emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5517 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map
| Message 1 of 25 05 October 2012 at 4:55pm | IP Logged |
As every student of French knows, it's hard to find good French subtitles. We've talked about this several times before on HTLAL, but I couldn't find a thread with a comprehensive list.
Let's use this thread to build a list, and then copy everything to the HTLAL wiki.
Here are the suggested rules:
- The movie or series should be worth watching several times.
- There should be exact French subtitles or transcripts available somewhere, either online or on the DVD. English subtitles are optional. Please link to the subs online if possible. You can search on Open Subtitles and Hypnoweb.
- The French subtitles should be more-or-less exact, with only minor deletions or changes. Let's try to aim for 80% accuracy or better. If you think the subtitles are good, but you haven't checked them, please say so.
Note that you may need to buy a multi-region DVD player for some of these DVDs if you live in the US.
I'm going to kick this off with two personal favorites:
Amélie
French subtitles (usually not on the DVD, sadly, but very good)
English subtitles
Everyone knows Amélie, right?
Buffy contre les vampires
3rd-party transcripts (the subs on the DVD don't match at all)
7-season box set sometimes available on Amazon.fr
Buffy has a nice, idiomatic French dub.
Movies which appear to have French subs of some sort: Intouchables, Taxi 2, Ne le dis a personne. I need to check these.
What movies and series do you know about? Thank you for your recommendations!
Edited by emk on 05 October 2012 at 5:18pm
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sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5376 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish
| Message 2 of 25 05 October 2012 at 8:27pm | IP Logged |
The Region 1 version of A Very Long Engagement (Un long dimanche de fiançailles) has
exact subtitles.
Region 2 DVDs of movies and series that are originally in French that have subtitles
(not all of them do) will be exact. Note that this is for Region 2 only so that means
importing them and playing them with VLC or another program, programming your player to
be region free or just buying a region free player.
Some series and movies that I know have subs:
Kaamelott (though the transcripts are also online and I've heard the Canadian DVD
release also has English subs), Bref, Camera Cafe (I believe, though this also has
transcripts online), the moving Camping, Neuilly sa mère, Je vous trouve très beau and
probably many others.
To help find others, here is an activist blog/site for the French deaf community to
improve their access to media http://www.medias-soustitres.com/ They used to have a
guide for DVDs with subtitles (because the amazon listings are not always accurate) but
I can't seem to find it and the direct link no longer goes through. They seem to be
focused on getting it on TV and on internet TV streaming but that's not of much help to
those not in the country.
Transcripts for The Simpsons. By default these are the French, Region 2 dub version. If
you're in Region 1 and already have the DVDs then your French dub is from Quebec which
will obviously be different. Some of the episodes here have both versions (just click
on the Quebec flag to get that version).
http://www.simpsonspark.com/scripts/scripts_list.php
The Region 2 French dub of the series Chuck is pretty close with some occasional
alternate translations and occasionally dropping some words for space. That is, at
least for the first two seasons (haven't tried with the remaining ones). Other than
that the majority of Region 2 dubs will have subtitles that are completely different.
And while doing a search, I came across this Facebook page and Youtube channel for a
group doing subtitles of videos of comedy sketches for the deaf/hard of hearing. Looks
like a fairly new project but they already have quite a bit so this is sure to be a
great resource:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/TeamSubtitle-Officiel/1803485 22056077
http://www.youtube.com/user/TeamSubtitle/videos
And another project to provide video with transcripts but this time for learners is
Sons en Francais (advanced) and Listen to French (intermediate):
http://www.sonsenfrancais.org/
http://www.listentofrench.org/
Edited by sctroyenne on 05 October 2012 at 8:34pm
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sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4621 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin
| Message 3 of 25 05 October 2012 at 8:47pm | IP Logged |
Polisse
Le bonheur des autres
Les Fugitifs
Les Amours Imaginaires
De vrais mensonges
Monsieur Lazhar
Maelstrom
Tomboy
17 Filles
Le silence de Lorna
Tromper le silence
L'auberge Espagnol
Bienvenue Chez Les Chtis
Je Vais Bien Ne t'en fais pas
L'argent de poche
Incendies
They all range from close to perfect to perfect. I couldn't tell you where to get the subs from, but if you come across the DVDs, they will probably be the same depending on the region.
Edited by sillygoose1 on 05 October 2012 at 8:53pm
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emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5517 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map
| Message 4 of 25 05 October 2012 at 8:59pm | IP Logged |
Wow, many thanks, sctroyenne and sillygoose!
sillygoose1 wrote:
They all range from close to perfect to perfect. I couldn't tell you where to get the subs from, but if you come across the DVDs, they will probably be the same. |
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I've found that if any version of the DVD has French subtitles, even most copies don't, there's a good chance you can find the subtitles on Open Subtitles. Amélie almost never has subtitles in the US, for example, but they're readily available online.
Bon Cop, Bad Cop
French subtitles
The subtitles on the DVD are fairly accurate, though sometimes the Québécois dialog is transcribed as standard French.
Unfortunately, no luck with Taxi 2. There are subtitles available on some sites, but they only cover the first scene.
Edited by emk on 05 October 2012 at 9:00pm
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sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4621 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin
| Message 5 of 25 05 October 2012 at 9:04pm | IP Logged |
No problem.
Also, the movie Quebec-Montreal may have pretty good subtitles. The Quebecois are pretty good with subs I've noticed. I haven't seen the film though, so take that with a grain of salt.
Well, time to go on a Simpsons and Buffy marathon.
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emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5517 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map
| Message 6 of 25 05 October 2012 at 11:57pm | IP Logged |
OK, I've updated the wiki page with all your suggestions. Many thanks!
I also added Chocolat (the 1988 film) and Ne le dis à personne, both of which have very good subs and fairly clear dialog. I've confirmed that Les Visiteurs has subtitles, but that they're only about 50% accurate.
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sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5376 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish
| Message 7 of 25 06 October 2012 at 12:23am | IP Logged |
Just found this site that has a bunch of transcripts of comedy sketches and stand up
routines. The downside is that it is a horrible blast from the past in terms of site
design. If I ever find something better I'll update it:
http://michel.buze.perso.neuf.fr/lavache/index.htm
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microsnout TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Canada microsnout.wordpress Joined 5456 days ago 277 posts - 553 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French
| Message 8 of 25 06 October 2012 at 8:56am | IP Logged |
The DVDs of this series have nearly perfect French subtitles and highly informal slang filled québécois dialog.
Beware however that the writers purposely invented some custom slang words for some sexual terms knowing
that native speakers would easily figure it out. Non-natives may be fooled by this and think that these terms
are common québécois slang - I did until I read an interview with the creator Louis Morissette
C.A. Conseil d'Administration
Edited by microsnout on 08 October 2012 at 5:26am
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