Felt Learning During the Pandemic - Translating Foreign Language Videos

Like many people, I have spent the time since March, 2020, trying to improve my feltmaking skills. I used this opportunity to take many online classes- PDF tutorials, Streaming videos, Face to Face classes on Zoom, etc. I started the time very interested in learning more about various techniques being used by the Russian speaking feltmakers. 

For many years, I have looked at the Russian language videos on YouTube. Since I don't speak Russian, I would usually just turn the sound off and pretend I was in the room with the instructor. I could see wheat the person was doing, but I couldn't understand the language and there was no translator in the room with us. This has happened to me several times during my felting career, so it doesn't really bother me. If there was something written in the video that I couldn't understand, I would pull up a Cyrillic keyboard on line and painstakingly type out each word so I could run it through Google Translator. This worked, but it was very slow!! 

I was talking recently about general feltmaking things with a new friend on Face book. (Norm Johnson) He mentioned the funny translations he got from reading the translated captions on the YouTube videos. DING!!!! That shot off a bell in my head. I thought to myself, you can translate the captions on YouTube!!!! That would save a lot of time for me! 

So here is how to do it. (I am working with one of Katerina Korshun's videos in Russian, in this explanation. She is showing how to soften a hank of stiff, hard to pull viscose. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g298Irf8m0)

UPDATE 1/12/2021: These instructions will work if you are using www.youtube.com.  If you are using an app, they will probably not work. I tried using a YouTube app on my iPad and I couldn't get to the English version of the Closed Captions. But when I used the actual program written by YouTube, the instructions worked. 

Translating YouTube Videos

1. Open the YouTube video you want to translate. 

2.Select the CC (Closed Captions) option.

3. When the closed captions are turned on, click on settings.

4. Click on the right facing arrow beside the words Russian (auto-generated)

5. Click on the option - Auto-translate

 

6. Scroll down the list to find the language you need it translated into. Click on that option.

7. Enjoy the computers translation. It can be comical, but it is still better than nothing. 

 

 

 

Thank you Norm Johnson for turning me on to this neat trick. Enjoy the many wonderful YouTube videos that are available everyone! Happy Holidays!