Forum: Subtitling
Topic: Do you watch tv/movies with subtitles even in your native language?
Poster: Samuel Murray
Post title: Always subtitles, when available
[quote]Heinrich Pesch wrote:
In Finland everybody is used to watching foreign TV and movies with subtitles. [/quote]
In the Netherlands, TV programs are often dubbed or half dubbed. By half dubbed I mean that when that the voice over is in Dutch but people who speak in the show, speak in their original language, with subtitles. I suspect the producers sometimes even cut scenes with too much character speaking and replace it with additional voice over in other scenes, to get a "nice" balance of Dutch voice and foreign voice. But when programs are not dubbed, they are often hard subtitled. Animation films are always dubbed, but films with actual people in it remain in the original language, with hard subtitles. When films are distributed on DVD, they often have soft subtitles, even if the film is in Dutch.
As for me, when I watch downloaded films, I prefer subtitles, even if the film is in a language I understand. I rarely see films or programs in my native language with subtitles in my native language, however. I'm not sure if it would bother me. Clear speaking is a normal part of TV and film making in my native language, even if the speaker has a strong accent.
[quote]Research has shown that people who are used to read the subtitles do not miss any content, subtitles even enhance understanding of the action. [/quote]
My personal experience is that this is not always true. I sometimes miss visual cues due to reading the subtitles, particularly if I don't understand the spoken language.
[quote]So what I would like to ask you, as my international audience, do you too find it nowadays difficult to understand new movies and television series even in your native language? [/quote]
No, but the trend even in my native language is to move away from standard pronunciation, and the problem is that actors are not chosen based on their accent, which means that a film might have characters speaking a variety of accents that do not really mesh with each other. If you have a friend or a relative from another region, you get used to his way of speaking thanks to long contact, but it is harder in a film, when you've just "met" the people, to get used to actors talking in too different accents in short succession. The fact that films and TV shows no longer use accents to typify characters also means that if the show has a character with a "typical" accent, the actor is forced to overdo it to make the odd accent stand out, which comes across as unnatural.
[quote]Lincoln Hui wrote:
I rarely just watch a movie or show, I'm usually doing something else at the same time. [/quote]
My wife and daughter are like that too. They can even have a conversation about something they've seen in the film while the film is showing, and not feel like they're missing anything. But they do miss things, believe me. They just don't know it, and it does not bother them. I suppose it's like some people can read a book and skip several pages without noticing any difference.
[quote]I'm watching Star Trek TNG right now, and they even have subtitles for the blooper reel, which is great because it can be hard to hear exactly what's going on. [/quote]
I find that, when rewatching films or shows with subtitles when I've last seen them without subtitles, I become aware of a lot more content that I had previously not been aware of. Or, sometimes I thought a character said one thing but the subtitler thought he said something else, and sometimes both interpretations make sense and do not change the meaning of the film, but sometimes the subtitler's interpretaion of what a character says changes the story (and I'm not talking about bad subtitling here).
[Edited at 2020-07-31 08:02 GMT]
Topic: Do you watch tv/movies with subtitles even in your native language?
Poster: Samuel Murray
Post title: Always subtitles, when available
[quote]Heinrich Pesch wrote:
In Finland everybody is used to watching foreign TV and movies with subtitles. [/quote]
In the Netherlands, TV programs are often dubbed or half dubbed. By half dubbed I mean that when that the voice over is in Dutch but people who speak in the show, speak in their original language, with subtitles. I suspect the producers sometimes even cut scenes with too much character speaking and replace it with additional voice over in other scenes, to get a "nice" balance of Dutch voice and foreign voice. But when programs are not dubbed, they are often hard subtitled. Animation films are always dubbed, but films with actual people in it remain in the original language, with hard subtitles. When films are distributed on DVD, they often have soft subtitles, even if the film is in Dutch.
As for me, when I watch downloaded films, I prefer subtitles, even if the film is in a language I understand. I rarely see films or programs in my native language with subtitles in my native language, however. I'm not sure if it would bother me. Clear speaking is a normal part of TV and film making in my native language, even if the speaker has a strong accent.
[quote]Research has shown that people who are used to read the subtitles do not miss any content, subtitles even enhance understanding of the action. [/quote]
My personal experience is that this is not always true. I sometimes miss visual cues due to reading the subtitles, particularly if I don't understand the spoken language.
[quote]So what I would like to ask you, as my international audience, do you too find it nowadays difficult to understand new movies and television series even in your native language? [/quote]
No, but the trend even in my native language is to move away from standard pronunciation, and the problem is that actors are not chosen based on their accent, which means that a film might have characters speaking a variety of accents that do not really mesh with each other. If you have a friend or a relative from another region, you get used to his way of speaking thanks to long contact, but it is harder in a film, when you've just "met" the people, to get used to actors talking in too different accents in short succession. The fact that films and TV shows no longer use accents to typify characters also means that if the show has a character with a "typical" accent, the actor is forced to overdo it to make the odd accent stand out, which comes across as unnatural.
[quote]Lincoln Hui wrote:
I rarely just watch a movie or show, I'm usually doing something else at the same time. [/quote]
My wife and daughter are like that too. They can even have a conversation about something they've seen in the film while the film is showing, and not feel like they're missing anything. But they do miss things, believe me. They just don't know it, and it does not bother them. I suppose it's like some people can read a book and skip several pages without noticing any difference.
[quote]I'm watching Star Trek TNG right now, and they even have subtitles for the blooper reel, which is great because it can be hard to hear exactly what's going on. [/quote]
I find that, when rewatching films or shows with subtitles when I've last seen them without subtitles, I become aware of a lot more content that I had previously not been aware of. Or, sometimes I thought a character said one thing but the subtitler thought he said something else, and sometimes both interpretations make sense and do not change the meaning of the film, but sometimes the subtitler's interpretaion of what a character says changes the story (and I'm not talking about bad subtitling here).
[Edited at 2020-07-31 08:02 GMT]