I’m a specialized audiovisual translator with some 20 years of working with various types of media.
I’ve translated for several Finnish TV broadcasters, a variety of international film festivals and different YouTube content creators, such as Mr FinMan.
I’m currently mostly focused on feature films produced in Finland. You can check out my subtitling work at:
I am many things, but subtitling is my priority in life.
Subtitling paved the path for my translation career, and I’ve had the pleasure of translating everything from indie movies and documentaries to TV shows covering a broad range of topics. My subtitles don’t let the viewer chase after them and they glide with the screen action seamlessly.
Here’s what you can expect when working with me:
Adaptability - being able to transform the utterance into its perfect equivalent in Finnish or English
Sensitivity to tone - the characters or speakers in the media will always retain their personality in my subtitles.
Responsibility - a foreign audiences reception of your film is my job, and I take it seriously. I’m here to impart your message to the viewers, and do so as closely as possible.
Paraphrasing & timing - I’m a wizard in this department! I help the viewer follow the on-screen action without having to focus on subs with too short of a duration, or get annoyed at too long ones.
Extralinguistic skills
Here are some things I bring into the game of subtitling outside of my linguistic skillset:
I’m a great communicator - no need to worry about confusing communications. With clients, I’m direct, straightforward and respectful - as a professional translator should be.
I’m great at jumping hurdles - I used to be an athlete, a metaphor which then spread to both my language work and my life in general. When an obstacle arises, I know I can still make it work!
I love sharing great work - as a huge movie buff, it is my mission in life to let the world enjoy your cinematography.
Have a project in mind or just want to chat about movies? Contact me through the Zingword chat or at jhp@finsubs.com.
When clients request literal translations, this is how I handle the situation
There are various resources that can help clarify why subtitles cannot be translated literally, but here’s the gist:
Your viewers need to be able to read the subtitle in the time it is on-screen (preferably 1-8 seconds), without this impeding their enjoyment of the media.
This means that speech utterances will have to be paraphrased or adapted in a way that helps the viewers reach this time limit.
That’s where I come in. Subtitling is heavy on adaptation, but that does not mean it will damage the impact of your film!
If you’d like some more info on how subtitling works, check out this post!
Johan helped us translate extensive guidelines for several mobile games. We were very satisfied with his work because he managed to creatively translate the humour and jargon.