There are two fundamental rules when writing subtitles, in the following order of importance:
• The texts should be as literal as possible to the locution to which they accompany.
• The texts must be correct grammatically and orthographically.
First, when the speed of the locution must be reduced, rather than summarizing the information, there are techniques for saving vocabulary and that it is good to use, whenever possible. Use the abbreviations that allow the spelling of the subtitle language, as well as the most common acronyms. Eliminate redundant or unnecessary information, such as repetitions, greetings unnecessary in the case of a newscast, etc.
Use Pronouns When They Are Not Confusing:
Use short forms of entities, agencies, personalities or positions. For example, use "Congress" instead of "Chamber of Deputies", or "The Kings of Spain" instead of "Their Majesties Don Juan Carlos and Doña Sofía".
Second, the rule also indicates special cases of spelling, although some of them are not necessarily applicable to the web. For example, the rule states that the names of the symbols - Euro and & - should be extended, since Teletext technology is simply too old to allow a wide character set. As in our case we do not have these limitations. We only pick the special spelling rules that have to do with facilitating the legibility of the subtitles, which leaves us only two:
1. Numbering: Quantities from zero to ten should be written in letters, upper numbers with numbers. The decimals are always written with numbers
2. Arguments: As we have seen, in addition to common cases are used to indicate that a subtitle is a continuous phrase that occupies several pages
All these indications focus mainly on subtitle of the utterances, but in addition there is another information that the subtitles must transmit and that is necessary for the understanding of some multimedia contents.
If you wish to have more information or contact us to have professional subtitling as part of any project in any language, please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.