本帖最后由 j小蜜蜂 于 2009-10-10 12:57 编辑
【中文标题】中国的网络翻译志愿团队
【原文标题】Found in translation: China's volunteer online army
【登载媒体】CNN
【原文链接】http://edition.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/06/15/china.underground.translate/index.html
【译者】满仓
【原文库链接】http://bbs.m4.cn/thread-200956-1-1.html
【译文】
Chinese netizens have a growing appetite for online English content.
中国网民对网络上的英文资料需求越来越大。
On Saturday at 10 a.m. it's show time for Brenda Zhang and her subtitle team. They roll out of bed, meet each other online and chat, while their modems download the latest episode of "Prison Break," which just aired half a world away on Friday night in America.
星期六上午10点是布伦达张和她的字幕小组的上班时间。起床之后，他们在网上相互打个招呼，开始下载星期五在半个地球以外的美国刚刚上映的最新一集《越狱》。
Once they have the show on their hard drives, the team spends the rest of the day creating subtitles for it in Chinese before putting it back online for other fans to watch.
影片下载完成之后，他们用一天剩下的时间为其制作了中文字幕，然后再把它放在网上，供别人观看。
Dozens of such groups exist in China. They are voluntary and are translating a mix of media, from books and magazines to games, TV shows and movies. The translated products are for an audience whose primary means of accessing foreign entertainment is the Internet.
中国有数十个这样的团体，他们的工作完全志愿，他们翻译的内容包括书籍、杂志、游戏、电视剧和电影。这些翻译产品的观众是把网络作为接触国外娱乐节目的主要方式的人群。
The members of these online translations groups participate out of a desire to improve their English. For many there is also a passionate interest in overseas content and a desire to make it accessible to other Chinese people.
这些网络翻译小组成员工作的出发点主要是希望提高自己的英文水平，还有一些人是对海外信息怀有浓厚的兴趣，并且希望其他中国人也可以接触到这些信息。
This is a way to fulfill your life and do something you are interested in," said Zhang, a 24-year-old who translates for a team that calls themselves "Showfa."
"I think Chinese people need to know something different, to see how the foreigners think about life, think about love."
24岁的张说：“这是你充实自己生活的一种方式，同时你可以做自己感兴趣的事情。”她所在的翻译团体名称是“首发影视”。
“我觉得中国人应该了解一些不同的事物，看看外国人是怎么对待生活、对待爱情的。”
Aside from the international content made available on the Web, largely by the translation groups, people in China have fewer opportunities to legally watch imported entertainment than in many developed countries.
除了这种由翻译团体提供的网上国外资料，相比于很多发达国家，中国人几乎没有机会看到合法进口的娱乐节目。
While the viewing selections have been growing in recent years, Beijing still issues quotas for the number of international films allowed in cinemas each year, while the limited amount of content permitted to air on state-run TV is usually censored, poorly dubbed and not popular anymore.
尽管近些年来审查机制已经放松了很多，北京依然给每年可以在电影院中放映的国外影片发放配额。在政府控制的电视台中播放的可怜几部影片也都经过裁剪、劣质配音，并且不受大众欢迎。
Translation team members download TV shows through different methods: watching directly from a Web site or downloading from a translation group Web site. Clips can also be downloaded through BitTorrent -- file-sharing sites such as Xunlei. Through this method, groups post their "seeds" on these sites, and people can download them.
翻译小组通过多种方法下载电视节目：视频网站、其它的翻译小组网站，以及BT——一种文件分享工具，比如迅雷。翻译小组把他们的“种子”放到这些网站中，网民就可以开始下载。
The translation teams acknowledge that what they are doing is less than legal and say they do worry that someday they may be forced to quit (so far there are no reports of a group being shut down).
