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Film companies used to hire actors and actresses to dub while they tried to sell films to cinemas in other countries.The old hollywood films have high popularity around the world and they usually have different language versions when the film producers aimed at localizing the films.But dubbing can be quite challenging and time-consuming so audiovisual translation turned to subtitling.This all started when a bunch of Japanese cartoon lovers translated the Japanese subtitle to English.Later on ，US TV series fans in China created a trend called fabsubbing.They have organized groups to translate America drama as soon as the new episodes come out.Even though they don’t get paid because of subtitling the dramas ，the quality of subtitles remain high and for those who can’t understand English but love watching foreign movies and Tv dramas ，they can appreciate the films and TV series better thanks to the fansubbing group.Nowadays，current situation is that more and more people want to learn English or other foreign languages through watching foreign films，TV series ，so there is no need to dub them ，but subtitling can play a significant role in expedite the learning process.Thus，this essay will look into the challenges subtitlers face and the strategies they use.
Gossip Girl is an American TV drama which is quite popular among young people.Although the voiceover at the beginning of every episode claims that it’s about "the scandalous lives of Manhattan elite"，it’s just lives ，love stories and gossip about a bunch of senior high school students and university students，especially the four heroes and heroines called Serena，Blair，Chuck and Nate.Their friendship has gone through many ups and downs，together with their love affairs.Because the TV station which produced this drama，CW，wanted to draw youngsters’ attention and have better commercial response from the market，they infused the elements of fashion，scandal，wealth，metropolitan way of life into the drama，so the subtitles are usually highly related to American culture，sometimes even more locally，the New York way of life.Besides，as the subtitles are mainly about wordplays and puns in order to achieve the effects of humor，how to translate them without losing the show’s original aim can be quite tricky.
For the purpose of understanding a entertainment show better，we should first know its backdrop.The setting of the story is New York City.In the subtitles，Manhattan，Upper East Side，Queens，Bronx are mentioned several times.All of them belong to geographical districts of the metropolitan city.Manhattan can be simply translated into“曼哈顿”，but if we read between the lines，we can see this also refer to the place where wealthy and powerful people live.Compared to Queens and Brooklyn，it suggests that characters like Serena and Chuck who live in Manhattan are children from wealthy families.These conflicts permeate the whole plot and some of the wordplays are based on the differences in living locations，which indicates differences in social statuses.Such kind of culture-bound problems are often seen in this TV drama For example，there is a line from Season three，Episode three： Serena： But without judgment，cause who doesn’t have a Georgina in their closet，right？
This sentence is a pun and also based on the viewers’ perception of the character Georgina from previous episodes.There is a saying called "have a skeleton in your closet" ，which originally means have secrets that you can’t confide in someone else.At the same time，in the previous episodes，Georgina was portrayed as a bad girl.So obviously，Serena here coined a new phrase "have a Georgina in one’ closet”，meaning" having a secret affair with Georgina.All the TV drama is broadcasted season by season，episode by episode.But not all the viewers watch the show from the first episode，thus while subtitling the TV series，such relevant information should be added to the translation.Sometimes，subtitlers may find themselves in a situation that characters utter very long sentences which are not only difficult to cut it into small sentences but also difficult to translate into concise Chinese short sentences.Because we all know that limited by time and space，the subtitles shouldn’t be too long or too difficult to understand.The glance of the viewer doesn’t last long and he cannot understand a lot of information in such a short time.So for the purpose of practicality，the full meaning of the subtitles can sometimes be condensed.
From the case study，now we can have a better understanding of the challenges subtitlors face and the strategies they use.To be frank，translation cannot be perfect all the time，but at least the subtitlors are still on their way of providing better solutions to the problems and the cultural exchange are expedited thanks to their contribution.
Gossip Girl is an American TV drama which is quite popular among young people.Although the voiceover at the beginning of every episode claims that it’s about "the scandalous lives of Manhattan elite"，it’s just lives ，love stories and gossip about a bunch of senior high school students and university students，especially the four heroes and heroines called Serena，Blair，Chuck and Nate.Their friendship has gone through many ups and downs，together with their love affairs.Because the TV station which produced this drama，CW，wanted to draw youngsters’ attention and have better commercial response from the market，they infused the elements of fashion，scandal，wealth，metropolitan way of life into the drama，so the subtitles are usually highly related to American culture，sometimes even more locally，the New York way of life.Besides，as the subtitles are mainly about wordplays and puns in order to achieve the effects of humor，how to translate them without losing the show’s original aim can be quite tricky.
For the purpose of understanding a entertainment show better，we should first know its backdrop.The setting of the story is New York City.In the subtitles，Manhattan，Upper East Side，Queens，Bronx are mentioned several times.All of them belong to geographical districts of the metropolitan city.Manhattan can be simply translated into“曼哈顿”，but if we read between the lines，we can see this also refer to the place where wealthy and powerful people live.Compared to Queens and Brooklyn，it suggests that characters like Serena and Chuck who live in Manhattan are children from wealthy families.These conflicts permeate the whole plot and some of the wordplays are based on the differences in living locations，which indicates differences in social statuses.Such kind of culture-bound problems are often seen in this TV drama For example，there is a line from Season three，Episode three： Serena： But without judgment，cause who doesn’t have a Georgina in their closet，right？
This sentence is a pun and also based on the viewers’ perception of the character Georgina from previous episodes.There is a saying called "have a skeleton in your closet" ，which originally means have secrets that you can’t confide in someone else.At the same time，in the previous episodes，Georgina was portrayed as a bad girl.So obviously，Serena here coined a new phrase "have a Georgina in one’ closet”，meaning" having a secret affair with Georgina.All the TV drama is broadcasted season by season，episode by episode.But not all the viewers watch the show from the first episode，thus while subtitling the TV series，such relevant information should be added to the translation.Sometimes，subtitlers may find themselves in a situation that characters utter very long sentences which are not only difficult to cut it into small sentences but also difficult to translate into concise Chinese short sentences.Because we all know that limited by time and space，the subtitles shouldn’t be too long or too difficult to understand.The glance of the viewer doesn’t last long and he cannot understand a lot of information in such a short time.So for the purpose of practicality，the full meaning of the subtitles can sometimes be condensed.
From the case study，now we can have a better understanding of the challenges subtitlors face and the strategies they use.To be frank，translation cannot be perfect all the time，but at least the subtitlors are still on their way of providing better solutions to the problems and the cultural exchange are expedited thanks to their contribution.