 20 – 30 minutes to translate, and after that is done, Mia sends it to Zinnia for proofreading. She does some final editing to the text and tries to clean out typos and such. That takes about the same amount of time, and when it’s done, Zinnia posts the translation to SC and tweets about it in Twitter. Mia then retweets the same tweet. So this is pretty straight-forward.

The Tutkas are a whole other story. Translating straight from the videotape is very difficult, since you have to be able to have the context and the whole discussion in your mind all the time. Therefore we have decided on doing the translation in three phases. First, Zinnia transcripts the video to Finnish. Then she sends the transcript to Mia, who translates the text from the transcript, at the same time comparing it to the video. While Mia is doing that, Zinnia once again “makes the bed” for the translation. Finally, Mia sends the translation back to Zinnia, who again proofreads it and does final editing. This way we both listen to the video, can clarify any unclear parts, and make sure that everything gets translated. Then Zinnia posts the translation and we both tweet about it.

Obviously, this way of working is pretty slow. Just doing the transcript of a 15 minute tape usually takes at least two hours, minimum, and the result is somewhere around 6 – 8 pages of text. Then the translation takes about the same amount of time, and after that there is still the proofreading. So the whole process takes at least about 5 – 6 hours. Of course, this depends very much on how much there is to translate – the above numbers apply for a video that is translated completely. Sometimes there isn’t much to translate as Katri and Sauli talk mostly about the Finnish shows, and naturally the process then is much quicker. But this is just to give you an idea of how long it can take and why it sometimes takes us time to get the translations done.

And this is just the translation process for both the blogs and Tutkas. The actual time, of course, depends on when the blogs/Tutkas are posted. Since we are both working fulltime, we can’t always start the process right away even though we know that there is new stuff to be translated. However, we try to do it as quickly as we can!