翻译小组的成员们承认这种做法并不符合法律要求，他们也担心有一天这种行为会被禁止（目前为止还没有这种网站被迫关闭的报道）。
"We are living in this grey zone," said Deping Wang, a former member of a team called 1000fr. "It is not legal, but at the same time, nobody can live without it. This is the dilemma."
风软1000的前成员王德平（音译）说：“我们生存在一个灰色地带。这的确不合法，但是同时，人们又都离不开它。这就是问题所在。”
Many international media companies are concerned the groups are eroding their potential profit margins in China by illegally making the content available for free. Some, however, see the translation groups' efforts as a conduit for cultivating a market that will be willing to buy content if it is allowed to be distributed through official avenues in the future.
很多国际娱乐公司关心的是，这些团体通过免费提供非法的影片，蚕食了他们有可能在中国获取的利润。但是也有人把翻译小组的工作视为培养市场的手段，或许在将来政府通过正规渠道发行这些内容的时候，有更多的人会掏钱来买。
"While there is still an issue on the translation right, we also take a broader view to look at its impacts on other parties such as it's providing a platform for a Chinese audience who would otherwise not be able to understand or access The Economist content," Henry Luk, Asia-Pacific regional director for The Economist Group, told CNN via e-mail.
经济学家集团的亚太区负责人Henry Luk和CNN说：“尽管存在着翻译版权的问题，但是我们愿意以更开阔的目光看待它的影响。比如这至少给不懂英文的中国人一个机会来了解《经济学家》杂志。”
Since 2006, a group calling itself the Eco Team has translated more than 8,000 articles from British newsmagazine The Economist. Members collaborate with the translations, posting articles on their message board to be collectively copy-edited. The final versions are published on Eco Weekly a biweekly publication that can be downloaded and printed at no cost. The Eco Team Web site has more than 60,000 registered users, according to the group.
从2006年开始，一个自称为“经济小组”的团体翻译了英国《经济学家》杂志上的8000多篇文章。小组成员们忠实地在BBS上翻译和发布了这些文章，他们甚至出版了一个双周刊的中文电子“经济杂志”，可以免费下载和打印。这个组织说，他们的网站有6万多注册会员。
We want this magazine to be published in Chinese," said translator Jerry Bai at a recent party held by some of the Eco Team members in Shanghai. "This is our only one wish."
翻译人士白杰瑞在该组织最近在上海举行的一次聚会中说：“我们希望这本杂志能够以中文的形式面世，这是我们唯一的目的。”
However, beyond the copyright issues that come up around the subtitle squads, Bingchun Meng, a media lecturer at the London School of Economics who is studying the teams, sees them as an opportunity to understand the social dynamics of virtual groups.
然而，字幕组遇到的版权问题之外，长期研究该问题的伦敦经济学教讲师孟冰春（音译）把其视为一个了解这种团体社会动力的机会。
"These are fascinating communities," Meng said. "You think that everything online is more egalitarian and anti-establishment, but what we see is the emergence of another kind of operation of power, but maybe the power doesn't come from the traditional source but from different venues."
孟说：“这是个充满吸引力的团体。你可能认为网络上的东西都是平等、反传统的，但是我们看到的是一种新生力量的出现。这种力量不是来自传统的起源，而是来自新型的动力。”
Virtual communities
虚拟社区
The translation teams consist of loosely structured yet highly coordinated, even hierarchical, virtual communities often consisting of hundreds of participants around the world. While some members occasionally meet each other offline, they mostly communicate through email, online forums or via instant messaging services, like QQ and MSN Messenger.
翻译小组的结构很松散，但是工作高度协调，并且等级严密。虚拟社区通常有来自全世界的数百个参与者，尽管他们在线下有时也会见面，但是他们绝大部分的沟通方式是电子邮件、论坛或即时通讯软件，比如QQ和MSN。
Within each team, there are leaders responsible for organizing the translation efforts of various sub-groups assigned to different TV shows and movies in English and also other languages such as German and Japanese. Leaders select the shows to subtitle by taking votes from Chinese "netizens" about the programs they want to see.
