What are the most common areas of weakness for caption trainees?
Number translation, fingerspelling, weak dictionaries, and lack of proper names. These four areas are most definitely the areas where transitioning reporters and students face the greatest challenge. All four areas must be mastered before a trainee is ready for air. Numbers must translate in realtime as they would appear in final form. A captioner must have the ability to fingerspell any word at any given time in a broadcast. Dictionaries must be “equipped for captioning,” which allows the captioner to write any type of story with no degradation of quality translation. Television is all about names…they MUST translate!
