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Netflix Hermes test
Thread poster: Magdalena Adamus
Wojciech_ (X)
Wojciech_ (X)
Poland
Local time: 15:59
English to Polish
+ ...
Kind of Apr 26, 2017

Zsuzsanna Miklosi wrote:

Sara Baroni wrote:


I'm a professional translator ans subtitler, and I can fully accept if I do something wrong, but those initial multiple choice quizzes were weird.


They were pretty weird in Hungarian and French too, several answers seemed to be good a lot of times. Did anyone experience the same in other languages too?


I remember one question about the meaning of a word, and out of five possible answers, two were perfectly correct. Yet, you had to choose only one.

Also, in the QC part there was a badly punctuated subtitle that additionally was too long. You had to choose, not knowing, which error was actually treated as the correct answer.

[Edited at 2017-04-26 10:56 GMT]


 
Elena Rohr
Elena Rohr
Italy
Subtitling qualification test - Itaian threshold Apr 26, 2017

Hello! Does anybody know what the required threshold for the Italian test is? I thought it was 80%, but a friend of mine scored more than 80% and did not pass it.

 
Paulo Montes
Paulo Montes  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 14:59
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Not sure what the point is... Apr 26, 2017

I've also been a professional subtitler for 15 years and I didn't pass in Portuguese. There were multiple possible answers in some questions and you had to choose one of them. I guess I didn't. I read this happened with other languages. So what? I just needed the number and I'm not sure what's the point. Some companies I work for on Netflix projects don't even want translators to put their name in the end. Netflix will never know who did the job, because those companies will put whatever name th... See more
I've also been a professional subtitler for 15 years and I didn't pass in Portuguese. There were multiple possible answers in some questions and you had to choose one of them. I guess I didn't. I read this happened with other languages. So what? I just needed the number and I'm not sure what's the point. Some companies I work for on Netflix projects don't even want translators to put their name in the end. Netflix will never know who did the job, because those companies will put whatever name they want. Could that be it? They want to control that...?Collapse


 
Wojciech_ (X)
Wojciech_ (X)
Poland
Local time: 15:59
English to Polish
+ ...
How it works Apr 26, 2017

Supposedly, now all Netflix vendors will have to use for their Netflix projects only those translators who have the Hermes number and passed the test.
I've recently been contacted by a US company (other than Sfera and Netflix) and they sent me an invitation to register in their database. There, in the registration form, I was asked to provide my Hermes number, too.

[Edited at 2017-04-26 11:01 GMT]


 
Erzsebet Basch
Erzsebet Basch  Identity Verified
Hungary
Local time: 15:59
English to Hungarian
+ ...
H number Apr 26, 2017

Paulo Montes wrote:

I've also been a professional subtitler for 15 years and I didn't pass in Portuguese. There were multiple possible answers in some questions and you had to choose one of them. I guess I didn't. I read this happened with other languages. So what? I just needed the number and I'm not sure what's the point. Some companies I work for on Netflix projects don't even want translators to put their name in the end. Netflix will never know who did the job, because those companies will put whatever name they want. Could that be it? They want to control that...?


Apparently they won't allow vendors to use translators without an H number and I am almost sure it has to be an H number with a pass score. What makes no sense to me is that the vendors already require an entry test which is usually harder that Netflix's own. It is just a fuss where Netflix wants to control which translators they work with but for that they should have developed a more clear cut test with less possibilities for off answers. I passed with 87%. One of my vendors said that work will most probably commence in May.


 
Jan Truper
Jan Truper  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 15:59
Member (2016)
English to German
Kafkaesque, part 3 Apr 26, 2017

As I wrote in an earlier post, for some of the German multiple choice questions, multiple answers were correct.
I am missing 6.66 % to a perfect score, so obviously the devil had his finger in the pie.

[Edited at 2017-04-26 11:25 GMT]


 
Cristiana Coblis
Cristiana Coblis  Identity Verified
Romania
Local time: 16:59
Member (2004)
English to Romanian
+ ...
Some thoughts Apr 26, 2017

They are very strict. For a type of process I had to pass several separate certifications designed by Netflix and they only accepted 100% score. If you plan on working for Netflix, they do love their tests...

Regarding the test, as previously mentioned, they do have several types of processes in addition to actual subtitling. For some of them, you do not have to translate or subtitle at all. The first parts, particularly the 4th part, are designed for these processes. They are not
... See more
They are very strict. For a type of process I had to pass several separate certifications designed by Netflix and they only accepted 100% score. If you plan on working for Netflix, they do love their tests...

Regarding the test, as previously mentioned, they do have several types of processes in addition to actual subtitling. For some of them, you do not have to translate or subtitle at all. The first parts, particularly the 4th part, are designed for these processes. They are not less important, as some may believe, they simply serve a different purpose.

I was led to believe that having an H number is important, because they may require only people with H numbers for some projects.

If you fail the test, you can retake it to get a better score.
HTH


[Editat la 2017-04-26 13:20 GMT]
Collapse


 
Magdalena Adamus
Magdalena Adamus
Poland
Local time: 15:59
English to Polish
TOPIC STARTER
Retaking is possible? Apr 26, 2017

Cristiana Coblis wrote:

If you fail the test, you can retake it to get a better score.



[Editat la 2017-04-26 11:43 GMT]


Whoa, what? How do you know that?


