Multi-language Subtitle Project

Prabhupada Speaks - Vanimedia's Multi-language Subtitle Project

Vanimedia (a part of the Vanipedia) is creating 1080 video clips (1 to 8 minutes long) of Srila Prabhupada's audio messages subtitled in multi-languages.

Introduction

For the first time in history, a powerful acarya in the authorised disciplic succession has left behind live sound recordings of his bhajans, conversations, talks and lectures. From the lotus lips of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, we now have the opportunity to hear directly the illuminating explanations and deep realizations of the pure devotee as he preaches and practices the science of Krsna consciousness.

The unique effects of hearing from the pure devotee are described throughout the Srimad-Bhagavatam. In the Fourth Canto, chapter 20, verse 25, King Prthu prays:

"My dear Lord, You are glorified by the selected verses uttered by great personalities. Such glorification of Your lotus feet is just like saffron particles. When the transcendental vibration from the mouths of great devotees carries the aroma of the saffron dust of Your lotus feet, the forgetful living entity gradually remembers his eternal relationship with You. Devotees thus gradually come to the right conclusion about the value of life. My dear Lord, I therefore do not need any other benediction but the opportunity to hear from the mouth of Your pure devotee."

Srila Prabhupada elaborates in the purport:

"It is explained in the previous verse that one has to hear glorification of the Lord from the mouth of a pure devotee. This is further explained here. The transcendental vibration from the mouth of a pure devotee is so powerful that it can revive the living entity's memory of his eternal relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In our material existence, under the influence of illusory maya, we have almost forgotten our eternal relationship with the Lord, exactly like a man sleeping very deeply who forgets his duties. In the Vedas it is said that every one of us is sleeping under the influence of maya. We must get up from this slumber and engage in the right service, for thus we can properly utilize the facility of this human form of life. As expressed in a song by Thakura Bhaktivinoda, Lord Caitanya says, jiva jaga, jiva jaga. The Lord asks every sleeping living entity to get up and engage in devotional service so that his mission in this human form of life may be fulfilled. This awakening voice comes through the mouth of a pure devotee.

A pure devotee always engages in the service of the Lord, taking shelter of His lotus feet, and therefore he has a direct connection with the saffron mercy-particles that are strewn over the lotus feet of the Lord. Although when a pure devotee speaks the articulation of his voice may resemble the sound of this material sky, the voice is spiritually very powerful because it touches the particles of saffron dust on the lotus feet of the Lord. As soon as a sleeping living entity hears the powerful voice emanating from the mouth of a pure devotee, he immediately remembers his eternal relationship with the Lord, although up until that moment he had forgotten everything.

For a conditioned soul, therefore, it is very important to hear from the mouth of a pure devotee, who is fully surrendered to the lotus feet of the Lord without any material desire, speculative knowledge or contamination of the modes of material nature. Every one of us is kuyogi because we have engaged in the service of this material world, forgetting our eternal relationship with the Lord as His eternal loving servants. It is our duty to rise from the kuyoga platform to become suyogis, perfect mystics. The process of hearing from a pure devotee is recommended in all Vedic scriptures, especially by Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu. One may stay in his position of life -- it does not matter what it is -- but if one hears from the mouth of a pure devotee, he gradually comes to the understanding of his relationship with the Lord and thus engages in His loving service, and his life becomes completely perfect. Therefore, this process of hearing from the mouth of a pure devotee is very important for making progress in the line of spiritual understanding."

Having Srila Prabhupada's audio available, with multi-language subtitles, facilitates all of his family members from around the globe to humbly and respectfully hear from him. In this way, no-one is barred from making their lives completely perfect. This project will surely prove to be one of the most uniting forces of Srila Prabhupada's multi-lingual family situated all corners of the globe. It will also greatly help to increase the family members of Srila Prabhupada by making it easy to introduce Srila Prabhupada's messages to the people of each nation.

Languages of the World

Here is a sheet of 67 languages that we are planning to have subtitled. The total number of people speaking these languages is 6,860,000. This list comprises the most-spoken languages of the world, and also the smaller European languages. If you would like to translate in a language not listed here, please contact us [email protected] and we will add it.

Getting Involved

Become a Vanimedia translator

• You are familiar with translation from English into your mother language!
• You are not so familiar but you are confident that you could make a translation!
• You want to help your fellow countrymen to hear Srila Prabhupada!
• You love to, or would love to, associate with Srila Prabhupada's audio!
• You want to render some great service to Srila Prabhupada!
• You want to see Srila Prabhupada's teachings distributed to every corner of the globe!
• You have an hour or two of spare time!
• You appreciate the power of collaborative efforts facilitating lots of people doing a little work to get a large result!

