Sonia Kampshoff: Hello and welcome to working with Languages with me, Sonia Kampshoff. Together with my guests, we will explore what languages they speak and where they learn them. Their background and their career path, and they will also share their favorite word in a language they speak.
This week’s guest on the podcast working with languages is Stefanie Mellano. Stefanie is originally from the UK and now lives in North Italy, and she is a. Film and TV subtitles, translator. As usual, I like to ask a fun question at the beginning of each episode, and that is Stefanie, what’s your favorite word in a language that you speak?
Stefanie Mellano: Hi, Sonia. I, I speak Italian and English and my favorite word or phrase, ’cause it’s said together in Italian, is. Because it took me ages to understand exactly what it meant, because it means a million different things depending on the context. It could mean be careful whether you’re saying it seriously or not, maybe to children or whoever.
Take care. Don’t forget, be good, take it seriously. So it really is something that you have to have all the context and the situation in order to understand what it means. That’s a really good one.
Sonia Kampshoff: So. You speak Italian, can you tell us more about where you’re from and how you learned the languages that you speak?
Stefanie Mellano: Yes. So my mum is English and my dad is Italian. So I was born and grew up in England. I went to school in England. I studied Italian at school ’cause I went to a Roman Catholic school and my, my dad moved back to Italy when I was quite young, so I always used to have my holidays here. So I used to play with my cousins, although they always wanted to practice their English.
So I think we did a little bit of Italian and a little bit of English. Then when I finished school at 16, in England we have GCSEs. So I had an exam in every subject and then a grade in every subject. You then go on to do two years from 16 to 18, which are A levels, which you usually do if you want to go to university, and depending what you want to study at university.
That would have an, an effect on your choices of a level. So I wanted to choose Italian because I then wanted to go on and choose Italian at university. But unfortunately, they, there weren’t enough people for a class, so they didn’t offer Italian. But I thought my chances of studying Italian at university were none.
So I went on to study law. I thought I might become a lawyer, but then. Once I came to Italy when I was 21, so I was still studying at university ’cause I was doing distance learning and all my friends were going off and finishing university, having a gap year. So I thought I’d come to Italy for a year as an experience, improve my Italian, but then I actually realized that I wanted to study Italian.
I didn’t really want to study law, so I applied to another university, distance learning in the uk and they sent me a test and I got in. So I studied it as, as my degree, I’ve got a degree in Italian, and so it was linked language, literature, history, a bit of everything really. Also things that Italian students study in school, like Dante and, but yeah.
And then I’ve lived here for 18 years now, so it just. Got better and better. I think the real key was actually living in the country and needing to express myself in the language is the best way to learn. That sounds interesting. When you moved to Italy first you said you did. That’s good. A gap year.
Sonia Kampshoff: When did you start working and what did you do at the beginning? Once I decided to change my degree. I already had a good level of Italian, and the idea of becoming a translator had always appealed to me because my uncle is actually an interpreter. So he’s always done a bit of translation, but mainly interpreting.
Stefanie Mellano: So translation is the written word and interpreting is the spoken word. So when I changed my degree, I thought that’s what I’d really like to do. So I started practicing and helping out people that I knew in Italy who were graduating. And everyone had to translate their thesis into English. So I’d either proofread it when they tried to translate it themselves or translate it from scratch and then check it over with them, making sure I got all the terminology correct and everything.
So yeah, I started before I’d even graduated, and then after I graduated. I was disappointed to realize that to become a translator, I’d probably have to go self-employed, and I was a bit young and naive and scared. It’s particularly complicated in Italy, so I didn’t pursue it as a full-time job. At the start, I thought I’ll go and focus on companies that work.
With English and so that that work with an international audience and international client base. So I did that for quite a few years whilst translating on the side, I didn’t actively go and look for clients, but there’s a lot of word of mouth here. And I live in quite a small town in the north of Italy, so native English speakers and translators aren’t that easy to come by in a local sense because now I work with the whole world because we have the internet and we did have the internet when I graduated. I’m not that old, but, uh, relied on people who would say, oh, I know Stefanie. She does translation. And they’d pass on their contact details for me.
And it wasn’t until I fell pregnant with my first child in 2018, I was put on early maternity leave. And I suddenly started thinking of, no, I actually really want to do this as a job. This is what I want to do. I want my, I’m gonna become a mom. I’m gonna have a child. It’s a very big and important job, but I also want my paid working life to have much more meaning for me, not to mention.
To have the flexibility to be able to organize myself around him as well. So I was on early maternity leave. I started doing courses in subtitling because subtitling was something that had always interested me. I used to come over to Italy for my holidays when I was younger. And we used to watch rai, which is a bit like the Italian version of the BBC, and I always used to ask my dad to put the subtitles on for me because it was a bit difficult for me to follow.
