Squid Game has a failed Netflix translation — here's how to fix it

Squid Game has a failed Netflix translation — here's how to fix it

"Squid Game" is the biggest show on Netflix right now. The South Korean survival drama is dominating social media, topping streamers' most-watched lists in dozens of countries.

It's not hard to understand why. The Squid Game has a simple but very compelling premise. It follows a group of struggling citizens who are chosen by a shadowy organization to participate in a series of playground games, each with a deadly twist. However, viewers watching the series with English subtitles may, in fact, be watching a poorly translated version of the acclaimed show.

Korean-speaking podcaster Yeonmi Meyer explained on social media that the English subtitles provided by Netflix do not preserve the original story of the show well. She used a scene featuring Han Minyo, played by Kim Joo Ryong, to illustrate her point.

What is even stranger about this whole situation, however, is that Netflix offers two different translations of "Squid Game." One is fairly accurate, but many viewers are unaware of this and seem to be watching the series in a translation that loses many of the nuances of the original.

In the example below, in the "English [CC]" caption, Han Minyo says, "I'm not a genius, but I can manage," but a more literal translation would be "I'm very smart. I just haven't had the chance to study", which is apparently a common expression in Korea.

If you change the subtitle to "English" in the Netflix menu, the subtitle becomes: "I never had the chance to study, but I'm incredibly smart." This is still not a perfect translation, since Han Minyo's lack of study is due to disadvantage rather than application, but still the subtitle, which is "English [CC]" is much closer to the original.

One might wonder why the two translations are so different, but the reason is that the "English [CC]" captions are actually for the English dub of the series, while the "English" captions are for viewers watching on the original Korean language track.

If you are currently watching Squid Game, please set the captions to "English" instead of "English [CC]" to view the most accurately translated version. If you have already finished the series, here is everything we know so far about Season 2 of Squid Game.

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