Impact of native language proficiency (we're looking for German native speakers!)

Native language or "mother tongue" is the language that you grew up speaking in your home as a child. Why is native language proficiency so important in subtitling?

There are different levels of language proficiency ranging from:

• no proficiency;?
• working or professional proficiency;
• and finally to native language proficiency.

There are many different language proficiency scales used around the world for different languages, each with their own grades categories. We won't get into the A1s or the C3s (in case anyone is craving steak sauce or Star Wars!).

There are a lot of things that native-language speakers pick up on better than someone who didn't grow up speaking the language. Let's take a look at a few!

1. Not all audio is created equal. Meaning, sometimes low-quality audio can get in the way of comprehension. Deciphering difficult audio is a little bit easier for language specialists with native-language proficiency because they have more context.
2. Idioms, metaphors, similes, oh my! When something can't be taken literally, it helps to have the context of native-level proficiency to connect the dots. Language is ever-evolving and it can be hard for non-native speakers to keep up!
3. Cultural references, including media, products, and famous people might not be as easily recognized by people without native-language understanding. I've made a few American-specific cultural references already, can you spot them?
4. Multiple accents or dialects. For example, it can be lucrative for German linguists to be familiar with Austrian, Bavarian, or Swiss German in addition to standard German.

The bottom line is that native language captioners and transcribers are more likely to create captions that are enjoyable to the final audience because of their deep knowledge of the language and culture.

For all of these reasons, our in-house captioning and translation team, Amara On Demand, hires language specialists to work in their native language.

The Amara On Demand team is looking for professional translators with native-language proficiency in German for special paid projects. Are you ready to use your skills to make video more accessible and enjoyable to audiences in German? Make a couple of subtitle samples with the Amara Editor and apply on our site!