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Netflix Hermes test
Thread poster: Magdalena Adamus
Sosey
Sosey
Italy
Local time: 11:07
English to Italian
It doesn't make any sense. Apr 28, 2017

Hi, I'm new here. I took the test and failed. I agree with some of you saying that the quizzing part was a bit weird. Some of the choices seemed correct, well, they were correct and, as some of you already said, it wasn't simple choosing only one of them without any context.

Magdalena Bardalinska wrote:
This is because I find it highly unlikely that they would go back to evaluating subtitles part in the applications that they failed. Why? Because I think that after they were scared by the amounts of applications they got, they wanted to limit the number of tests that actual human being would need to check. This is why they took only the test part into account when failing/passing candidates. If now they start to evaluate subtitles part in failed test, what was this fuss about with announcing scoring two days ago? This would make no sense whatsoever. Still, I really would like to be wrong - I really hope that they would change some peoples' results after checking their subs even if they failed the ABCD part - that would be the only fair way.


Yeah, but can I say this method seems rather silly? I mean, one can ace the first sections of the test just by coincidence, since it's a multiple choice quiz. Or just be very good at theorics and, as I'm sure you all know, to be a good translator you can't just know the language, that's not enough. So I think it's pretty unprofessional to pick translators based only on the answers they gave on the first three sections. The real deal is the subtitling part.
I do understand they probably did it due to the amount of tests they received, but they shouldn't give the results before checking the subtitling part. I mean, what if someone aced the first part, they told him that he passed, then checked his translating job and find out it sucks? They can't say "oh, oops, nevermind."

[Edited at 2017-04-28 11:07 GMT]

[Edited at 2017-04-28 11:15 GMT]


 
jbjb
jbjb  Identity Verified
Estonia
Local time: 12:07
Estonian to English
+ ...
thresholds Apr 28, 2017

Don't worry so much about language thresholds and passes. Everyone who got a pass can get a hidden "don't give work" note at their system and thresholds can always be lowered. Netflix still has the same amount of content to translate and needs translators to do it.

Remember that everyone was forced to take that test, even the existing translators who are currently working for them either directly or through vendors.
With the Hermes system, Netflix now has the following proble
... See more
Don't worry so much about language thresholds and passes. Everyone who got a pass can get a hidden "don't give work" note at their system and thresholds can always be lowered. Netflix still has the same amount of content to translate and needs translators to do it.

Remember that everyone was forced to take that test, even the existing translators who are currently working for them either directly or through vendors.
With the Hermes system, Netflix now has the following problems:
1. Many existing translators failed the test for whatever reasons. As Netflix cannot force their vendors to choose translators, there will be a lot of confusion and reorganising work. As they work with dozens of vendors, they will try to give work for each language to those whose translators did the best
2. while giving more work individually to the translators who had the best test results. However, they will find out that testing well and actually translating well are two different things. Many of those who tested well will actually provide subpar translations, they are too slow or cannot meet deadlines. So they will turn to lower-testing candidates as some higher-testing ones will be kicked out.

Working individually for Netflix will also be resource-consuming because of the process of translating, then proofreading, then accepting the corrections, then sending the files to independent quality control where some of them will fail and will be returned for further corrections etc - it actually needs a huge number of people that Netflix will not be prepared to hire. It will still be much more time efficient to send files to big vendors and let them deal with the translating+proofreading+possible rejections and their reasons.

What we will see in the future is more competition between new vendors to provide translation services. We know that preferred vendors get the same rate from Netflix, e.g. USD 10 per minute. Most of them pay USD 2-3 to their translators, a few may go as high as USD 5-6. But for the most part the final quality and number of rejections depends on 1) the people each vendor is using and 2) the quality of proofreading/quality control of translated files (that many vendors try to cheat with).

With all translators getting a Hermes number, it might create more migration to companies who are ready to share more of the USD 10 with their translators and manage to handle final quality checks better.

So there will be more job ads coming up with new companies requiring translators to provide Hermes numbers and picking the best they can find based on their test results that will be attached to those numbers. Anyone who got a reasonable test result (even a fail) can probably find work through some of the vendors.
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Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL
Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:07
Member (2004)
English to Italian
wanted to take the test... Apr 28, 2017

out of curiosity, but I never got the text with the link... it's been 2 days now... and I did get my H number... maybe they don't offer it for Italian anymore...