Here is a great opportunity waiting for you, no matter how much time you are able to offer. We are recruiting translators who want to be part of this historical initiative.

Contact us at [email protected] and we will add you to our list of translators.

Start a Prabhupada Vani Embassy

The language teams can evolve into Embassies for each language. When an enthused devotee comes forward to accomplish this service, he or she can become the Ambassador of that language, and inspire many people to participate.

1080 Videos

We want to offer to the worldwide followers of Srila Prabhupada at least 1080 of these 3 to 8 minute clips of Srila Prabhupada's classes - all subtitled with at least 32 and up to 67 languages. Please support this effort generously by joining one of the language teams.

108 Videos

Our initial goal is to have 108 pages translated, with 32 to 67 subtitles each, by Srila Prabhupada's Vyasa Puja 2013.

How long will this take?

One clip takes about an hour to translate. 108 clips will take 108 hours and 1,080 clips will take about 1,080 hours. If we manage to do them in 50 languages then these are the time frames we are looking at.

• 108 clips in 50 languages will take a collective amount of 5,400 hours of translating.

• 1080 clips in 50 languages will take a collective amount of 54,000 hours of translating.

Wow, that sounds like a lot, but actually it is not much for each person to do if we build up some teams.

Lets say we get an average of 5 translators for each language. Then, the individual "service time" to offer would only be 22 hours per person to complete the first 108 clips, and only 216 hours to complete the 1,080 clips.

If we have an average of 10 translators for each language, then the individual "service time" to offer would only be 11 hours per person to complete the first 108 clips, and only 108 hours to complete the 1,080 clips.

Now I am sure you are seeing where we are going with this. That's right! The more devotees blissfully involved, the less effort that has to be made by each individual.

Lets look at this scenario. An average of 20 translators per language works out to be less than 6 hours of service to complete 108 clips and 54 hours to complete the 1,080 clips.

In just 9 weeks, a single language can be completed, with 1,080 clips, if we have 20 devotees offering 6 hours of service a week.

Through collaboration, wonderful things are possible. Let's enthusiastically get this glorious project up and running. Our goal is to complete the first 108 clips by Srila Prabhupada's Vyasa Puja festival 2013 (slow beginning), and the full 1,080 clips by Vyasa Puja festival of 2014 (really rocking)

Benefits

You Will Experience

• direct association with Srila Prabhupada as you translate his words!
• a personal offering, made by you, for the pleasure of Srila Prabhupada!
• the joy of serving, with your multi-language family members, in a dynamic project!
• a team of enthused translators who stimulate you to offer your service with joy!
• a user friendly process!
• all assistance to perform your service nicely!

You Will Create

• an opportunity for people of your language to directly hear Srila Prabhupada!
• a never before existing multi-language repository of Srila Prabhupada's classes!
• a possibility for over 75% of the people of this planet to directly hear Srila Prabhupada!
• the opportunity for Srila Prabhupada to personally (via his sound vibration) enter into millions of peoples homes and hearts!

Results So Far

We launched this project in the beginning of March 2013 and by the 27th of March Gaura Purnima we had our first video clip with 34 subtitles ready. Click here to play our first - history in the making clip. (on the video, click the "captions" button to select your language.) Our next 11 clips are in motion, and we have enthused translators from Begal, Latvia and Polan who have already translated 10 clips each. Here you can see the sheet of our results. Keep coming back to watch this grow, or better still become part of it and help it grow.

Methodology

This is a collaborative service being offered by followers of His Divine Grace AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada, the Founder-Acarya of the International Society of Krsna Consciousness. Via collaboration difficult tasks become very easy. By building teams of translators it will be possible to achieve these goals for the pleasure of Srila Prabhupada and the benefit of the people of this world irrespective of the language they speak.

Coordinating Team

the coordinating team is:

• selecting the audio clips that will be used - anyone can suggest their favorite clip as well.

• helping devotees get accustomed to the Dotsub website.

• facilitating the growth of the translating teams.

Starting Your Seva

If you want to help then please follow the directions here and with only 1 hour of service you will have translated a new language. If you know of devotees who can translate the missing languages then please share this link with them. Any questions can be asked to [email protected]

• Instructions for translators: translationSteps.docx

• For getting one of the texts for translating click here: Clips to Subtitle. - contact us as soon as you have chosen the clip you want to translate so that we can register it as in progress. In this way we do not have two devotees working on the same clip.

