The Handmaid’s Tale now with Mandarin subtitles

Now a bleak dystopian future comes in two languages….

SBS on Demand has added Mandarin subtitles to The Handmaid’s Tale season one.

SBS worked with postgraduate students studying Audiovisual Translation at Western Sydney University, which it says brought “valuable experience in translation while receiving mentoring and practical credits required for their degree studies.”

Jing Han, Subtitling Manager at SBS and Senior Lecturer at Western Sydney University, said: “Translating The Handmaid’s Tale was a challenging task because of the specific language and cultural concepts, but the students did a great job of making the story more accessible for Mandarin-speaking audiences, whilst gaining meaningful practical translation training in their comprehension and renditions into Simplified Chinese.’”

Abigail Thomas, SBS On Demand General Manager, said: “The Handmaid’s Tale was one of the most talked about shows of 2017 so we wanted to give Chinese-Australians the chance to enjoy it in their first language and better understand the cultural references within the series. These subtitles will help them appreciate the drama in a new way ahead of the highly anticipated return of season two later this month.”

To activate subtitles, users select the CC button on the bottom right-hand corner of the screen to enable.

The second season will be released with subtitles each week, when it returns to screens on Thursday 26 April.