legends · 3 min read ·
Untranslatable
A subtitle translator is asked to render a word that appears in the audio where there is no script.
**Meridian Localisation — Project 4471: Feature film "The Long Thaw" (source: Finnish; target: English)**
**Translator:** Anneli Roos · **Subtitle lines:** 1,412 · **Delivery:** 30 October
**Glossary file (extract)**
- **Source term · Target · Note**
- sisu · grit · Standard
- kaamos · polar night · Standard
- mökki · cabin · Standard
- saunatonttu · sauna elf · Folk term
- *vieläinen* · — · **Query 1**
· · ·
**Query 1 (A. Roos to project manager, 7 October)**
I have a term I cannot find. *Vieläinen* appears eleven times in the dialogue. It sounds like *vielä*, "still / yet", with a nominal ending, as if it meant "the one that is still," but no dictionary lists it. The characters use it casually, the way you would say "neighbour" or "guest." In the scene at the lake (line 884) the old woman says: *"Älä katso vieläiseen."* It is a warning. Possible translation: "Don't look at the still one."
Could you ask the client for context?
**Reply (project manager, 8 October)**
*Client says: translate literally. Use "the one that remains."*
· · ·
**Query 2 (A. Roos, 12 October)**
I have translated all eleven occurrences as "the one that remains." The lines make sense. But now I notice the word is also in the *audio*, in places where there are no subtitles. In the scene at the jetty (line 1,102) there is no dialogue at all. The characters stand and look at the water. If I turn the sound up I can hear a faint voice under the wind. It is saying the word. It says it softly, many times, in a tone I can only describe as asking.
The word does not appear on the script. It appears on the soundtrack.
**Reply (project manager, 13 October)**
*Please deliver only what is in the script. The soundtrack is not part of the job.*
· · ·
**Query 3 (A. Roos, 18 October)**
Please forgive the length. I have been through the film twice more. The word is spoken on-screen by a total of thirty-one characters, not eleven. In twenty of those cases the actors' lips do not match the sound. The word has been added later, over the take, by someone speaking very close to the microphone.
I have started to see it in the credits. In the Finnish crawl, the line for the sound designer is blacked out. In the English crawl, supplied by the client, that line reads: *Vieläinen.*
**Reply (project manager, 19 October)**
*We have raised this with the client. They say the credit is correct.*
· · ·
**Query 4 (A. Roos, 25 October)**
I looked up the root. *Vielä* means "still" in the sense of "yet" or "also." The suffix -*inen* makes an adjective or a noun of belonging. *Vieläinen* would be "one belonging to still," or "one who is also."
I think I have been mistranslating the film. The characters are not warning each other against a thing. They are greeting it. Every time the word appears the speaker looks off-camera and pauses. It is the pause you leave when someone else has already begun to answer.
I do not think it means "the one that remains." I think it means "the one who is also here."
**Reply (project manager, 26 October)**
*Anneli, please deliver the files by Thursday.*
· · ·
**Final delivery note (A. Roos, 30 October)**
Subtitle files attached: 1,412 lines.
I have not translated line 884. I have not translated lines 1,102 or 1,340. In those places I have left the subtitle box empty, because a gap in the timing is more honest than a word.
I have been asked why I have stopped translating the word. I said it is a name. I said you do not translate a name. You repeat it.
I have noticed something else. In the final scene, at the lake, after the old woman turns away, there is a last line of dialogue that was not in the script. It is spoken in English, in a woman's voice, with a Finnish accent, very close to the microphone. It says: *Thank you, Anneli. You are also here.*