• For more information please read the section Starting the Seva.

Introducting Dotsub

In order to facilitate the large volume of work needed to achieve our goals we have opted for using an opensource online website (Dotsub.com) to subtile the clips into each language. This dedicated platform for multi-language translations has 508 languages waiting for Srila Prabhupada's words to be translated.

Using Dotsub

• Process of translating video at DotSub.com.

1. Sign up at DotSub.com with username and password;
2. Forward your username to [email protected];
3. Your username will be added to the Vanimedia Translators group at DotSub, and you will then be able to translate any of SP’s videos into any language;
4. You can find all the videos we have uploaded to Dotsub listed at this address - http://dotsub.com/view/user/vanimedia
5. On the right of the video choose your language;
6. Click the ‘Translate’ button;
7. If you like , you can get suggestions from Google Translate in each field. If your language is supported by Google translate, there will be an option to do this just above where you choose your source language;
8. Place your translation under each English line;
9. You may also listen to the video, pause, go back or forward as you translate;
10. As each line of translation is entered the percentage for that language is updated;
11. Translators may stop at any time and continue later;
12. Translations can be easily edited for corrections by anyone in the Vanimedia Translators group;
13. When you have 100% finished a language, please watch the video again with your subtitles to check you are satisfied with the result, and then send an email to [email protected];
14. When translations are at 100% they are to be synced to YouTube by DotSub admin account;
15. Translations may also be downloaded as text or srt files to be saved or read offline;
16. When translations are confirmed to be correct the editing function can be turned off.

• Other information/features of DotSub.

1. Groups can be created for individual videos as well as one group for all videos;
2. DotSub facilitates 508 different languages.
3. Videos are automatically uploaded to YouTube by DotSub;
4. Beneath a video there is a Transcription tab. This shows the full text of the chosen language;
5. As the video plays this transcription text highlights as words are spoken;
6. By selecting transcription text words it is possible to jump to different places in the video;

• YouTube

1. Subtitle font color and size can be changes in the settings of the YouTube player;

• Useful links:-

First test video - You Don't Become Animal – Counteract: http://dotsub.com/view/6d130a20-e961-4e6b-9298-ecea928b93c0

• Help and Forum:

http://help.dotsub.com/

• How to add videos to a collection:

http://help.dotsub.com/kb/how-to-share-videos-with-dotsub-users/collection

• Font issues:

http://help.dotsub.com/kb/display-issues/why-do-i-see-boxes-when-i-try-to-view-subtitles-in-a-language

Blessings Please

Praying for the blessings of the Vaisnavas, we are gearing up to make hundreds of small audio clips with multi-language subtitles, thus facilitating people from every corner of the world, speaking as many languages as possible, to directly hear and understand Srila Prabhupada's sublime message of truth and love.

Tables Relating to the Project

• Languages to Subtitle
• Clips to subtitle
• Multi-language Subtitle Results
• Translating Teams

Appreciations

From Translators

• I feel greatly honored to perform this seva for our spiritual master Srila Prabhupada. Apart from the joy of sharing the instructions with all prabhujees and matajees in our own mother tongue, is the opportunity of reading the nectarine words of Srila Prabhupada again and again... Parthsarathy Mitra - Bengali

• Sharing my experience in translation of Srila Prabhupadas nectarean messages from Vanimedia, this possibility is truly wonderful. From my studies I have understood that translation also is an art- one can use such translation means as domestication, literal translation, addition, deletion, etc. But when we translate such an exalted personality, there must be careful consideration made, how should the target text be adapted and which words should be chosen so that it is harmonically suited to the message Srila Prabhupada is giving in the video. Another important thing is that Srila Prabhupada is speaking in the conversational style, which means not all the aspects can be rendered directly as they are, but should be presented in the style listeners can understand as well as the punctuation marks should be chosen accordingly…undoubtedly changes there have to be made. But the system you all have given is very well thought out. I like the system that we can see which languages are taken, how far the subtitle making process is done. Another thing is also when we see already added subtitles, sometimes the “whole picture” asks for some more changes in the target language- then you kindly offer to check and, if needed, make the necessary changes. Because from my experience, when we read the translated text over and over again, sometimes we tend not to see some minor slips, as we know the text. Then this “whole picture” helps a lot. Therefore I can say that my experience with this project is truly positive. I just wish you all the strength and enthusiasm to further this beautiful service. Of course a very nice motivation for me is that translation in so many languages can be used by so many... and when i see the clearly formulated target, it is easier to get enthused... Linda Bērce - Latvian