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Subtitles questions

  Tags: Subtitles | Movies | TV
 Language Learning Forum : Music, Movies, TV & Radio Post Reply
24 messages over 3 pages: 1 2
daegga
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Austria
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 Message 17 of 24
18 August 2012 at 11:57am | IP Logged 
Bao wrote:

daegga wrote:
... why not just select appropriate material for your language level

How do you define 'appropriate'.


Using material where most vocabulary is known, like 99% or so. You don't need NL subtitles for materials without much unknown vocabulary. I don't view watching movies as a vocabulary builder, rather as a listening comprehension exercise. I believe that there are more efficient ways of building your vocabulary than watching a movie.

Your other points are certainly valid, with practice you might overcome the shortcomings. But why focus on practicing the method instead of just using a method that is efficient straight away?

Edited by daegga on 18 August 2012 at 11:58am

2 persons have voted this message useful



tractor
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Norway
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 Message 18 of 24
18 August 2012 at 12:26pm | IP Logged 
daegga wrote:
Your other points are certainly valid, with practice you might overcome the shortcomings. But
why focus on practicing the method instead of just using a method that is efficient straight away?

Some of us have grown up with NL subtitles. We don't need extra practice and can use materials with NL subtitles
straight away.
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Serpent
Octoglot
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Russian Federation
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 Message 19 of 24
18 August 2012 at 12:37pm | IP Logged 
Knowing every word but not being able to understand a movie is an undesirable situation. It's much better to start having audio input early. Vocabulary and listening comprehension are just two of the benefits. You also need listening in order to develop a good pronunciation and just to get used to the language and the sound of it. Also, like extensive reading, extensive listening helps with the usage subtleties.

Quote:
Your other points are certainly valid, with practice you might overcome the shortcomings. But why focus on practicing the method instead of just using a method that is efficient straight away?
Plenty of people don't need any specific practice before using subtitles for language learning. They either get subtitles all the time on TV or just prefer to watch movies with subtitles even when they're available dubbed.

But yeah, if you don't already have those skills, they're not necessarily worth acquiring. Depends on whether you like movies in the first place and how early you want to start watching them. It's never too early.
4 persons have voted this message useful



Bao
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
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 Message 20 of 24
18 August 2012 at 10:50pm | IP Logged 
daegga wrote:
Using material where most vocabulary is known, like 99% or so. You don't need NL subtitles for materials without much unknown vocabulary. I don't view watching movies as a vocabulary builder, rather as a listening comprehension exercise. I believe that there are more efficient ways of building your vocabulary than watching a movie.

Your other points are certainly valid, with practice you might overcome the shortcomings. But why focus on practicing the method instead of just using a method that is efficient straight away?

Maybe because in some of my target languages I can't cherry-pick what I want to work with?
Apart from that, I personally never experienced problems with using subtitles or them taking up too much of my attention, I just stated that when somebody does, it could easily be fixed with practice. (Always given that said person does not have dyslexia, auditory processing disorder or sensory integration disorder.)

I stated it before, and I'll repeat it: Most of the time, watching movies and using similar content is "recreational" extensive language exposure for me. The aim is to use time that would be wasted otherwise (for example, in front of the TV without foreign language exposure), to be motivational, and to help with automatic comprehension/detection of subtleties and nuances of the language.
For example, there might be a positive adjective in my target language that is often used ironically, and a synonym that people rather use in serious or polite situations. In a recent movie or TV show, this distinction will be made naturally and I have a chance to pick it up. But that distinction will most likely not be explained in any dictionary or introduced in a textbook or simplified content.

And I personally happen to be the kind of person who learns from people speaking and interacting. Mirror neurons. I learn even more from directly speaking and interacting with them, but often that's not an easily available option at a given time. I pick up a lot of words and expressions from TV shows right from the start.
Other people may not find the same true for them. But you can't decide before trying it out.

Edited by Bao on 19 August 2012 at 5:34pm

6 persons have voted this message useful



tiagocunha
Diglot
Newbie
Brazil
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Studies: French

 
 Message 21 of 24
20 August 2012 at 10:40am | IP Logged 
In my experience, watching movies with TL subtitles increases listening comprehension.
But now I'm trying to NOT use English subs while I'm watching movies, however it depends
on the movie's accent: recently I watched(without subtitles) Bridget Jones's diary
without any effort, but when I tried to do that watching Trainspotting, it was almost
impossible.
1 person has voted this message useful



KevinE
Newbie
Canada
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Speaks: English*
Studies: Mandarin, Hindi

 
 Message 22 of 24
31 October 2012 at 12:32pm | IP Logged 
tiagocunha wrote:
In my experience, watching movies with TL subtitles increases listening comprehension.
But now I'm trying to NOT use English subs while I'm watching movies, however it depends
on the movie's accent: recently I watched(without subtitles) Bridget Jones's diary
without any effort, but when I tried to do that watching Trainspotting, it was almost
impossible.


I'm a native speaker of Canadian English and even I don't know what the hell is being said in Trainspotting. ;)
1 person has voted this message useful



rolf
Senior Member
United Kingdom
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 Message 23 of 24
31 October 2012 at 7:34pm | IP Logged 
Wow, I'm amazed that I missed this thread.

I enjoy watching TV series and movies so when I started to learn Dutch I would use
Dutch subs (you can get nearly all from nlondertitels.com). You can even download
programs with hard-coded subs which is where I first came across them.

I was scoffed at for watching in the "reverse way" by people who had probably never
tried themselves.

It helped to massively expand my vocabulary.

It helped to naturally acquire a sense of sentence construction without reading any
grammatical rules.

True, the subs often don't match up. Not only are they simpler but sometimes the
English is expressed entirely differently in the Dutch, maybe due to laziness on the
part of the translator. But this does not matter because you know that when you see it.
If anything, it shows you an alternative way to phrase something in the TL.

By the way, I learned a great deal of idiomatic expressions this way too.

And the best part is that it is translation of dialogue, regular, everyday
conversations, extremely useful.


Don't knock TL subs until you've tried them at the beginner stage.
1 person has voted this message useful



JJ-JUNIOR
Triglot
Newbie
Brazil
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 Message 24 of 24
01 December 2012 at 3:46pm | IP Logged 
I don't think any of them are damaging, dangerous or that it could do any harm to your
language skills.

As it was previsouly said in this thread NL subtitles are a great LEARNING tool.

Ideally, you should watch it with no subtitles whatsoever...
Here's the thing:

NL - Great tool, interesting comparison.
TL - Pretty good if you have good knowledge in that language.

No subs - Ideal scenario

From my personal experience I see that we must force ourselves to watch it with no subs
again and again and again and again..... so finally we'll get used to it.
I learn a lot by listening to the radio and when I watch movies it becomes even easier.


1 person has voted this message useful



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