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The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism supports the global advancement of K-contents by nurturing translation experts.
Translation is an essential gateway for exporting K-contents. In the meantime, many content companies have had limitations due to secondary creation, such as translation and dubbing, which are essential for export. Due to the nature of content companies, most of which have around 10 employees, there were problems such as a shortage of internal experts and high outsourcing costs.
In particular, as the use of online video services is activated, the demand for translation and dubbing increases due to the expansion of export of K-contents and imports of overseas series, increasing the work of post-production companies. New issues emerged, such as the lengthy translation time and relatively high cost.
In consideration of this reality, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism plans to solve the shortage of professional manpower by increasing foreign language translators through education and practical support. Expand translatable languages, training hours, internships, and establish online prerequisite learning courses. In order to increase the use of K-content abroad, the plan is to strengthen the foundation for the spread of the Korean Wave by nurturing translation experts as much as possible.
This year alone, it will invest 1.36 billion won to operate an advanced course on cultural content translation practice and support the translator field training course. In addition, translation competitions and academic discussions are held to strengthen and verify translation expertise.
In order to provide translations specialized in the two major areas of film and webtoon, advanced courses in six languages, including English, Chinese, Spanish, Vietnamese, Japanese, and French, will be conducted. It also provides lectures for domestic and foreign translators residing at home and abroad. Graduates are provided with internship opportunities at domestic and foreign content companies and agencies.
Kakao Entertainment, Wildflower Film Awards, Busan Film Commission, etc., along with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will also support translation activities of organizations and companies that have business agreements.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is also strengthening overseas Korean language education for foreigners to increase their understanding of K-culture, including K-content. KSIs started with 13 establishments in 3 countries in 2007, and increased to 234 establishments in 82 countries last year, adding 26 establishments in 18 countries last year.
An official from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said, “It is a plan to nurture talents to strengthen the post-production industry, such as translation and dubbing, which are essential processes for content export. We will increase our chances,” he said.