 
Valeria Ranieri
Valeria Ranieri  Identity Verified
Local time: 11:07
French to Italian
+ ...
About phase 4 Apr 28, 2017

Am I the only one who found phase 4 the most difficult one? I had problems with timing: it was not always clear if the subtitle was timed to the audio. I suppose the counter under the frames should have helped me...How did you manage with it?

 
pupeschi
pupeschi
Italy
Any answers...? Apr 28, 2017

pupeschi wrote:

Hi everyone!

I just completed the test and I got 89.33% in English-Italian. I see the "You have met our threshold for your language!" message and I wonder what will happen next.

Can anyone tell me about their experience so far?

Thanks in advance

fp



Please...?


 
AlexGre
AlexGre
Germany
Local time: 11:07
English to German
Time left to answer Apr 28, 2017

Willian Meirinho wrote:

Hi everyone!

I did the test twice and i'm a bit annoyed with the results.

First time i did it, it was everything swift, just to evaluate myself. One of the clips that i had to subtitle, i didn't finish and it wasn't in line with the standard of my language. Still, I've got a 74% score. This first try was arond 4 weeks ago and they took some 3 weeks to evaluate the test ang give me the results.

Second time. This one was 2 days ago. This time, i took time to study the rules of subtitling. I did all the multiple choice questions, even double checked with Google. Aside the part you need to spot the error on the subtitle cutscene, i'm pretty sure i nailed it 100%. At the subtitling part, this time i filled all the lines. I did everything according with Netflix requirements and double checked as well. Now the problem: My result appeared instantly after i submitted and it was just 78%. They didn't not even check the most important part of the test and NO WAY i got more than 10 questions wrong.

I was wondering if they take the time i took answering into consideration, because i double checked everything and submitted with little time left... I don't know. The whole thing seemed very unfair for me.

I'd like to know your opinion about it.

Congrats for everyone who passed.



I'm pretty sure that the time left on the test is not measured like you are suggesting. I myself did use all the time given to double and triple check everything. I passed with a fairly good score.
Yes, it is dissapointing to know they (for now) don't evaluate the subtitle part, which obviously was the most indicative of the skill level. But I think there is no point in speculating. As someone said pages ago, they are free to do the test however they want and hire whomever they want.
I personally think it will take a bit of time to make sense of the situation. Even though its not officially possible to retake the test, I am sure at one point (even if that is long) they will let people retest and also shed some light on the methods used.
I, for my part, am waiting to see how this goes on. Obviously I didnt take the test because I wanted to have some fun but because I hope to get some work at the end of it. Let's see and hope!


 
420
420
Bulgaria
English to Bulgarian
Bulgarian subtitles Apr 28, 2017

Some backstory...I did the test and passed with 88%, waited for a month to get my "results".
So today I browse through my Netflix because there's a new show Dear White People and I see the bar audio & subtitles I click on Bulgarian subtitles then I see that there are already titles with Bulgarian subtitles on Netflix, around 10. Which means they started doing Bulgarian subtitles recently. Then again to my amazement I start trying out shows and movies to see what these Bulgarian subtitles a
... See more
Some backstory...I did the test and passed with 88%, waited for a month to get my "results".
So today I browse through my Netflix because there's a new show Dear White People and I see the bar audio & subtitles I click on Bulgarian subtitles then I see that there are already titles with Bulgarian subtitles on Netflix, around 10. Which means they started doing Bulgarian subtitles recently. Then again to my amazement I start trying out shows and movies to see what these Bulgarian subtitles are...and after a minute or two I see this
https://1drv.ms/i/s!Aj1ENLYi_p6LtHbORzsolEsN_xyV
The underlined word should be 3 separate words. Maybe because of character limit per line but nonetheless come on. I really don't feel good about this.
Probably someone who passed with 80%, probably something else but they should at least do quality control, or maybe they haven't hired anyone for QC.
So I would suggest checking for available subtitles in your respective languages (Romanian, Italian so on) because until now there were no subtitles available in other languages except Spanish maybe. So check if there are subtitles and this might give you an idea if they have started hiring and how that is going for them.
I'm still waiting on them to contact me after the test...don't know what to think
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Butze
Butze
Italy
German to Italian
Idioms are important Apr 28, 2017

I mean, one can ace the first sections of the test just by coincidence, since it's a multiple choice quiz. Or just be very good at theorics and, as I'm sure you all know, to be a good translator you can't just know the language, that's not enough.