And I always thought, oh, that’d be an amazing job. So yeah, in 2018, I signed up for a few courses and then started just practice subtitling things like videos on YouTube or videos that I had on my computer. And it all went on from there. There was a little bit of a break ’cause he was born and I couldn’t really do a lot, but I never went back to my job that I, I went on maternity from, I ended up resigning, teaching a bit of English on the side so that I had a few hours of steady income and then for the rest of it built up my client base and went for it in the translation world.
Sonia Kampshoff: Wow. So did you, how did you learn how to subtitle, films and TV shows?
Stefanie Mellano: There are quite a few courses available, so they teach you the basics. Every company has its own guidelines, but they more or less follow the same kind of structure. So you study the guidelines and practice because there’s obviously, you have to know how to translate.
That is one side of it, but there is a whole different technical side of it as well. Obviously, when we look at subtitles on the screen, they have to stay on the screen long enough for us to be able to read them. They can’t be too long that we don’t have time to read them. Both how long the line is and how long it stays on screen.
So maybe your beautiful translation that conveyed perfectly what the person is saying. You can’t use that because it’s too long, so you. There’s a lot of juggling. You have to find the right translation, but that also respects the technical guidelines and that really only comes with practice and lots of experience and doing it again and again.
Sonia Kampshoff: Yep. And do you use a specific software?
Stefanie Mellano: I do. I have a professional program on my computer for if I work for like direct clients. So if someone calls me up and says, oh, I have this video and I need to subtitle it, then I have my program that I can import the video. Then I subtitle directly on there and you can export it into all the different formats that any anyone would require.
And what kind of shows or series films, what do you subtitle? All sorts of things. I subtitle, films, TV series documentaries, even sports documentaries. I even worked for a theater company once Who? Decided to do a film adaptation of a Shakespeare play. So it already, they translated it into Italian and then I had to re subtitle it in English.
So obviously even there you have to, with everything, you have to find the right, register, the right level of language for the material that you are translating or subtitling so that it had to be Shakespeare and Shakespearean, the language. But obviously if you’re, if you are subtitling a reality TV series.
The language is gonna be very different or a period drama. So there, it really is a huge variety of things that I’ve worked on and that I continue to work on.
Sonia Kampshoff: Do you have a favorite project that you have worked on? I don’t know, I don’t know if there’s any confidentiality around it, how much you can say and how much you’re not allowed to say.
Stefanie Mellano: I, yeah. Almost everything I work on is covered by, uh, non-disclosure agreements, but a few. Things that I’ve worked on, I’m allowed to talk about because I’ve asked for permission and they’ve said yes. I worked on the second series of Zero Calcare, which is available on Netflix. Zero Calcare is from Rome, and he writes and draws comics, but it’s all very colloquial, Roman slang, and it is very funny and it was, it was very fun to work on.
Because I had to find the same kind of level of language in English that Ze Karta uses. And I think I did a good job. But the best thing was that because I was able to say that I worked on it, other people have seen it. And they’ve also complimented me on the translations that I used. Oh, nice. So that was really nice.
Sonia Kampshoff: Very nice. And do you always work from Italian to English?
Stefanie Mellano: Yes, I, or I work from English to English. Uh, a lot of things, whether they’re gonna be dubbed or whether they’re gonna be subtitled, there has to be a base transcription. So I work on a lot of English things as well. Just doing the, I say just, it’s not just because there’s a lot that goes into it, but you do the English transcription, so you basically subtitle the program in English.
Yeah, and put lots of annotations for every, double meaning for everything. That’s not quite clear, for anything that’s culturally specific that might not apply to other languages because then that film or documentary of TV series or whatever it is, will be translated into all the other languages. And they use the English subtitles as a start.
Yes. If I’m translating, then I only translate from Italian to English, even though I’m half Italian, and even though I’ve lived in Italy for 18 years now, I grew up speaking English in England. So I was exposed to the language and I did speak it with my cousins, but it wasn’t like being fully bilingual.
Mm-hmm. Where you’ve maybe got that complete. Bilingualism at home. Yeah, so I always translate into English because I’m always gonna have more of a command of the English language, just in the the nitty gritty bits because I am very fluent in Italian, but I wouldn’t have the same confidence. Or anything like that.
If I was translating to Italian, I’d always for job, always has quality control checks afterwards, but even before I’d submit something, I’d always want someone else to look over it because I wouldn’t have that 100% confidence that it’s correct. And yeah, suit suitable, like a suitable level of language as well.
