As the world gets smaller and smaller due to technological advances like the web, it becomes more and more obvious that the first step to understanding another person is to understand their language. As movies allow for a snapshot of culture and become popular in countries for which they were not produced, the ability to translate the movie into a different language becomes increasingly important. As media becomes more available to people around the world, video translation becomes more important.

In its simplest form, video translation allows any group for which it has been translated to understand a single piece of media. Most translators work from a movie script to ensure the best translation. They will also watch the movie to make sure it has the right connotations. From this, they will rewrite the script in the language the video should be translated into, taking into account some cultural differences.

It is the cultural differences that can make the translation of a particular film interesting for those involved. Translators get nervous about cultural issues, as they can turn a simple translation into a more difficult one. With some languages ​​it becomes more interesting, since sometimes there is no direct translation from one language to another.

For example, insults are a major part of European languages, with a wide variety of curse words. It’s virtually impossible to speak any of the European languages ​​without hitting some kind of curse. When translating that into Japanese, which has almost no native curses, those curses need to be translated with an eye toward invoking the same emotion that was in the source material.

Translating from Japanese involves a number of cultural issues, as the culture is well represented in your language; it even has a tense to show respect towards others of higher social status, which makes it interesting to carry across languages. Fortunately most languages ​​have the same basic concepts or translations would be next to impossible.

Video translation allows movies and games to find a wider audience. In doing so, they allow one culture to gain a better understanding of another. They allow for a greater appreciation of different cultures, especially if the translators do some research into the culture and allow some of it to peek through. It can be onerous work, especially to ensure the translation is correct, but it’s important, especially in a world that’s getting smaller with every tweet and email.