Hacker News Reader

Translated words and phrases often have to be very different than the literal translation. For example: "sack" in english can also mean firing a worker, or plundering a city. The word for "a large bag" in most languages will not have these same extra meanings.

Also, you may even need 3 subtitles:

- transcription of the spoken language: les jeux sont faits

- literal translation: the games are made/done

- correct/useful translation: the chips are down

View on HN

I'm not 100% sure since I'm not the guy you responded to, but I think his situation is that he's listening to the audio in the same language as the subtitles, and they are different.

I've seen this happen when English subtitles were enabled for an English language movie I've been watching. Sometimes what is transcribed in the subtitles is different than what people are actually saying (though the gist is the same) even though both are in English.

In any case, this is clearly not something easily fixable by a website script.

Good catch. That looks right now you've pointed it out. I was thrown off by the word "translation".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com