Sonia Kampshoff: Yeah. Do these shows also get translated into different languages?
Stefanie Mellano: Yes. I work for. Some streaming companies and they translate everything they do into more languages than I can even imagine. So yeah, I do from Italian to English and then I do English so that it can then be translated literally into every language that you can think of.
Sonia Kampshoff: And do you, how does it work? So if someone, if you want to translate it into say, 20 languages, and do you have translators? 20 translators who speak Italian well enough to, and then translate into their own languages? Or are there any sort of in between languages?
Stefanie Mellano: Lots of companies, large companies who have to translate into lots and lots of languages use English as a kind of pivot language.Which means that, for example, something in Italian would be translated into English and then. From English, it would be translated into French, Korean, Japanese, more. Quite a few companies do that also because there’s not always enough translators that may be translate from Italian to Japanese, for example. Yeah. So they need the English as a pivot language so that they can find enough translators in order to be able to translate into all the different languages.
Sonia Kampshoff: Oh, that’s so interesting. But isn’t it the case that then when you, when you have one language in between, is there a risk that some of the meaning gets lost?
Stefanie Mellano: It can do. That’s why it’s really important you have to annotate and put notes on everything. So if there’s a play on words in Italian and I translate it into English, there might be completely different words, but you have to put in the notes and explain exactly. And literally what the Italian means exactly.
And literally why you’ve chosen the English. Because someone who might be translating into French might have another play on words that means exactly the same, but also like the actual words that they use are completely different.
Sonia Kampshoff: And do you then work directly with film producers or streaming companies? Agencies. Who are your clients?
Stefanie Mellano: So I already work with agencies. Who on their side work with bigger streaming companies or TV channels. But I have worked directly with some tourism companies, theater companies. I’d love to start working more closely with smaller Italian production companies or post-production companies and independent directors and producers because.
It’s lovely to be able to have that working relationship where you work more closely together, you get a clearer idea of what they want to portray and communicate with the content that they’ve created. It just makes it, it would make my job so much easier as well. And yeah, there’s more communication and transparency between the things.
Yeah, I think, I think like films and TV series. There’s a lot that goes into the cast, the locations, everything to do with the film, and I feel the subtitling and the dubbing side is like an afterthought a lot of the time where it, whereas it would be lovely if it was an integral part of the creation of the film or TV series or documentary or whatever it is, especially if you want your content to be viewed by a wider audience.
And I’m thinking Italian producers and directors English is gonna be. The main language for them. So yeah, I’d love for that to happen. That sounds great. Well, let’s hope they get in touch with you.
Sonia Kampshoff: Are you also involved somehow in the in edit dubbing, or do you simply do subtitles?
Stefanie Mellano: No, I work in dubbing, so I work both with big companies and smaller companies. Again, both on English content and Italian content. It’s a bit different subtitling because you don’t have all the technical constraints because. These words aren’t gonna go on the screen, but you have to, you still have to translate and have the right register and level of language, because then these translations would go to a dubbing studio.
This is something else, which I don’t personally do, but the dubbing studio would then look over the translation and look at the lip movements and everything that’s happening on the screen, and they’ve got their own dubbing script, so they base it on your translations. But if your translation at that moment, the person’s lips aren’t moving as much as they should or, or the opposite, then they have to try, find, try and find an alternative and a compromise that works. That works well both for the meaning and the lit movements.
Sonia Kampshoff: You mentioned you worked with theater companies and mm-hmm. In tourism. What’d you do for them?
Stefanie Mellano: Well, the theater companies I’ve worked, like I said, on that Shakespeare play, it was a film ad adaptation of The Tempest, which they’re now trying to enter into different film festivals. So if it does get accepted. That would be nice. And I work with some local tourism companies because I live right at the foot of the mountains in the north of Italy, the foot of the Alps, and there’s lots of mountain tourism here. Uh, one of my clients, I’d always translated their printed material. They do a lot of leaflets and trekking guides, mountaineering guides and things like that.
And in the past, I’d say a couple of years, they’ve started doing. Videos. So they video people who go on an experience, whether that be climbing or skiing, and they just, they talk about the whole experience about the people that they meet in the different mountains, the different towns that are in the mountains, and they ask me to subtitle them into English.
Sonia Kampshoff: That sounds so interesting. You really see that different industries and even within one of these industries, you have a lot of different projects. That’s, that sounds very, you have a lot of creativity around you. I also wanted to ask, do you see any trends in the industry at the moment? Anything that is changing?
Stefanie Mellano: I think there is a kind of a belief that AI is going to solve everyone’s problems and it’s going to take all our jobs away. Let’s solve the problems of the people who need the work done and take the work off of us. I’m keeping an open mind and I’m being wary, but I don’t believe that it will happen fully because especially with Italian, there’s the whole nonverbal side.
