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Subtitles questions | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Music, Movies, TV & Radio |  | |
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4642 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 1 of 24 16 August 2012 at 9:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Do you think it's a waste of time to watch a movie or show in NL subtitles? Is it better to watch without subtitles rather than with NL subs? What if the subs are not 100% accurate in the TL, would that be a huge problem?
I'm approaching the movies/tv series stage of my learning and would like to gather some opinions before I proceed. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4527 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 2 of 24 16 August 2012 at 10:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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studies (sorry, don't remember which) suggest that watching movies with either TL subtitles or without any is very beneficial, but using NL subtitles is bad
I can tell from my personal experience that TL subtitles that are not 100% accurate still help a lot, but that might depend on your level of ability in this language Edited by daegga on 16 August 2012 at 10:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5772 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 3 of 24 16 August 2012 at 11:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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Watching TL shows with ... not too accurate TL subtitles can be funky, in a certain way. Like Spanish versions of Hollywood movies that were subtitled in Latin America and dubbed in Spain. Fun. In a certain, mindbreaking way.
I tend to learn a lot even with non-TL subtitles, but usually those are English. (Or the odd Spanish one.) Maybe second language subs are less 'damaging' than NL subtitles? Watching movies/TV should mostly be extensive exposure, fun. Don't sweat the small stuff. Just make sure you don't completely replace your intensive studies with fun stuff. (And yes, it's certainly possible to use it for intensive study, and then you should try to find accurate subtitles and good translations to work with.) Also, studies also showed subtitles can be beneficial. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4527 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 4 of 24 16 August 2012 at 11:22pm | IP Logged | ||
just for clearance: my interpretation of "not 100% accurate" is that the sentences in the text are shorter than what is being spoken and no exact transcription or that standard word order is used in the text while it was spoken in a more "stream of consciousness" way or dialect is spoken and standard language is used in the text. things you typically encounter in most subtitles intended for deaf native speakers (those on the DVDs). using two different varieties of a language seems like a nice way to get confused *g* no experience with that though 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6915 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 24 16 August 2012 at 11:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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As long as you're paying some attention to the dialogue whilst skimming the subtitles for better understanding, I can't see anything wrong. Turning them off (or not watching the movie at all) implies that you have to be a fluent speaker (or rather, "listener") in order to enjoy a movie in a foreign language.
For what it's worth, Scandinavians (who are constantly described as having a good command of English) probably watch more movies in English than in their native language, and that's with TL subtitles. If you're at all using movies as a "language learning experience", I'm sure you'll find your own ways to use them. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5772 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 6 of 24 16 August 2012 at 11:45pm | IP Logged | ||
Actually it was pretty fun, once I got the hang of it and stopped expecting the written and spoken words to match in more than overall meaning. Once your comprehension is good enough, you should become quick enough to find exactly those spots where audio and transcription don't match. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5397 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 7 of 24 17 August 2012 at 6:43am | IP Logged | ||
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With TV series dubbed in French I've found that they help me get an idea of what they
were trying to translate. But I can understand almost all of what's said and so it helps me see how they deal with colloquial language and slang. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5459 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 8 of 24 17 August 2012 at 8:27am | IP Logged | ||
They are NL subtitles; TL is English and NL is Danish/Swedish/Norwegian. Because they want to keep the subtitles as short as possible, they are often not the most accurate translation possible. Watching TV or movies in your TL is a good thing (as long as it is comprehensible input) because it gives you exposure to your TL. It is possible that TL subtitles are more effective than NL subtitles as a study tool, but if NL subtitles were damaging, there wouldn't be any Scandinavians here at HTLAL... 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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