每个团体内部，有一个负责人负责组织翻译力量，把不同的小组安排到不同的电视节目和电影上。除了英文，还有德文和日文。负责人是根据中国网民对最希望看到的节目的投票来挑选影片的。
More experienced translators are given so-called "zero day" shows -- highly popular programs, like "Prison Break," that are recorded and uploaded by someone living abroad to a special FTP site immediately after the program. Meanwhile, back in China, a team is on standby, ready to download and subtitle the show as fast as they can for Chinese fans to watch online -- and to see if they can beat rival translation gangs.
资深的翻译人士会被安排到最受欢迎的节目中，比如《越狱》。首先是居住在国外的小组成员录下影片，立即上传到FTP网站上。同时，中国的小组成员已经做好准备，以最快的速度下载影片、配上字幕、上传到网络，供中国影迷观看。他们有时这样做就是为了击败其他翻译小组竞争对手。
Competition can be fierce. To get ahead, some teams route content through servers in Thailand and Hong Kong to circumvent slow speeds that can stymie downloads between the United States and China.
竞争实际上是很激烈的。为了能够尽量提前，有些团体甚至会使用泰国或香港的服务器，来绕过中美之间网络传输可能出现的拥堵。
It can buy 10 minutes, and, you know, 10 minutes means a lot of things," said Wang, the former member of 1000fr, one of the first translation teams in China.
风软1000是中国最早的翻译团体之一，前成员王说：“这可以节省10分钟，你知道，10分钟可以做很多事情。”
There are around a half-dozen other subtitle groups that are well known, including YDY, or Yidianyuan (Garden of Eden), 1000fr's main rival.
差不多有6、7个字幕小组是风软1000的主要竞争对手，比如YDY和伊甸园。
"These two groups fight together to see who is the fastest to translate into Chinese," Wang said. "Two hours was one of our record translation times."
王说：“这两个团体曾经比赛谁的中文翻译速度最快，现在的记录是2小时翻译一部影片。”
Before someone can be a translator, he or she must first go through an application process and take a language test. Wang said she had to translate 300 words in 15 minutes to become part of 1000fr.
在成为一名翻译者之前，申请者要履行一些申请手续，还要经过语言测试。王说他在成为风软1000的成员之前，曾经被要求用15分钟翻译300字。
Teams also often have entire human resources departments responsible for recruiting new members, and there is never a shortage of applicants.
翻译小组一般都设有人力资源部，专门招募新成员，他们从来不缺少应聘者。
"A lot of people apply. A lot," said Zhang, who is responsible for bringing in new recruits for Showfa's Japanese subgroup. "There are a lot of TV series, and we need a lot of human resources."
张负责为首发影视招募日语字幕人员，她说：“应聘的人太多了，真的太多了。日本的电视剧多如牛毛，我们需要很多的人力。”
But just as quickly as new members come, they also go. Many of the translators are college students with plenty of time on their hands, often quitting once they graduate and have to get a job.
但是新成员进来得多，老成员离开得也快。很多翻译者都是在校学生，所以有很多的空余时间。但是随着毕业，他们需要找到正式的工作，只好离开。
Zhang finished school several years ago but still manages to find time to spend with her subtitle group who she says are also her best friends. They also meet online every Tuesday morning to translate another popular American show, "24". Yet now on Saturdays, Zhang and the translators will have to come up with a different routine. This season of Prison Break was its last.
张在几年前从学校毕业了，但是她还是尽量找时间和她的字幕小组成员在一起，她说大家都是好朋友。他们每周二上午会在网络上碰面，翻译另外一部极受欢迎的连续剧《24小时》。但是在星期六，他们不得不打破规律再次聚到一起，因为这是《越狱》的最后一季了。
"We will take a break," Zhang said. "And wait for new shows."
张说：“工作完成后我们会休息一段时间，等待新的剧集。”
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