You must be very lucky to pass just by coincidence, though. And, anyway, It's not enough but I've been working for vendors for quite some time now and I can assure you idioms are one of the biggest problem I see in my colleagues' translations. I've proofed countless files where most of the errors where idioms which had been mistranslated or not recognized as such at all.
So I do understand why they give so much attention to that section. Yet, being evaluated on the whole test would have been nice.


 
maroscz
maroscz
Czech Republic
Local time: 11:07
English to Czech
About phase 4 Apr 28, 2017

Valeria Ranieri wrote:

Am I the only one who found phase 4 the most difficult one? I had problems with timing: it was not always clear if the subtitle was timed to the audio. I suppose the counter under the frames should have helped me...How did you manage with it?


There is a tutorial section on the Hermes homepage. Timed Text Style Guide articles in the Specification & Guides section show some detailed specifics about timing. Questions in the 4th phase were simply about deciding if the example complied with those specifics.


 
Franjo Varšić
Franjo Varšić
Croatia
time Apr 28, 2017

AlexGre wrote:

Willian Meirinho wrote:

Hi everyone!

I did the test twice and i'm a bit annoyed with the results.

First time i did it, it was everything swift, just to evaluate myself. One of the clips that i had to subtitle, i didn't finish and it wasn't in line with the standard of my language. Still, I've got a 74% score. This first try was arond 4 weeks ago and they took some 3 weeks to evaluate the test ang give me the results.

Second time. This one was 2 days ago. This time, i took time to study the rules of subtitling. I did all the multiple choice questions, even double checked with Google. Aside the part you need to spot the error on the subtitle cutscene, i'm pretty sure i nailed it 100%. At the subtitling part, this time i filled all the lines. I did everything according with Netflix requirements and double checked as well. Now the problem: My result appeared instantly after i submitted and it was just 78%. They didn't not even check the most important part of the test and NO WAY i got more than 10 questions wrong.

I was wondering if they take the time i took answering into consideration, because i double checked everything and submitted with little time left... I don't know. The whole thing seemed very unfair for me.

I'd like to know your opinion about it.

Congrats for everyone who passed.



I'm pretty sure that the time left on the test is not measured like you are suggesting. I myself did use all the time given to double and triple check everything. I passed with a fairly good score.
Yes, it is dissapointing to know they (for now) don't evaluate the subtitle part, which obviously was the most indicative of the skill level. But I think there is no point in speculating. As someone said pages ago, they are free to do the test however they want and hire whomever they want.
I personally think it will take a bit of time to make sense of the situation. Even though its not officially possible to retake the test, I am sure at one point (even if that is long) they will let people retest and also shed some light on the methods used.
I, for my part, am waiting to see how this goes on. Obviously I didnt take the test because I wanted to have some fun but because I hope to get some work at the end of it. Let's see and hope!


Didn't someone suggest several pages back that how quickly you solve the test counts in your score?


 
Maciej Jackowski
Maciej Jackowski  Identity Verified
Poland
Local time: 11:07
Chinese to English
+ ...
silly Apr 28, 2017

Hi there, just submitted parts 4&5 to get an immediate (?) feedback - 82%, which is a fail, at least for English-Polish. Clearly, they haven't reviewed the last two parts. I wonder if I failed because of the first 3 parts, and if so, that is utterly silly. You may disagree with me, but I found some of the questions/answers in parts 1-3 confusing to say the least. Sadly, didn't have time to take proper notes. I would very much like to discuss parts 1-3 with the author. Good luck to all of you, th... See more
Hi there, just submitted parts 4&5 to get an immediate (?) feedback - 82%, which is a fail, at least for English-Polish. Clearly, they haven't reviewed the last two parts. I wonder if I failed because of the first 3 parts, and if so, that is utterly silly. You may disagree with me, but I found some of the questions/answers in parts 1-3 confusing to say the least. Sadly, didn't have time to take proper notes. I would very much like to discuss parts 1-3 with the author. Good luck to all of you, tho!Collapse


 
Valeria Ranieri
Valeria Ranieri  Identity Verified
Local time: 11:07
French to Italian
+ ...
About phase 4 Apr 29, 2017

maroscz wrote:

Valeria Ranieri wrote:

Am I the only one who found phase 4 the most difficult one? I had problems with timing: it was not always clear if the subtitle was timed to the audio. I suppose the counter under the frames should have helped me...How did you manage with it?


