Netflix recently developed Hermes, a proficiency test for captions translators. The goal? Find subtitle translators who understand the nuances of the English language. We do, after all, have over 4,000 idioms that make absolutely no sense to people who aren't proficient in American English. "Barking up the wrong tree," "beat around the bush," "break a leg," "hit the sack"...we say some pretty weird stuff.
The company supports over 20 languages — many of which aren't dubbed — so subtitles are how many foreign viewers watch films and TV shows that are originally in English. The point of Hermes, as Engadget reports, is to identify people who won't translate "Smashing Pumpkins" to "pumpkin puree" (a pretty perfect example).
Currently Netflix outsources subtitle translation to third-party services, so it's hard to maintain an across the board quality standard. In its post announcing the launch of Hermes, Netflix said it took a "Hollywood meets Silicon Valley" approach to solving this problem.
Hermes tests translators' ability to correctly "translate idiomatic phrases into their target language," finding translations that are "culturally accurate." After taking the tests, each captioner will be assigned an H-Number that designates their skill level. This is how Netflix will determine what types of movies they will caption.
"Perhaps they consider themselves a horror aficionado, but they excel at subtitling romantic comedies -- theoretically, we can make this match so they're able to do their best quality work," Netflix says.
Since Netflix launched Hermes two weeks ago, thousands of people around the world have already completed the test (covering every represented language). "We’re quickly approaching an inflection point where English won’t be the primary viewing experience on Netflix, and Hermes allows us to better vet the individuals doing this very important work so members can enjoy their favorite TV shows and movies in their language," according to the statement from Netflix.
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