 
Chucky32
Chucky32
Italy
Local time: 15:59
Really?? Apr 26, 2017

Magdalena Bardalinska wrote:

Cristiana Coblis wrote:

If you fail the test, you can retake it to get a better score.



[Editat la 2017-04-26 11:43 GMT]


Whoa, what? How do you know that?


How can you do that??


 
Alice89th
Alice89th
Netherlands
Local time: 15:59
Japanese to Dutch
+ ...
Has anyone done the test for Japanese? Apr 26, 2017

I was wondering whether anyone here has done the Hermes test with Japanese as the source language?

I did the test for EN -> NL (and passed). However I also entered JP -> EN and JP -> NL as language pairs but I have yet to see a test appear for these.

If it helps, I applied on April 11, finished the test on April 18, and received my score on April 25.


 
José Henrique Lamensdorf
José Henrique Lamensdorf  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 11:59
English to Portuguese
+ ...
In memoriam
Same here Apr 26, 2017

Paulo Montes wrote:

I've also been a professional subtitler for 15 years and I didn't pass in Portuguese. There were multiple possible answers in some questions and you had to choose one of them. I guess I didn't. I read this happened with other languages. So what? I just needed the number and I'm not sure what's the point. Some companies I work for on Netflix projects don't even want translators to put their name in the end. Netflix will never know who did the job, because those companies will put whatever name they want. Could that be it? They want to control that...?


Got a 74.67% score.

Though I took it in Brazilian Portuguese (certainly a different test), I also saw a few questions where either one of two of alternatives would have been 100% correct, however I'm sure that the scoring computer will take only one of them as such.

I am a bit newer than you in professional subtitling, only 13 years doing it, covering from VHS tape to burnt subtitles on a mp4. However I'm celebrating 30 years now that I've been translating video for dubbing, so I'm used to deciphering mumbled words, as required in several questions.

Considering that some of those who passed got their results instantly, and mine took a bit over a month to get scored, maybe there is some random factor at play.

I've done two videos for a Netflix vendor, got no feedback whatsoever. Perhaps it was because I explained them that their rates were about 20% lower than what would be the minimum necessary to uphold the sustainable business relationship they wanted, considering a steady demand. As their turnaround time is one week, it could become a nice 'filler'.

My main specialty in subtitling is corporate video. While I've done over a thousand of these, I don't think I've already done one hundred feature films & TV episodes so far, mostly for US-based studios. I can't envision any difference in the skills required, other than corporate video usually involving technical vocabulary.

In any case, Netflix will hire whoever they want, and whenever they want. Only the actual outcome will shed some light on the effectiveness of this selection method. The only hope is that other clients don't jump to conclusions by taking it as definitely effective, turning Hermes into an involuntary certifying authority.


Charuta Kulkarni
 
Ion Zubizarreta
Ion Zubizarreta  Identity Verified
Spain
English to Spanish
+ ...
Netflix Hermes test Apr 26, 2017

I took the English - Spanish test (and passed it) because the vendor with whom I was already working on Netflix-related projects told me that I would need to pass this test in order to continue working on these projects.
I don’t think that this kind of tests are specially appropriate to show our skills, but at the same time I understand that it’s one of the few ways to assess thousands of candidates.


[Edited at 2017-04-26 17:19 GMT]


 
Cristiana Coblis
Cristiana Coblis  Identity Verified
Romania
Local time: 16:59
Member (2004)
English to Romanian
+ ...
Why not? Apr 26, 2017

Chucky32 wrote:

Magdalena Bardalinska wrote:
Cristiana Coblis wrote:
If you fail the test, you can retake it to get a better score.

Whoa, what? How do you know that?

How can you do that??


Why would it not be possible to retake it? Some people simply do no test well.
You just go back through the whole process again. Presumably there are many questions that can be pulled randomly, so you may get different questions and different clips. Seems fair enough.
I might take it again as an independent contractor to have both options.


 
ChachiArcola
ChachiArcola
Italy
Local time: 15:59
Italian Threshold Apr 26, 2017

FedericaN wrote:

I passed with 88.67%. I had read that the minimum score was 80/100, but apparently either they raised the threshold or the threshold varied by language...

I scored 81,33% and failed. So, the Italian threshold must be somewhere between my score and yours. I've also read of fails at about 84 for Italian.
So yes, they raised the threshold (80 was clearly stated to be a pass in some document somewhere) and yes, the pass threshold varies from language to language, with a strangely high threshold for Italian, Portuguese and Spanish apparently (someone reported a fail at 92 in Spanish).

Generally speaking, tests are tests when a threshold is decided BEFORE the test is taken. Otherwise, they must be called something different. What I mean is that they are (obviously) absolutely free to hire anyone they like (but they were before as well), but a pass can't become a fail based on the results collected ex post.

I'm not directly interested in the subtitling thing, and I took the test as an opportunity. But if I were a professional subtitler/translator graded a "Fail" after achieving a "Pass" score, I'd be fuming. In my opinion they should be more careful; they are branding "below par" a group of people with solid translating skills.
Instead of being happy at having so many Italian (Portuguese, Spanish,...) good translators available and celebrating the opportunity of choosing among them, they are acting a bit too roughly in my opinion, also considering the legitimate doubts that some raised about the whole reviewing process.

Cheers.


Charuta Kulkarni
 
pupeschi
pupeschi
Italy
Results after completion Apr 26, 2017

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


 
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