There is a tutorial section on the Hermes homepage. Timed Text Style Guide articles in the Specification & Guides section show some detailed specifics about timing. Questions in the 4th phase were simply about deciding if the example complied with those specifics.


Hi maroscz, thank you for your answer!

Actually I did study the guidelines, that's why I expected questions about that. I did not get any questions about line breaks, punctuation, forced narrative and all the stuff included in their guides. I just saw some videos and had to decide if the text was correctly timed to the audio but there weren't clear mistakes. Some must have been wrong but it was not obvious: that's why I suppose there's the counter under the videos (but since I did not expect that, I was so stressed that I panicked).

Anyway, I didn't find any tutorial before starting the test: is there any section including sample videos to make practice? Because if there isn't, there's no point in making us study their guidelines.

And I'll add one more thing: I regularly watch movies or documentaries with Italian subtitles on Netflix and can say that many times the Italian text does not correspond to their guidelines. A few examples: the use of forced narrative varies, the closing quotes can be found before or after a period (and quite frankly, sometimes I've read translated words or expressions that no Italian would use).


 
tintin76
tintin76
English to Chinese
Netflix guidelines Apr 29, 2017

[quote]Valeria Ranieri wrote:

[quote]maroscz wrote:

Valeria Ranieri wrote:


And I'll add one more thing: I regularly watch movies or documentaries with Italian subtitles on Netflix and can say that many times the Italian text does not correspond to their guidelines. A few examples: the use of forced narrative varies, the closing quotes can be found before or after a period (and quite frankly, sometimes I've read translated words or expressions that no Italian would use).


Same thing for Chinese languages (Simplified and Traditional)...many of them don't comply w/ their guidelines. Guess one of the reasons was because some vendors didn't do a proper QA.


 
Sosey
Sosey
Italy
Local time: 11:07
English to Italian
Idioms are important, but in a different context Apr 29, 2017

Butze wrote:

I mean, one can ace the first sections of the test just by coincidence, since it's a multiple choice quiz. Or just be very good at theorics and, as I'm sure you all know, to be a good translator you can't just know the language, that's not enough.


You must be very lucky to pass just by coincidence, though. And, anyway, It's not enough but I've been working for vendors for quite some time now and I can assure you idioms are one of the biggest problem I see in my colleagues' translations. I've proofed countless files where most of the errors where idioms which had been mistranslated or not recognized as such at all.
So I do understand why they give so much attention to that section. Yet, being evaluated on the whole test would have been nice.


I have a friend who didn't pass but scored pretty close to the threshold for Italian choosing the answers without giving them much thought. So yeah, it's difficult but not impossible to just pass by coincidence. Well, maybe not actually "coincidence", but with just the minimum effort.
And yeah, idioms are definitely important, but only if you place them inside a translation job. If you already know they are idioms, all you have to do is google them. That's why I don't think those first three phases were enough to properly evaluate a candidate.
Idioms and everything else we did in the first three sections were important, but only if you also check the subtitle part. The test wouldn't be complete and accurate without any of those phases.


 
maroscz
maroscz
Czech Republic
Local time: 11:07
English to Czech
Phase 4 Apr 29, 2017

First link to the tutorial page comes when you register for the test, before you get the SMS. Then there is the link on the Hermes homepage.

In my test I got 2 questions where there was a typo (wrong letter). I marked one example as having no errors. All the other examples clearly breached some of the timing rules stated in this docum
... See more
First link to the tutorial page comes when you register for the test, before you get the SMS. Then there is the link on the Hermes homepage.

In my test I got 2 questions where there was a typo (wrong letter). I marked one example as having no errors. All the other examples clearly breached some of the timing rules stated in this document.

https://backlothelp.netflix.com/hc/en-us/articles/215758617-Timed-Text-Style-Guide-General-Requirements

I don't have Netflix subscription, but from what i read in recent weeks, the bad quality of the subtitles was the problem, that lead Netflix to change the way they handle the task, and made them come up with the Hermes platform.

Unfortunately it seems, that while they were trying to get rid of the subpar vendors, they chose a subpar vendor for the task.
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