So yes, AI can translate and in some cases it’s quite good. I’ve, I check it out from time to time. I like to see how the competition is, but there are things that I don’t think it will be capable of. Maybe I’m naive, I’m not sure. There are some agencies out there. Who tend to try and use AI or machine translation and then not pay very much to people who just have to check the subtitles and sort them out.
But from talking to colleagues who do take on these jobs or have taken them on in the past, it’s not as rosy and wonderful as it seems. They still have to a lot of the time. It takes longer. To sort something out that’s been translated with ai, then do it from scratch. Do you think company will revert back to using humans?
I think the ones that really care about the content that they’re putting out there will, in every industry. There’s always people who want to pay the least amount possible and aren’t really fussed about the result. But I think there’s space for everyone and. The companies that, yeah, that really want to put something out there that they’re sure has been done as professionally as possible, will continue to use humans or maybe go back to using humans if they’ve had a little detour and tried the AI out. If subtitles go out and they’re not credibly well done, of course they would not be yours.
Sonia Kampshoff: But if anything like that happens, do production companies or streaming companies, do they get feedback about that?
Stefanie Mellano: I think so. The companies I work with usually have quality control checks before the subtitles go out. So there would be someone like me who does the translation. I also do quality control. So there would be that person and then sometimes the company itself will have someone in-house who also checks them. So I think if you’ve got a workflow like that is quite difficult for something to get out that wouldn’t be of a high quality.
But there are a couple of streaming companies where I’ve seen things that aren’t that great and I think they, they come to know about it from the public. Then whether or not they want to do something about that, I’m not sure.
Sonia Kampshoff: I find it fascinating because we all, I think we’ve all seen subtitles at some point, but you, most people don’t even think how subtitles get into a film or a series. They just, people are just used to having them. I think it’s a great job that you have. I also like that you were very, when you were on maternity leave, you’re very, that you were very proactive in deciding, okay, this is, this is what I want to do in the future. And you took charge of doing it. Is there anything else that you would like to say that I haven’t asked you?
Stefanie Mellano: I was thinking before about how you said that like the different industries as translators as well, we don’t, not everyone translates everything and the thing. I find it most useful to compare it to is like a doctor, you study medicine, but then everyone specializes in a different type of medicine. So I, for example, am a translator.
I specialize in audiovisual translation, so that’s subtitles and dubbing. I. And then I’ve just, I’ve picked just a few years. So it’s tourism business and food and wine because I’ve, I worked as well in a food company a few years ago for the export office and used to do their translation. So what that means is that you can be an expert in those areas. You can’t, I wouldn’t really take on medical translations. I wouldn’t go and translate things about archeology because I don’t know anything about it and I’d have to do a lot of research beforehand. Whereas someone who always does medical translations probably also has an educational background in medicine as well.
I’ve done legal translations in the past because I did study law. I’m leaning away from that now because it’s a very complicated area. I studied law for four years, but I also don’t particularly enjoy it, so I’d rather focus on the areas that I enjoy and that I find that I’m good at as well. I think a lot of people who enter into the profession think they have to say yes to everything and they have to translate everything, and we, we are just walking dictionaries, but it’s not like that everyone hones in their skills in a particular area.
And tries to know as much as possible as they can about that. And then you’ve got the right terminology that you need when you come to translate something in that industry.
Sonia Kampshoff: Yes, I completely agree. We all, I mean we, we all speak our languages, but we also. We all specialize in specific things, areas, industries, and we have specific interests, things that we prefer to do or areas that we don’t feel as comfortable in. I think it makes perfect sense, even as a translator to specialize in specific areas.
Stefanie Mellano: Yes, absolutely.
Sonia Kampshoff: Where can people find you?
Stefanie Mellano: I’ve got my website, so it’s www.StefanieMellano.com. Might need the spelling, so I think it’s a good idea to put…
Sonia Kampshoff: I’ll put it in the show notes.
Stefanie Mellano: Yeah, and I’m also on LinkedIn, Stefanie Mellano, so I’d love to connect with other people and if any film directors or producers are out there looking to translate their lovely content into English, then they’ve only got to send me a message and we can go from there.
Sonia Kampshoff: Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time. It’s been wonderful talking to you.
Stefanie Mellano: Thank you for having me. It’s been nice. Thanks.
Sonia Kampshoff: Thank you for listening to this week’s episode. If you liked it, please subscribe and share it with someone who may enjoy it too. As a new podcast, we value your feedback, so please leave us a comment or email us at the email in the show notes.
